10. Novella “Novi” Hart
NOVELLA “NOVI” HART
“Idon’t think nerves and grief are the reason you keep throwing up.” Nia’s voice reached me from somewhere behind my back while I remained on my knees in front of the toilet.
I groaned and rested my forehead against my arm. For days, I had been literally sick with grief. I couldn’t eat without feeling nauseous. I couldn’t sleep without waking up drenched in sweat. My head hurt constantly, and every part of my body felt drained.
My mind still rejected the fact that he was gone, even though I had seen his body, touched his cold hand, picked out the suit he would be buried in and sat across from a funeral director discussing flowers, music, and how many chairs we might need.
None of that felt real. It felt like a nightmare I had somehow remained trapped inside after waking up.
My stomach turned again.
I leaned over the toilet, but nothing came up this time.
“You’ve barely eaten,” Nia told me as if I didn’t know. “There shouldn’t even be anything left in you.”
“Thank you for that medical analysis,” I weakly quipped.
“I’m serious, Novi.”
“So am I. I’m stressed. My body is reacting to stress.”
She leaned against the doorframe. “When was your last period?”
I lifted my head, groaning. “I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes and tried to think. Before Kash died, my period had already been due. I counted backward in my head, then stopped when the number made me uneasy.
“It’s late,” I admitted.
“How late?”
“A little.”
“How little?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a week.”
Nia folded her arms. “Novi.”
“It’s probably late because I’m stressed. Stress affects your cycle.”
“Pregnancy can too.”
I grabbed the edge of the sink and pushed myself to my feet. “I’m not pregnant.”
I turned on the faucet and rinsed my mouth, then poured mouthwash into the cap. The sharp mint burned against my tongue.
Nia continued watching me. “You need to take a test.”
I spit into the sink and stared at my reflection. I smoothed the black dress over my hips, then fixed the front of my blonde curls with unsteady fingers.
I was about to leave our home, sit in the front row of a church, and watch people speak about the man I loved in past tense.
He was.
He had been.
He used to.
Every sentence would remind me that there was no future waiting for us anymore.
“Novi, if you’re pregnant, you need to know.”
The tears came before I could stop them. “I can’t focus on that right now.”
Nia’s expression softened.
“I have to bury my boyfriend today!” My voice broke, but I forced the words out. “I have to sit there and watch them put the man I was supposed to marry into the ground! I can’t think about whether I’m carrying his baby too!”
The possibility should’ve brought hope. Instead, it terrified me.
If I was pregnant, then Kash had left behind the family we had talked about without ever knowing it existed.
I would have to raise his child while grieving him.
Every milestone would carry the absence of the man who should’ve been there.
If I wasn’t pregnant, then the last possibility of having his baby would disappear forever.
Either answer would hurt.
Nia stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me as I burst into tears. I folded against her and cried into her shoulder.
She held me tighter, and for a moment, I let myself pretend her arms could keep me from falling apart. But nothing could hold together a heart that had broken in this many pieces.
By the time we reached the repast, I had run out of ways to pretend I was holding myself together.
The room was crowded with Kash’s family, our friends, and even people I had never met who kept approaching me to explain how much they loved him.
His mother sat near the front of the banquet hall surrounded by women from her church.
Kash had been her only son. She only had one other daughter, which meant losing him had taken everything she had built her life around.
I had spent the days before the funeral helping her and his sister choose flowers, approve the obituary, organize photographs, and make decisions neither of us should have been forced to make.
I could barely survive losing the man I planned to marry. I couldn’t imagine burying the child I had carried, raised, and protected by myself. For most of the day, I stayed close to her. I made sure she drank water and ate a few bites.
Now that his mother was surrounded by friends, I slipped through the side door and stepped outside. I crossed my arms over my black dress and walked toward the quieter side of the building, away from the people mingling near the entrance.
For a minute, I simply stood there and breathed.
Then I reached into my purse for Kash’s secret phone. I opened Kash’s message, pressed the number beneath it, and lifted the phone to my ear.
I had been too busy helping Kash’s mother with arranging the funeral to make this call, but now that he was buried, I could focus on yet another heartbreaking task.
It rang twice.
“Yeah?” The man’s voice was deep enough to make me stand up straighter.
“Is this Cartier?”
Silence followed.
Then he asked, “Is this Novi?”
My fingers tightened around the phone. “How do you know my name?”
“You’re calling from Kash’s burner.”
“I found a message on it,” I said. “He told me that if anything happened to him, I should contact the Cartiers. He said to give you the phone and that you would protect me.”
The man became quiet again.
“All right. I’m going to text you an address. Meet us there tomorrow.”
I wiped beneath one eye before the tear could reach my cheek. “If Kash trusted all of you enough to send me to you, why weren’t you at his funeral?”
“We were there. We didn’t come to the repast.”
I tried to remember every unfamiliar face inside the church. There had been too many people standing along the walls and too many moments when I couldn’t see anything beyond Kash’s casket.
The voice continued. “We also gave his mother the money for the funeral. Cartiers take care of their own. Kash was a good dude. He was loyal and never brought unnecessary trouble to our door. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
“No, he didn’t.” My voice barely made it through the grief.
“We’re going to find out who killed him. We’ll do anything and everything necessary to find whoever did this. And when we do, we’ll handle it.”
Fresh tears blurred the building in front of me. I had spent days listening to detectives tell me they were following leads, waiting on evidence, and doing everything they could. Their words had sounded empty. This man sounded more certain.
My tears fell harder.
“You need to be strong for a few more hours,” he told me. “Go back inside. Stay with his mother. Get through today. Tomorrow, we got you.”
The call ended before I could ask anything else.
A text appeared seconds later with an address and a time.
I locked the phone and returned it to my purse.
I stood outside until I could breathe without sobbing, then smoothed my dress and walked back toward the building.