5. Pluto Monroe
Moss Point
A fter 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 spot where 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.
I shook my head and sat back on the bed, letting the news settle.
“What if I don’t get picked?” I asked.
Kash gave me a look like I had lost my mind. “Girl, you are a bad bitch. You think they not gonna choose you? If for some wild reason they don’t, then I’ll take one for the team, get that money, and we still good. Either way, we winning.”
Her confidence made me laugh, and for the first time in days, it didn’t feel forced.
After a little while, Kash stood and grabbed her bag. “Alright, I’m gonna go. I’ll call you later. You need anything, say the word.”
She pulled me into a long hug, and I held her tighter than I meant to.
When she left, I walked down the hallway to check on Zurie.
She was still sleeping, curled into the exact same spot I left her in.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a second, watching her chest rise and fall.
Then I stood, went back to my room, and grabbed a towel and some clothes.
The shower felt like it had been waiting on me.
I stood under the water with my head down, letting it run over me, trying to wash away everything I couldn’t say out loud.
I closed my eyes, but the silence made my thoughts louder.
The fear, the guilt, the what-ifs. It all lived up there, stuck between exhaustion and trying to stay sane.
Then I opened my eyes and looked down at the tub.
The corners were black with mold. Not just a little, but thick spots that looked like ink stains creeping across the porcelain.
It looked like the walls were slowly rotting from the inside out.
The caulk was cracked, and the edges were discolored, and I thought about how long it had been like that.
How we’d just learned to ignore it, to shower around it, and accept that this was what we had to deal with.
I stared at it for a long time, and something shifted in me.
I didn’t want to raise my sister around mold and broken windows. I didn’t want to keep pretending like we were okay when we weren’t even close. I didn’t want Zurie to think this was all there was.
After I got out, I dried off and threw on a big t-shirt. My skin was still damp, but I didn’t care. I padded down the hallway and climbed into the bed next to my sister. She didn’t wake up. She just rolled toward me, her small hand finding mine in her sleep like she always did when she was scared.
I stared at the ceiling for a minute, then closed my eyes and prayed.
It wasn’t loud or in a fancy way. Just a quiet whisper in my head asking God to let this be the right move, to keep Zurie safe and guide me through whatever I just signed up for. And then I let sleep pull me under, holding onto Zurie’s hand for the rest of the night.
Days had passed and I still hadn’t received a damn email.
I kept checking the site just to torture myself. It had a little countdown banner across the top that said today was the final day for selections, and every time I refreshed the page, nothing changed. It was still the same damn announcement.
I didn’t have no new notifications, no email in my inbox or spam folder or anything that looked remotely close to something coming from Pressure’s team.
At first, I didn’t care. I really didn’t.
When I submitted, it was for Zurie, not for me.
I wasn’t pressed about staying in some mansion or chasing after some flashy, high-profile man just because everybody else was.
But hearing Kashmere talk about it all week had started messing with my head a little.
She kept talking about the outfits she was packing, what she planned to wear to breakfast, how she had bought three new wigs just in case one of the Diamonds tried her.
Every time she opened her mouth, she made it sound like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
And I couldn’t lie—I started wondering what it would feel like to walk through the front doors of that mansion with my head high instead of hanging low like it had been lately.
Still, I played it cool, acting like I wasn’t checking my email every two hours or scrolling through hashtags to see who got picked.
I kept it quiet even when it started eating at me, even when that little voice in the back of my head started whispering that maybe I just wasn’t good enough to be picked.
The days blurred together.
I had been spending most of my time taking care of Zurie, helping her walk short distances through the apartment just to keep her body from getting stiff.
I helped her with her stretches, made her favorite soup from scratch, and rubbed lavender oil on her temples every night to help her sleep.
When I wasn’t doing that, I was dodging the chaos that kept finding its way back into our living room.
My daddy had been in and out again, still yelling, demanding money and accusing Mama of holding out on him when she had nothing left to give.
Mama screamed back, calling him every name under the sun, and then locked herself in her room until it was quiet again.
The noise never lasted too long, but it never fully stopped either.
It was always waiting to come back, like it was part of the walls now.