Chapter 18
Ripping my eyes away from his body, I returned them to his face.
The way he stared at me felt like he knew what I was thinking, and heat started to creep up my neck.
He licked his lips, and then slowly, he eased into the hospital gown. “You had a date?”
Clearing my throat, I nodded. “I did.”
Gesturing to the seat across from the exam table, he waited for me to sit. “And with only a week until your birthday, you’re missing it?”
“I didn’t really have a choice.”
“Ah. I see. You were stood up again,” he guessed with a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“No.” I rolled my eyes. “Such an asshole.”
“There’s no shame in getting stood up for another first date.” He paused, squinting at me. “Well… maybe a little shame.”
“You’re enjoying the idea of me getting stood up a little too much. But for your information, I was coming to the bar to tell you that I was going on a second date.”
There was a flicker in his eyes, and he shifted slightly. “Oh really? With dude from last week?”
I nodded. “Yeah. We hit it off.”
He made a face. “The talkative dude from last week?”
“Yes.”
“The one who kept talking?”
I sucked my teeth. “Ahmad, please.”
“Are you happy?” he wondered.
I hesitated before answering, “Yeah.”
His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed whatever he was going to say. With a slow nod, he asked, “Where was he taking you tonight?”
“Cloverleaf.”
He let out a low whistle. “Oh, wow.”
“Yeah.”
He cocked his head to the side. “So… you and the talker?”
“Yes!” I snickered. “And why do you keep calling him that?”
“Because all he did was talk. I didn’t see you get a word in. Every time I walked by, he was talking. He didn’t take a break. I think I heard him talking and drinking at the same time.”
I held in my laugh. “Can you stop?”
“You’re not seeing it because you’re stubborn and you don’t want to see it. But that man talked from the moment he sat down. He asked you what you wanted to drink and then he didn’t let you say anything else. I didn’t see you get a word in.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I argued, rolling my eyes. “Don’t be a hater.”
“I’m not hating. I’m just saying.”
“Well, say less.”
“Maybe if he said less…”
“I would beat you up if you weren’t already injured.”
He ran his hand over his beard. “If you two hit it off and it was all good, why’d you skip out on it?”
“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you—if you were okay,” I clarified quickly. “I couldn’t stop thinking about if you were okay. I went to Onyx to tell you about my date, and Asia said you were in a car accident.” I fiddled with the hem of my dress as I crossed my legs. “You said the last one fucked you up, and I didn’t want you to go through what you went through before.”
Because of the significance of the first accident, I knew the second accident could be a trigger for him and I wanted to be there for him. There was no rational reason why I didn’t stop to consider he had people to lean on in his time of need. It didn’t make sense for me to show up to try to support him. It wasn’t reasonable for me to track him down when our friendship was weeks old.
The longer he didn’t say anything, the longer I had to sit with it. Looking away from him, I squeezed my eyes shut and thought about how I rushed to the hospital to be at his side. And one week prior, I found his address and popped up at his door.
This is unhinged behavior.
It took a few seconds before he responded.
“I appreciate that,” he said softly. “For real, Aaliyah.”
My lashes fluttered open. “You don’t think it sounds crazy?”
“Oh, no, it’s definitely crazy. But”—he smirked—“it’s good crazy.”
The curtain swooshed as Dr. Myers and a different nurse entered the room. They examined and cleaned his wound, remarking that it was deep but not critical. They gave him some pain medication, and after cleaning the wound, they proceeded to stitch him up. Someone else came in to draw blood and administer a booster shot as the doctor typed information into the computer. The whole thing only took thirty minutes.
When Dr. Myers finished, he went over some wound care instructions. “Tomorrow, you can start washing around the wound twice a day. But make sure you keep the area dry, clean, and away from anything that’ll irritate it. Apply a thin layer of antibiotic cream. You don’t want anything rubbing against it. Loose-fitting sleeves would be best for the next few days. These are absorbable stitches, and they’ll dissolve in seven to ten days. If you see any signs of infection, come back immediately. We’ll start you on some oral antibiotics. If there’s anything of concern regarding your blood work results, we’ll be in touch.” He gave the bandaged wound a once-over. “But everything looks as good as can be. If you feel any discomfort, over-the-counter pain medication is fine. But you don’t need anything but rest for the next few hours. What we gave you should get you through the night.”
