Page 16 of Certified Pressure
After spending two long days at the hospital with Zurie, Kashmere pulled up to take us home.
The ride back was quiet for the most part. Kash kept the music low and drove slow like she could feel how heavy the moment was without me having to say a word. Zurie was laid out in the backseat, curled up with her little blanket, holding her teddy bear to her chest. Her body looked so much smaller now, like the hospital had shrunk her somehow. Her energy was low, her face still pale, and every so often she let out a soft sigh like just existing took too much from her.
When we pulled up to the building, I stared at our front door for a long time before I moved. I didn’t want to go in. I didn’t want to see the peeling paint, the busted porch light, the spotwhere the screen had been punched out last year and never got replaced. I didn’t want to walk back into a space that didn’t feel like home, but I had no choice.
Kash helped me lift Zurie out the car, and I carried her inside like I used to when she was a baby. Her arms were wrapped around my neck, her cheek pressed against my shoulder. When we walked through the door, the first thing I saw was my mama sitting on the couch, her legs shaking, and a cigarette halfway to her lips. Her robe was half open, and her hair was matted on one side like she had just rolled out of bed even though it was three in the afternoon.
When she saw Zurie, she dropped the cigarette into an empty soda can and stood up fast.
“Oh my God,” she gasped. “My baby.”
She rushed over, trying to touch her, but I turned slightly so she couldn’t.
“She’s tired. Let her rest,” I said.
I didn’t say anything else, and neither did she. The tension was thick, but I swallowed it. I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to remind her that her daughter could’ve died while she was knocked out on pills, that if I had gotten there just one minute later, we’d be planning a funeral right now instead of trying to help Zurie recover. But I was too tired to fight. I had spent the last forty-eight hours sleeping in a hospital chair, chasing down nurses, and waiting for test results I couldn’t understand.
I carried my sister to her room and laid her gently in the bed. Kash helped me get her settled, fluffing the pillows and pulling the blankets up. Zurie didn’t say much. She just curled onto her side and let her eyes close. Her little body still trembled now and then, like the seizure had left traces behind. I brushed her forehead with the back of my hand, then leaned down and kissed her cheek.
“I’m right here,” I whispered. “I ain’t going nowhere.”
Kashmere followed me into my room, which was really just a converted storage space in the back of the apartment. It wasn’t much. I had a twin bed, a cheap dresser with two broken drawers, and a floor lamp with a tilt in the neck because I’d bumped into it too many times. My clothes were stacked in laundry baskets since the closet door never stayed on the hinges. The window was cracked but painted shut, and there were old school stickers on the wall from when the room used to belong to one of my cousins before we got evicted from the house and moved into this.
Kash sat down on the edge of the bed and kicked her pink crocs off.
“You okay?” she asked.
“No.”
She nodded and leaned back on her elbows.
We sat like that for a while. I took off my shoes, wiped my face with a baby wipe, and looked around the room like it was the first time I had really seen it in weeks.
“I did it,” I said after a minute.
Kash looked over at me. “Did what?”
“I submitted my stuff… to be one of Pressure’s contestants, or whatever the hell you wanna call it.”
Her smile spread slow and wide across her face. “I knew your ass would.”
“I didn’t think I would,” I admitted. “But after the other night, and sitting in that hospital room with all them doctors throwing around numbers like I wasn’t already struggling… I couldn’t ignore it anymore.”
Kash’s grin faded just a little, and her eyes softened. “Can I be honest with you?”
I nodded.
“I submitted last week. I got accepted a couple days ago.”
My eyebrows lifted. “Wait, what?”
She shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, but it was. “I was just waiting on you. I didn’t wanna hype it up if you wasn’t gonna do it. I figured if you signed up too, then it could be our thing.”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“’Cause I know you. You would’ve said no just to be stubborn.”
She wasn’t wrong.
