Page 86 of Crash: Love in Scrubs
“Your prescription has been delivered from the Walgreens on Liberty Ave. Your out-of-pocket expense is $0.0…” I disconnected, feeling the bile rise up my throat. I rushed to the bathroom and made it to the toilet just in time.
“Sweet pea, please don’t do me like this,” I groaned, sitting on the side cool tub to catch my breath. Tears came to my eyes thinking about Malik and our fight yesterday. Everything felt like it was ruined, and that made me even sicker. I turned back to the toilet just in time to throw up again.
“I’m going to forgive him,” I whispered to my still-flat stomach, “but we gotta teach him a lesson first. Never let a man take away your voice.”
I giggled, speaking like I knew it was a little, beautiful-eyed girl.
From the minute I heard the news, I felt a connection to this child. It was the same with Samaj, that instant, fierce love that made everything else fade into background noise. This wasn’t planned, but we hadn’t been taking precautions either. I only had one tube left. The other one didn’t survive what my body went through bringing Samaj here. The doctors had always told me getting pregnant again would be difficult, maybe impossible.
Yet here I was.
I pulled myself up from the bathroom floor and splashed cold water on my face, staring at my reflection in the mirror. I looked like hell, puffy eyes from crying, hair all over my head, that particular paleness that came with first-trimester nausea. But underneath it all, there was something else. A glow, maybe. The knowledge that I was growing a life again. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and jumped in the shower. I’d gone to bed in nothing but panties last night, spent. I was weird like that when something was going wrong; the thought of clothes infuriated me.
My phone buzzed with a text notification, and my heart jumped, hoping it was Malik. Instead, it was Halo.
Halo: We’re bringing breakfast, and we’re not taking no for an answer. Be there in an hour.
I smiled despite everything. My girls always knew when I needed them most. I’d cancelled on them last night when they wanted to come over, turned out I wasn’t in the mood to do anything but sleep and cry. It seemed like now that I knew I was pregnant, all my symptoms had decided to show up and make themselves known.
I scrolled up and reread the message that had come in late last night while I was tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
Rommy: Baby, I know you want space, and I’m going to give it to you, but you gotta know I never lied about how I feel about you. I love you, Sametra. I love our baby. I love Samaj. And I’m going to spend every day proving that I can be the man y’all deserve.
I’d read it at least twenty times throughout the night, my finger hovering over the keyboard, wanting to respond but not knowing what to say. Part of me wanted to text back that I loved him too, that I missed him already, that I wanted to work through this together. Because he was all that and more. But the other part, the part that had been violated, lied to, and treated like a child, needed him to understand the weight of what he’d done. And this wasn’t about submission or conceding. I loved Malik and believed that he was a leader and that’s what I wanted to be led, not managed.
Words were easy. It was the actions that mattered, and his actions had shown me that when push came to shove, he didn’t trust me to handle stuff or even have his back. And I didn’t like that feeling at all.
This grown up shit was exhausting. My emotions were all over the place, but that was understandable given everything I was processing. I was dealing with the anger and disgust of knowing Ashe had been watching me, violating my privacy, trying to extort money from my man. And playing in my son’s face at the same time. I felt fearful knowing someone had been stalking us, taking intimate photos without our knowledge. Then there was the hurt of discovering that both Malik and my own son had conspired to keep secrets from me, making decisions about my life like they were in the mafia or something.
On top of all that, I missed my man something fierce, and I was pregnant with a seventeen-year-old at home. The whole situation felt insane and reckless, but here we were. And I still had to tell my dad about the pregnancy, and I didn’t have a ring to show for it. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I got mad because I hadn’t cried this much in years. This was definitely a fucking girl, boys didn’t make you this emotional.
“Ma, here, take your vitamin,” Samaj said, peeking his head through my cracked bedroom door.
“Thank you.” My voice was clipped. I was still upset with him, and he could tell.
He lingered in the doorway for a moment. “Ma…”
“Not now, Samaj. Please.”
He nodded and retreated, but I could see the hurt in his eyes. That made me feel even worse. My own son was walking on eggshells around me.
“I love you, Maj,” I yelled out the door.
“Love you too ma.” I heard him say back faintly.
Malik was still taking care of me even from a distance. I knew he’d sent the food last night, and I’d heard Samaj talking to him on the phone. It was probably Malik who’d reminded Samaj to remind me about the vitamin. It was going to be hard to stay mad at him because I knew this was a lapse in judgment; it wasn’t personal. But it felt personal. They loved me, they wanted ease for me, I understood that.
I was dressed in a grey lounge set when I heard my front door open, followed by the familiar sound of heels clicking across my hardwood floors.
“MiMi, where you at?” Halo’s voice called out.
“We brought provisions!” Winnie added, and I could hear the rustle of what sounded like multiple bags.
“Here I am. Stop yelling. I called back weakly, coming into the dining room. They took one look at me and poked their lips out. And so did I.
“It’s a girl,” I cried with a smile.
“Sametra, go to hell,” Halo said, nudging me.
