Raw & True

o07.

Chapter Seven

(Marley Wright)

Friday, June 2nd 2017

"So, tomorrow's bae's birthday, what you got planned for him?" Lola sat down at my workstation with a smirk on her face.

"Okay, first of all, he's not bae and second of all, it's none of your business what I have planned for him." I couldn't hold back the grin that was tugging at my lips. I continued to sanitize her nails while ignoring her pleas.

"It's fine, I'll find out," she said with much confidence.

"How you figure?" I looked at her with my mouth turned up.

"Eli and Sean are damn near besties now, he's going to tell Sean and Sean's going to tell me." She shrugged.

"Well, do whatever you gotta do. I'm still not telling you."

"Oh my gosh, you suck."

Although Elijah and I weren't dating, we'd grown extremely close in the past two months that we'd known each other. I even went with him to court when he was fighting for Isabella; he was overjoyed when he won. Natalie was ordered by the judge to attend a month of parenting classes before she could see Bella again. Needless to say, she never started the classes and hadn't seen Isabella since she dropped her off with Ms. Carla; Elijah's mom. Miracle had become his official babysitter, giving his mom a little bit of a break. Especially with summer being in full effect now.

Elijah called me a blessing but I was literally lucky to have him as a friend. He helped me get over the breakup with Carter as he promised he would. He helped keep MJ out of trouble. He'd been a great friend to not only me but he'd somehow worked his way into a good place with both Moriah and Micah Sr. He'd even visited my brother without me at times. I was loving every bit of it to be honest. He didn't have much family down here besides his mother, Isabella and his cousin, Xavier. To my understanding, everyone else on his mother's side was further south in Georgia and Florida, whereas his father's side of the family lived mostly in New York and Chicago. So, with his family being scattered all over the place, it was nice to see him embraced by mine.

"Anyway, on a brighter note; Micah will be ready to come home next month," I beamed while filing her nails down.

"I know, Sean and me went to go see him the other day, he was definitely looking like the old Micah too. I'm just ready for him to come home," Lola admitted.

Lola and I had been joined at the hip since middle school and she was an only child, so my family was her family pretty much. Micah meant a lot to her and it showed.

"Yeah, me too but if it came time for him to come out and he told me he wasn't ready, I couldn't even be upset with him."

Micah had told me on a few occasions that he was nervous about coming home and being able to openly reach his dealer whenever he reached a low point. Ever since then, I'd been going up to the rehab center every Monday along with Moriah, Miracle and MJ to attend family counseling with him. I just wanted him to know that no matter what, we're here for him and the last thing we wanted to see him do is fail. His doctor felt like with all of us showing our support, he'd be less likely to fall off the wagon once he was released. We'd even been talking about a buddy system that the center has where Micah will be set up with a sponsor. It was explained to me that the sponsor would be a person who graduated from the program six months to a year prior to Micah. Someone who left and was able to stay clean, and in my opinion that would be perfect for him. I just had to get Micah to agree.