Ahmad nodded as he pulled his shirt back on. “Okay, thank you.”
The doctor turned to me. “You are his ride home, right?”
“Yes,” I answered automatically.
Dr. Myers nodded before turning back to Ahmad. “You may experience a little manageable pain, so”—the doctor gestured to me—“let your wife get you home and you take it easy tonight.”
“Oh, uhhh…” He looked over at me and then down at his hand. “Right.”
I immediately felt uncomfortable.
“We’ll get you discharged and on your way. Give us a few minutes.” The doctor left the room with the nurse in tow.
Ahmad was still looking at his hand.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized softly, jumping to my feet. “I feel like I overstepped. I shouldn’t be here. I’m going to go get the car and meet you out front.”
“Aaliyah,” he called after me.
I didn’t look back.
I left the room just as the nurse asked, “Everything okay?”
No. Everything is not okay.
I couldn’t put my finger on what I was feeling as I made my way to my car. But a series of emotions rippled through me, and all of them combined felt incredibly heavy. Like a weight was pressing down on me, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I didn’t know if it was fear, anxiety, tension, relief, desire, or regret. But in my myriad of feelings, guilt and disappointment seemed to level me.
I was disappointed in myself. I didn’t once think about how triggering it would be for people to assume I was his wife. I didn’t consider how he might have felt with my showing up at the hospital. I didn’t correct the doctor when I was presumed to be his wife. But most of all, I felt guilty for how my mind, body, and soul continued to react to him. No matter how hard I tried, I was having difficulty shutting out my intrusive thoughts.
I had a tiny, insignificant crush on Ahmad because he was a genuinely good man. It was harmless because he wasn’t ready to date. He still wore the ring his deceased ex-fiancée gave to him.
And yes, Ahmad and I had fleeting moments and that one almost-kiss. But he was not interested in me in any way. He actively helped me pursue other men. He gave me advice and encouraged me to not give up dating. He never made a slick comment to me or did anything that would make me think he didn’t see me as just a friend.
And that’s why the crush felt safe, insignificant, and a nonissue.
So, the fact that I felt something more disrupted my soul.
Thinking that something happened to him ripped something wide open. Because I had every excuse in the world to deny my feelings. I ignored my attraction to him. I disregarded the feelings he brought out in me. I wrote off the way we connected and shared with each other. I overlooked the way he cared for me. And I completely omitted the fact that I’d fantasized about him. But as my heart pounded in my chest, the truth was nagging me.
“Nina was fucking right,” I muttered as I pulled out of the parking deck and headed to the emergency room entrance.
Now that I was cognizant of my not-so-innocent crush, I wasn’t sure if it was possible to ignore it. He saw me and liked me for me, so of course I considered him a friend. And the fact that he was not in a dating headspace solidified the friendship as just that—friendship. I respected him too much to make him uncomfortable with my feelings. All I wanted was to go back in denial. Because if I couldn’t, I would have to end the friendship. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t know if I had a choice. It all boiled down to respect.
But the minute I spotted him, all that confusion and conflict melted away.
He was my friend, and he was a good friend. I didn’t want to end the friendship, and he didn’t deserve for me to just drop the friendship like that.
It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine.I repeated the phrase internally until I pulled up to the curb. I pushed the sleeves of the jacket up my forearms. It’s fine. It’s fine. He’s fine. It’s fine.
I slammed on the brakes as my mind acknowledged the little slipup I’d made.
When Ahmad opened the door, he gave me a look. “I texted Asia and then looked up to see you driving like you had a blindfold on. Let me find out you can’t drive.”
“Oh, you can walk,” I countered, rolling my eyes.
He climbed in my car, adjusting the front seat so his legs had room. “You’d force me to walk all the way home?” He put on his seat belt and then frowned. “Well, actually, it might be safer than riding with you.”
“Instead of worrying about my driving, worry about following the doctor’s orders. You’re already messing up.”
“What do you mean?”
“He said not to constrict the bandaged area.” I gestured to the shirt that showed off his impeccable body. “And you put your baby tee back on like it isn’t two sizes too small.”
