1. Sonnet Ellison #2
The server approached before he could continue arguing, and Dior ordered champagne.
When the glasses arrived, he raised his toward me. “To another year of being brilliant, beautiful, and unnecessarily boring.”
I lifted mine. “To another year of you minding my business more than your own.”
He smiled and our glasses touched.
I might not have wanted a packed club, a section, or strangers shouting my name over music I couldn’t hear clearly, but sitting across from the person who had chosen to love me like family felt like enough.
At 11:16PM, I finally found the error.
One of our hospital clients had changed the billing code for canceled cardiac procedures without notifying our analytics department.
So, the system had been counting canceled surgeries as completed ones, which explained why my forecasting model kept predicting a shortage of implantable heart devices that nobody actually needed.
I corrected the query, re-ran the report, and smiled when the numbers fell back within the acceptable range.
“Got you.”
The empty office offered no applause.
I worked at a medical device and surgical supply company in a corporate office attached to a distribution warehouse as a healthcare data analyst for a medical supply company, which was the simplest way to explain a job most people stopped understanding after the word “data”.
My actual responsibility was to build predictive models that helped hospitals determine how many surgical devices and specialty supplies they would need months in advance.
I studied procedure schedules, purchasing trends, insurance approvals, patient demographics, shipping delays, and anything else that could affect inventory.
Then I turned all that information into projections designed to keep hospitals from wasting money or running out of something important while a patient was already on an operating table.
It was nerdy as hell, but it was also the kind of work I was good at.
I’d entered college with enough credits from Advanced Placement and dual-enrollment classes to skip nearly two years. By twenty-three years old, I had finished undergrad and earned my master’s degree. People usually called me gifted when they heard that.
Gifted sounded prettier than a nerd. I didn’t like unanswered questions, inaccurate information, or problems that appeared too hard to solve. Numbers were easier than people. Data had patterns. Even when it appeared confusing, there was always a logical explanation hiding somewhere.
I saved my work, packed my laptop, and looked around the darkened office. I was the only person left in the building.
Usually, I took public transportation home. I owned a car, but with gas being so high and the price of parking, even as an employee, it made more financial sense. But, since it was so late, I ordered an Uber.
Being an orphan made independence less of a personality trait and more of a requirement.
I could have texted Dior, but he would fuss, ask why I was still at work, and probably stay awake until I got home. I didn’t want to worry him.
As I walked towards the entrance, the Uber app notified me that my driver was seventeen minutes away.
I huffed in frustration at the long wait. “Perfect.”
The front entrance locked at ten, so I took the elevator to the rear lobby and exited beside the private loading area.
During the day, trucks delivered surgical equipment through the three metal bays.
At night, the enclosed lot was deserted except for parked trailers, industrial dumpsters, and one flickering security light.
As I started toward the pedestrian gate, I suddenly heard shouting that made me pause.
“You refuse to let go!” The shouting had come from behind one of the trailers.
Peering in the darkness, I saw two men standing near the far loading bay. The younger one paced while the older man remained still.
“You built the organization for the family,” the younger man said. “That includes me.”
“You’re gawd damn right I built it,” the older man replied. “And you’re forgetting who still runs it.”
“I’m not forgetting anything. I’m trying to prove I can help carry it!”
“You’re trying to make moves behind my back!”
“I made decisions that needed to be made!”
“You made decisions that made people look to you instead of me!”
This was not my business. So, I lowered my head and backed up toward the building, hoping to reach the gate without being noticed.
But then the younger man spoke again, and his voice sounded too hurt for me to ignore. “You’re mad because they listened. You’re mad because I handled things, and nobody had to come running to you first.”
The older man stepped closer. “You don’t get to decide when you’re ready.”
“I’m not a child anymore!” the younger man roared. “You keep saying this is about family, but every time I try to stand on my own, you push me back down.”
“You were positioning yourself to take over before your time.”
“My time is coming whether you like it or not.”
The overhead canopy lights shined on their faces as the younger man stepped closer.
“You don’t want an heir,” the younger man said. “You want everybody under your thumb until you die.”
“Watch your mouth, Donovan.”
Donovan laughed, humorlessly. “Tell the truth, Roman. You never planned to let me lead.”
Roman stared at him. “No, I didn’t.”
Donovan’s angry expression fell into something wounded. “So that’s how it is?”
“That’s how it is,” Roman challenged.
Donovan shook his head, staring at his father like he was seeing him clearly for the first time. “I’ve been trying to become the man you raised me to be. I’ve been making moves, earning respect, showing the outfit I’m not just your son standing beside you for decoration. I’m your heir.”
Roman’s jaw hardened as he glared at his son.
Donovan sounded like he was pleading when he finally said, “I just wanted you to see me.”
“I do see you,” Roman responded. “That’s the problem.”
Donovan looked at his father with pain in his eyes that I recognized. “You’d rather deny your own son than admit he’s ready.”
“I’d rather bury a threat than hand one my throne.” Roman’s hand moved so fast I barely caught it. One second it was near his jacket, and the next, the gun was already in his grip.
Donovan never saw it coming. He was still standing there disappointed, staring at his father’s last words in disbelief, when Roman raised the weapon and fired.
The gunshot tore through the loading area before Donovan even had time to react.
As I gasped in terror, Donovan jerked and stumbled backward. A dark stain spread across his white shirt before his knees folded beneath him. Roman stood over his son with the gun still in his hand.
Donovan pressed his palm against the wound, but blood slipped between his fingers as he forced out, “You think you’re going to get away with this?”
Roman didn’t respond. He just glowered at his son as if he was simply an enemy instead of his own blood.
Donovan coughed up blood as he forced out, “Everything comes to light eventually.”
His hand fell away from his chest, and then he stopped moving.
I began to back away as quickly but quietly as I could. As I did, my heel struck a metal wheel chock. It toppled over with a sharp clang.
Roman’s head whipped towards where I stood in the darkness. His gaze landed near the corner where I stood, and for one horrifying second, I thought our eyes met.
I took off. I pushed through the pedestrian gate and raced down the sidewalk. Instead of heading toward the main street, I cut into an alley between two warehouses.
My tote slammed against my hip as I ran. I turned left, then right, zigzagging behind dumpsters, garages, and darkened businesses. I didn’t know whether moving that way actually made me harder to shoot, but television had convinced me it did.
I didn’t hear footsteps behind me, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t being followed.
I crossed another alley and emerged onto a residential block. Porch lights glowed from two-flats. A television flashed behind somebody’s curtains. Parked cars lined both sides of the street.
I kept running. I wasn’t a small girl, and I was allergic to the gym.
I wasn’t athletic. My body was nice because I was still young and did a lot of walking from taking public transportation, not because I spent hours training.
I had been in math club, not any of the extracurricular activities that required me to break a sweat.
Yet, I was running like a track star with a scholarship on the line.
My lungs hurt, and my prescription glasses kept sliding down my nose, but I didn’t stop until I was several blocks away beneath the bright lights of a twenty-four-hour Walgreens and dipped inside.
I went into one of the aisles, out of breath and pretending to browse like I wasn’t fighting to catch my breath.
My phone vibrated, startling me because I forgot that I was still holding it. Looking down at it, I saw the notification that my Uber had arrived at the office.
I canceled the ride with trembling fingers and requested another from my new location.