Chapter 50 Farrah
(Three months later)
Trauma doesn’t disappear.
It just kind of fades into something bearable.
At first, it was loud in my head. A voice that wasn’t really there. Footsteps that made my breath catch. Sudden noises that sent my heart racing. Even Mekhi’s touch startled me sometimes. I had to learn all over again that it was safe.
Mekhi and I were on a healing journey. He had trauma of his own.
For all her faults, Gillian was his mother, and he loved her.
Finding her like he and Mekhayla had... it was horrifying.
His sister’s screams had echoed in my head for weeks.
She was barely in the ground before word came that Medgar had been found hanging in his cell.
Now, things were quieter. Not gone, but softer, like background noise I knew how to tune out. And standing on this porch, with the late afternoon sun warming my shoulders and Mekhi pacing beside me like an anxious cat, I realized something else had gotten softer too.
Him.
Not the outside version. That still entered the room like steel and silence when he wanted it to.
And not the everyday one; he still got on my damn nerves with his little sarcastic comments.
But this man held my hand in the middle of the night when nightmares clawed at me.
This man kissed me and held me often. This man had settled into himself.
He had settled into us.
“You okay?” I asked, watching him glance at the door for the tenth time.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“You lying.”
He side-eyed me. “You diagnosing me now, Dr. Gray?”
“I don’t even have my doctorate yet, Mr. Venzant,” I shot back. “But if you pace any harder, you gon’ fall straight through this porch.”
He stilled for a second… then, started pacing again.
“You ain’t seen your grandmother in what? Eighteen years? It’s okay to be shook.” I said gently.
“I ain’t shook.”
“You scared,” I teased
“I ain’t scared either.”
“Then why you breathing like you running from the law?”
He turned to face me. “Because I feel like I don’t deserve her anymore. I believed a bunch of bad shit about her. Cursed her name. And now I’m about to be smiling in her face like that didn’t happen.”
That caught me right in my heart.
“You deserve everything good that finds you, Mekhi,” I said, stepping closer. “Even if it comes late.”
He stared at my face, like he was searching for the lie. He wasn’t going to find one.
“Alright,” he said quietly. “You ready for this?”
“Been ready.”
He raised his fist to knock.
The door opened before he touched it.
A small woman stood there, thick and sturdy, skin lined but glowing. She stared for a minute, then gasped. Her eyes were wide and glassy with tears and looking, searching his face, his frame, his scars. For a long second, she didn’t say anything. Then her hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh, my God. My baby… my Mekhi… Oh, thank you, Jesus. I knew You would answer my prayers. Thank you, Lord!” she cried.
Her knees almost buckled. Mekhi lunged forward, catching her, his hands cradling her.
“MawMaw…” he breathed. “I’m here. I’m here.”
She reached up to cup his cheeks, tears rolling freely now.
“I prayed for this,” she sobbed. “Every night I asked the Lord, just show me they okay. Just let me see them one more time…”
He pulled her into his chest, and she held on like she was afraid he’d disappear again. Tears gathered in my eyes, too, not from hurt, but from just being full. I crossed my arms and smiled through it.
“Told you she was gon’ love seeing you,” I said.
His grandmother pulled back and looked at me then, really seeing me for the first time.
“And you must be the reason he looks so happy?” she asked, grinning slyly.
Mekhi glanced at me. This man who terrified full rooms of grown men suddenly seemed shy.
“This is Farrah. She’s my… everything,” he said simply.
I beamed, loving the sound of that.
“Then, I like her already,” his grandmother said. “Come on in, both of y’all.”
Before stepping inside, I leaned a little closer to Mekhi.
“You owe me,” I murmured.
“For what?”
“For telling you she wasn’t gon’ slam the door in your face.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “What you want? Another ring? A bookstore? Half of North Village?”
“I want silver,” I said sweetly. “We going to my jeweler. I deserve some nice silver after all this.”
He frowned, eyes flicking down to my hand.
“Silver?” he repeated slowly. “I done put diamonds on your finger in platinum, Little Thug. You ain’t gotta settle for silver.”
He lifted my left hand, the late sun catching the ring there, a wide band of platinum holding a large, cushion-cut diamond that caught light in wild, dancing flashes.
Smaller stones hugged its sides like guards protecting a queen.
My ring was elegant, classic, expensive in a way that didn’t need to scream. It rested there like it always would.
“See that?” he murmured. “That ain’t no silver energy.”
I grinned at him. “You right. But the silver ain’t for me.”
His brow creased. “Then who?”
I slid my hand back into his.
“For one of them little silver spoons you mentioned.”
Silence. I didn’t say anything else. I just watched as his face changed—confusion first, then realization, then shock, then something so happy, it spread like sunlight.
“Farrah…” he breathed.
I nodded, brushed a hand over my stomach in confirmation. Joy radiated from him suddenly. An outright grin, real and bright, stretched across his face as he pulled me into him, forehead against mine.
“You serious?” he whispered.
“Yeah,” I laughed softly. “Dead serious.”
His laugh sounded hopeful and stunned and beautiful.
“My baby got my baby?” he murmured.
“Mm-hmm,” I confirmed.
He squeezed my hands tighter, like he was promising me something without words. Then, he looked at the open door again. His grandmother was waiting patiently, smiling at us.
“I’m ready,” he said, voice thick with emotion.
I knew he didn’t mean just walking in.
“Me, too.”
Hand in hand, we stepped inside the house together.
And into a future that finally felt safe.