The laugh he let out was deep, robust, and free. It filled the car with his energy, and I couldn’t help but smile.
I checked my mirrors before pulling out.
“Just keep your eyes on the road,” he commented.
When I glanced over at him, I saw the tension in his knuckles as he gripped the doorframe. Even though there was a smile on his face, I took his words seriously.
“I’m a safe driver,” I assured him softly.
I kept my hands at ten and two. I kept my eyes on the road. And I double-checked my blind spots. I drove better with him than I did on my driving test fourteen years prior. I didn’t realize until we were halfway home that it wasn’t just about me wanting to make sure we got there safely. I also just wanted to make sure he knew he was safe with me.
That thought made my stomach knot.
We didn’t say anything for most of the trip. I didn’t even turn on the radio. In the quiet that filled the car, I couldn’t help but wonder how he was really feeling. I wanted to ask, but I also knew how it felt to not want to or know how to process when you’re in the midst of it.
“It was hard for me to go swimming after my sister died,” I told him, interrupting the silence that had settled around us. “My sister loved the water. We were out on the boat every other weekend growing up. After she got too pregnant to feel like making the drive to the beach, she got her water fix at home. My sister and her husband had a house with a heated pool in the backyard. She swam every day, twice a day, to keep in shape. And one day… she overdid it.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Aaliyah,” he responded quietly.
“Yeah, thank you. This happened five years ago, so…”
“But still.”
I glanced over at him and nodded. “Yeah.”
We were both quiet for a moment.
“She drowned?” he uttered.
I shook my head. “She got out of the pool a little earlier than usual because she didn’t feel well. She had sent her husband a text message to let him know. When he got home, he found her collapsed on the floor in the hallway.”
I felt his eyes boring into the side of my face as I drove. Keeping my eyes on the road, I pushed myself to continue.
“Apparently, she had a fatal arrhythmia,” I continued.
“Oh, wow.”
“Yeah. She had an underlying heart condition, and with the pregnancy and the exercise regimen, it was too much, I guess. Every time she exerted too much energy or did too much, she was at risk. She was a ticking time bomb, and she never even knew it. None of us did.” I paused, staring straight ahead. “And even though I knew what it was, and I understood what happened, I still couldn’t go swimming. I just…” My sentence trailed off as I remembered the dreadful feeling that overcame me when I thought about swimming.
“You couldn’t get past it,” Ahmad said softly.
Biting my lip, I nodded. “I just couldn’t do it. I was so focused on what happened to her that I wasn’t able to focus on what was happening in the moment. It kept me stuck there. And then two years after she’d died, I went to a pool party, and someone thought it would be funny to push me in the pool. Now, he didn’t know what had happened; I don’t really talk to people about it. But I remember panicking as I went under, and I almost drowned.”
“Oh, shit.”
“I knew how to swim, but I froze. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to be in a pool. I wasn’t ready to swim. I wasn’t ready to deal with Aniyah’s death. Someone pulled me from the pool, and the party went on without missing a beat, but I went home. It took another year and a half before I was ready to swim.”
“What made you ready?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Therapy. Time. Trip to Tulum. But I knew when I was ready. I knew I was ready before I was willing to test the theory of me being ready. And I recognized how much time I wasted because I was scared to deal with what really needed to be dealt with.” I stopped at the light next to Onyx. “Trauma.”
He didn’t say anything, but he nodded.
“Being in someone’s shadow is always hard. But when the person is no longer alive, it makes it worse somehow. Because I can never live up to the perfection of a memory. So even after dealing with my issues with water, there’s still some trauma that remains…”
I let my sentence trail off.
I hadn’t meant to say so much. The words just kept tumbling out of my mouth. I hadn’t realized how much I was sharing until it was already out in the open. I hadn’t really shared that with anyone. Nina and Jazz knew, but I never had to say it. Outside of the sessions with my therapist, it was the first time I’d verbalized it.
I cleared my throat. “So, I can understand how whatever happened today could retraumatize you,” I whispered, hoping I wasn’t overstepping with him.
Silence surrounded us again.
“How old was your sister?” he asked, breaking the silence.
