June
PRESS PLAY
The thought of coming here bothered me. This was my first follow-up after the surgery, and all I wanted was this nightmare to be over. It felt like hours of them drawing blood as they picked and poked at my arm. The constant 'Are you okay?’ was becoming annoying when all I wanted was to be okay.
I sat in the dry, cold room, refusing to leave until I had answers. Zaria called me nonstop; yet, I refused to answer until I held some in my hand.
There was a tap at the door before the doctor entered. He glanced over his charts, then up at me.
“Mr. Calloway—” He paused. “Let me start off by saying sometimes—”
There it was. Sometimes. “Sometimes, sometimes, fucking sometimes,” I grumbled.
He cleared his throat as he stepped forward.
“Sometimes we hope that things like surgeries, chemo, and other case studies work. Unfortunately, none of it is a hundred percent. I wish I could stand here and give you good news, but the reality is the cancer is still there. We have been able to get most of it, but—”
My head spun. I’d gone through all this shit, and I still had it.
How was this even possible? Was this really a nigga’s fate?
I saw the doctor’s mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear anything.
I had a kid on the way, a wife who was waiting on me, a crew who depended on me, and this was the end result.
I was tired of being angry about it, tired of shedding tears over it, and tired of questioning what God had in store for me.
If cancer wanted to live inside me, fine, but he had better come with all he had because this time I was going to win.
The runway lights flashed, bringing me back to reality.
Since that day, knowing I still had cancer, I tried putting it all in the back of my mind to avoid ever thinking about it.
It worked for a while. I felt freer than I ever had...
until I had a seizure. Right then, I knew the shit was starting to take over.
I refused to allow my family to watch me suffer as they did before, so I found ways to hide the sickness.
It was the reminder of how I had suffered alone before the world knew.
One minute, I was okay, while the next, my light days started to turn dark again. However, the hiding became harder.
I parked my bike near Bishop’s midnight blue Benz and removed my helmet as he stood there waiting. “You sure you want to do this? You know you can just take your family with you?”
I thought about all possibilities. The problem was that Z went through this before, and the shit damn near broke her.
My problems weighed on her so much that she almost lost our boys, and I couldn’t put her through that again.
Did it hurt my soul? Fuck yes, but this was me sparing the love of my life from witnessing the possibilities of death.
I slowly nodded. “This shit hurts. I-I miss her already,” I mumbled. “This was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make, but I know it’s the best. I—” I broke while standing there. “—I can’t do it to her again. I can’t.”
Bishop walked up to me. “You’ll be back. You’ll be back stronger than ever, my nigga. You’ll be missed. Who the fuck I’m supposed to argue with now? Look, the doctors are waiting for you there. They said the trial takes a year.”
That was a year away from my family, a year to figure this Navi shit out, a year of rebuilding, and a year of going through the dark moments alone.
Bishop placed his hand on my shoulder. “Navi, she’ll get handled.”
It all sounded good, but a nigga was broken inside.
I was broken because I finally had my happy ending, but I didn't know if there would be an after. Bishop and I dapped each other up before I gave him the keys to my bike. Everything I had done up until now was worth it, and as I look back on it all, it wasn’t the cancer that beat me, but I beat it.
I learned that it had all been about believing I didn’t have it.
My thoughts became my reality. I had removed Matthew and Lonnie from my mind, and it was like I didn’t kill them, but the reality was, it was all an illusion.
I stepped onto the private plane Z had purchased for our vacation. The same plane I vowed never to get back on, but here I was. My weighted steps screamed to stop and go back, but I knew it was one of two options, and that was prison or death.
The door slowly closed, leaving me in this dark space alone. I walked over and sat near the window, pulling my picture frame from my bag and setting it on the table. I cried as I looked at my family, my legacy, and those I was doing it for.
“I’m coming back home soon, Z. Chevy fucking Promise,” I cried.
The pilot poked his head out from the front cockpit. “Where to, Mr. Calloway?”
I wiped my eyes. “Greece.”
It was bittersweet, but in the end, this was my sacrifice for my family, and that was what made me happy.
The plane began to take off, and all I could say was, “Fuck Cancer!”