Page 135 of A Kingpin's Weakness
“Oh, you can come to dinner, though?”
“Free food on your rich nigga’s dime, right?” he mumbled under his breath.
I closed my eyes and counted to three.
“Okay, Noah. Because clearly you’re on one today.” I didn’t wait for his response. I hung up.
My hand lingered on the steering wheel as the silence wrapped around me again. I didn’t know what was going on with him lately. He was angry at the world, angry at me. Maybe even angry at himself. But he’d never admit that part. And I was tired, so tired of trying to mother everyone when I was still learning how to mother myself.
But I’d keep trying. For him. For Jo. For the family I never had, but was determined to build. Something didn’t sit right in my chest. A quiet, uneasy feeling. Like something was about to happen but I couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. Just heavy.
I stepped out of my car and made my way up the steps, the sun warming my body. Shiloh gave me a little kick like he felt it too. The second I walked through the doors and signed in at the front desk, I heard her voice.
“Look at fat mama,” Jo said, a smirk tugging at her lips as she leaned against the wall near the check-in window.
I laughed a little, rolling my eyes as I handed my ID to security for the visitor pass. “Hey, Jo.”
She looked me up and down with a tilt of her head. “Shiloh filling you out nice. Looks like he tryna come early.”
Rubbing the side of my stomach. I muttered, “This little boy got me out here waddling like I’m carrying a damn planet.”
We walked side-by-side down the hallway toward the therapist’s office. I couldn’t lie… me and Jo had gotten closeover the past few months, but we still hadn’t gone there since that night. Since she told me about Sweetie. About what that monster, my father, did to her. We didn’t ignore it, we just lived around it. Moment by moment. That was how we survived.
The door to the office opened before I could knock.
“Stormi, it’s almost time,” Ms. Sylvia said with a warm smile. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You too,” I said, voice thinner than I meant.
Me and Jo took a seat on the soft gray couch while Ms. Sylvia sat in her usual chair across from us, clipboard in hand, glasses perched low on her nose like always.
“So today, we’re going to do things a little differently,” she began, folding her hands in her lap. “Jolene had an assignment this week. She wrote a letter to her children, and I’d like her to read it today, if that’s okay with you, Stormi?” I blinked, heart skipping. “Yes,” I said, swallowing hard. My palms were already sweating. Jo reached into her hoodie pocket, pulled out a folded sheet of notebook paper, and cleared her throat. I looked over at her, trying to brace myself but there’s no real way to prepare when your own mother is about to speak to the child version of you. The broken version. She unfolded the letter with shaking fingers and started reading.
Dear Stormi,
I don’t even know how to start this, because no words feel big enough to hold what I owe you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to the four-year-old baby who had to learn what heroin smelled like before she knew how to tie her shoes. Who had to yank needles out her mama’s arm and shake me awake, thinking it was normal. You should’ve beenplaying with dolls, eating fruit snacks, learning your ABCs. But instead, you were learning how to keep me alive. And I hate that. I hate that I let you be my hero when I should’ve been yours.
I’m sorry to 13-year-old Stormi, who caught my contractions before I did. Who delivered her baby brother in a bathroom that smelled like mold and fear, while I was too high to feel anything. I had the baby but you… You were the mother. You cut the cord, literally and emotionally, and still held us together. I stole what little childhood you had left that day. And I never gave it back.
I’m sorry to grown Stormi, who packed her life in a trash bag and left, choosing herself, choosing peace. I didn’t chase you. I didn’t fight for you. Not because I didn’t love you, but because I didn’t know how to love anyone through the kind of pain I was drowning in. You were right to leave. And you were brave to come back. You showed up for all of us in ways I never did.
You let me into your world, your home, your family and most importantly, your heart. You could’ve slammed the door in my face. You had every right to. But instead, you opened it and asked me to do better. And I’m trying. I’m really trying.
This next chapter in my life is about healing, but it starts with telling the truth and the truth is: I failed you. Repeatedly. And you loved me anyway. Thank you for not hating me. Thank you for seeing something in me worth saving. You are everything I wished I could’ve been. Strong. Soft. Loving. Whole. You are the light I lost somewhere between when my innocence was first taking and my first high. And now I see that light again in the way you love your unborn son. In the way you care for me. In the way you walk into a room like your soul finally believes it deserves to be there. You are the woman I wanted to raise, but couldn’t. And somehow, you became her anyway.
Thank you for coming back to me through your strength, through your forgiveness, through your heart.
I love you, Stormi Knight Green. I always have. I always will.
Love,
JO
By the time she said my full name, I was gone.Tears streamed down my face; big, hot, heavy ones that didn’t ask for permission. I didn’t even try to hold them in. I had spent too many years doing that. Too many years pretending I didn’t want her. That I didn’t miss her. That I hadn’t needed her to just saysorry. And now here she was, broken voice, shaking hands, and trying. I nodded through my tears, too overwhelmed to speak. Jo reached over, grabbed my hand, and held on tight like we were both five years old again and scared. We finished the session… not with a breakthrough, but a beginning. And that was enough.
Afterward, I left quietly, heart still full and fragile at the same time. I wasn’t ready to go home just yet. Not until I saw Noah. I needed to look him in the eye, ask him why he was spiraling, why he was pushing us all away. Because I couldn’t lose him, too. Not now. Not when I was just starting to piece my family back together.
The phone rang once before Seth picked up, his voice smooth and warm like honey in the middle of winter.