I stared straight ahead. The sound of my turn signal clicked as I waited to turn onto our street. “She was thirty.”
“Thirty?” he repeated in disbelief. “That’s… young.”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “It is.”
I could feel him staring at my profile. His eyes on me made more of my truth tumble from my mouth than I anticipated.
“Her dying at thirty made me realize that life is temporary, and I want something to make it feel more permanent than it is. I want something…”
“Something real,” he finished for me.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“So your birthday…?”
“It’s not just to prove something to my family,” I admitted slowly. “It’s for me, too.”
We were both quiet as we entered the parking garage.
“I said all that to say that I understand how trauma can change you,” I concluded softly. “How something can retraumatize you. And how there’s no linear path to healing. I know how lonely that journey can feel.” My voice was barely above a whisper. “I just wanted you to know you’re not alone.”
He waited for me to park before he spoke again. “Thank you.”
“It’s no big deal. We live in the same building. It’s not like it’s out of the way.”
“No.” He waited until I looked at him before he continued, “No, not just for the ride.”
“You don’t have to thank me. But you’re welcome.”
Just as I was taking the key out of the ignition, he reached over and touched my arm. “You came to the hospital to check on me. That’s worthy of a thank-you—at a minimum.”
With a gentle squeeze, he sent goose bumps across my skin.
I swallowed hard and shifted from his touch. “Well, when you put it like that, you’re right. I’ll accept my thank-you in the form of cash.”
He let out a light chuckle. “This is why I give you a hard time. You always got something smart to say.”
“I’m just matching your energy.”
“I see that.”
He held my gaze for just a little too long.
Almost simultaneously, we opened the doors to escape the car that suddenly felt too small. Neither of us spoke as we headed toward the entrance of our building. It wasn’t until he opened the door for me and I thanked him that the silence was broken.
“I’m going to help you to your place,” I told him as the elevator dinged, announcing its arrival.
“You don’t have to do all that. I’m fine.” He pressed the fifth-floor button.
“You are injured, Ahmad. I’m making sure you get to your place safely.”
He smiled. “Okay.”
“How’s your arm?” I wondered as I noticed him rubbing it.
“It’s a little sore. But it’s not bad.”
“Pain meds working?”
“Oh yeah.”
“You look tired.”
“I am.”
The elevator opened, and he gestured for me to walk out first. When we entered his apartment, I looked around.
“I see you got the albums put away,” I noticed.
“Well, when I don’t have unexpected visitors, I have time to get things done,” he countered.
Amused, I held in my laugh. “That’s fair.”
He put down his stuff and rubbed his shoulder again.
“I’m going to let you get settled and get in bed,” I told him. “Do you need anything before I go?”
“Nah, I’m just going to take a shower and go to sleep. I’m tired. It’s been”—he yawned—“a long day.”
“I can understand that. Well, listen, if you need anything, I’m right downstairs.” I turned to head toward the door. “I’ll check on you.”
He followed me to the door, and when I reached for it, he stopped me. “Aaliyah, wait.”
I turned around expectantly. “Hmm?”
He stopped a foot in front of me. His closeness knotted my stomach and caught me by surprise.
“I appreciate you showing up to check on me. You blew off going to Cloverleaf to make sure I was good. You really didn’t have to do that”—he rubbed his beard, and a slow smile spread across his lips—“but I’m glad you did.”
The knot in my stomach grew. “I was just doing what any friend would do,” I replied breathily.
His eyes held mine. “Any friend wouldn’t do that.” He reached out and touched my hand. “And I appreciate that you did.”
The heat from his fingertips spread all over my body.
My back flattened against the door as I tried to create space between us.
“You’re welcome,” I murmured as we stared at each other.
The apartment was so quiet, if a pin dropped in the back bedroom, it would have sounded like drums. So when my phone started vibrating, it felt like cymbals crashing, breaking up whatever was going on.
I tore my eyes away from his and checked my phone as it continued to vibrate in my bag.
“It’s Lennox,” I told him. “I should go.”
“Oh. Yeah. Okay.” He reached around me to get the door. “Thank you again.”
“You’re welcome, Ahmad. Anytime,” I whispered before putting the phone to my ear and answering the call. “Hey, Lennox!”