Surviving The Blues

41

My eyes flicker... "she's not breathing." A frantic voice yells, the feeling of violent pumping on my chest stops for a second and the voice reports that she's  breathing again. My eyes close again and I feel myself slipping off what feels like big cliff.

My eyes open meeting his eyes. "How long has she been unconscious?" The inquiring voice is frantic.

"It says here your daughter has some mental challenges. Do you think she tried to ki-"

"If you are insinuating my child tried to kill herself, you are out of your mind."' The woman yells.

"She's awake." It's a woman's voice that declares it. The bed dips and a swift breeze passes by.

"Is she okay?" A male voice asks.

A balding man stands by my side, directly in my vision line. He watches me. His blue gloves touch me as four other ladies rush to his side.

"Faith ..." A voice calls. The gloved hoovers over my face. I whine, closing my eyes from the bright light. "Don't close your eyes sweet heart." The voices urges.

"She's crashing..." The last words I hear are barely memorable.

It's dark. I cannot move my body. I attempt to wiggle my toes and my fingers, but it's to no avail. My eyes are heavy. Trying to open them feels almost painful. Still, I try to force them open, to see what's happening and where I am. I am blinded by the bright lights and instantly close them again only to reopen them.

There's a weird feeling in my throat. It's like someone is choking and in a panic, I try to wiggle out of it. "Faith. Calm." A voice urges. "Get the doctors and nurses. Hurry." He orders.

My eyes land on the man who strokes my hair in an attempt to calm me down. I cannot speak. The bags under his eyes are bigger than usual. His face looks gaunt and dour. He kisses my forehead. "It's okay sweetheart." I kick my leg, panicking even more. Darius Williams would never say that. It is as if I am dead or have been kidnapped by aliens ready to harvest my organs. "It's okay, Journ." His hand touches my flailing legs. I stop instantly,  noting that the use of that name means it's no other than Darius.

"Hey Faith. I am doctor Ahmed. I am going to need you to relax while I take the tube out." My father moves aside. The doctor instructs me
to take a deep breath before he begins to pull the tube out, resulting in a violent coughing fit. The dozen of wires are quickly removed. "Faith, you are in the hospital where you've been in a coma for over three weeks. A left over fragment of a bullet nicked several of your organs. You lost almost 730 ml of blood. We were not sure if you were going to live..." it fades off as he goes on about how it was touch and go.

The doctor moves around, checking my body out. He took out his pen, running along right foot and I immediately squirm because I am ticklish. Then, he does the same to left. He looks over at the nurse and shakes his head and she writes down something. After he finishes the check up he explained that there are fragments floating close to my spine. They were trying to make sure I was not paralyzed. However, I have weakness on my left side that I would need therapy for it. It is weird, I can hardly feel that side of my body.

"You are lucky to be alive young lady. We lost you four times." My heart beat increases and I've been grounded back on earth.

Tears stream down my face. "What's happening?" My mom stands as the monitor increases.

"Faith, I am going to need you to calm down." The doctor says. Everyone crowds the bedside.

"T-Titus." My throat hurts and it's barely audible. "T-Titus."

"What did she say?" My father ask.

"I think she said Titus." One the nurses answers.

Immediately, I staring writhing. My heart beat increasing. "Push two of diazepam. It's dangerous for her to be this agitated." The doctor instructs.

It's not long before I've checked out. I do not hear much of what they are saying. It's Darius and Josephine's voice I hear next.

"It's always that family, Darius." She exclaims. "You slept with Maria. For all you know, he was probably your f***ing son too. Your daughter was probably in love with her brother." She is clearly angry. It's the loudest she's been since I met her. She's the type of black woman my father wanted me to be; prim and proper.

"How many times do I have to say this shit. I ain't never f*** with Maria. You keep believing that shit. That don't make it true." Darius sounds irritated by the woman.

"You were always at their house, Darius." She says as if it proved everything.

"Cause it was the spot. It's as if you forget I trapped." He muttered the last part.

"It's your fault our daughter is this way. You always had him like he was your freaking son. I am sure he was." She accuses again. "That little gangbanger almost got our daughter killed. She was probably smoking cracking and hanging on some street corner because of him." She states.

"I am tried of this shit. It's the same conversation with you fourteen years after." He scoffs.

"Cause you are never honest. You are liar, Darius. That's why Faith is lying here." She tries to blame him again.

"You want the f***ing truth?" He yells.

"You've never told the truth once in your life." She spat.

"Then I'll start now. Maria got addicted to crack because of me. She was my homie's little sister. I was suppose to look out for her when he died, but instead I got her hooked on that shit, Jo. That shit would eat at me everyday. Every time I looked at that boy, I remembered what a piece of shit I am. You want to blame someone for Faith? Blame me. You think that kid was like me? He was nothing like me. He never touched crack. He wouldn't even sell it. Little n**** wouldn't even sell weed. You think he would let Faith do that shit? He probably had more love for Faith than the both of us. You know how many times they beat the shit out of him so he would stay away from her? I warned Titus time after time to stay away from her and look what happened. I killed his mother and I killed him." His voice cracks."Look Jo, we cannot blame nobody but ourselves. You left her and I f***ed her up. How do we fix it?" He asks.

There's a long silence. "Maria died?" She asks in quiet voice.

He huffs. "If we had let her..."He fades off. "If we hadn't called the police that day." My eyes snap open.

I groan wishing I could get the words out. Every fiber in my is filled in disbelief that they called the police.

They killed him too. It should have been me. It was my parents that killed him.