Rain “Rebel” Crawford #2
Crow chuckled and leaned back in his seat.
The fool looked entirely too pleased with himself.
For some reason, I had a feeling he wasn’t joking as much as he pretended to be.
That thought alone made me immediately look away.
Nope. I wasn’t about to unpack that. Not today. Not at somebody else’s wedding.
An hour later, we watched Mama Joyce get married.
It was cool to witness. Seeing the smile on her face as she exchanged vows and finally got her happily ever after made me genuinely happy for her.
At the same time, the moment hurt more than I expected.
As everybody clapped and celebrated, my thoughts drifted to Rose.
My big sister had always dreamed about getting married one day.
She used to talk about her wedding like it was already planned out.
Rose wanted the big ceremony, the beautiful dress, and a husband who looked at her like she walked on water.
More than anything, she wanted children.
Now she’d never get the chance, and the realization settled heavily in my chest.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and kept my eyes on the ceremony.
The last thing I wanted was for anybody to notice the sadness creeping across my face.
Today wasn’t about my pain. I wanted to celebrate Mama Joyce.
Still, that didn’t stop me from wishing Rose could’ve been here to see it.
At some point, I must’ve zoned out because the next thing I knew, Crow was standing in front of me.
“You good?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Come on,” he said, jerking his head toward the reception hall. “Let’s go get a drink from the bar before everybody starts crowding it.”
We sat at the bar drinking. I tossed one back, and he did the same, matching my energy.
Unlike me, he wasn’t really a drinker. I could tell by the way his eyes hung low that he was already faded.
He took another shot and then grabbed me by the hand to go on the dance floor.
Usually, I wasn’t the type, but since it was Mama Joyce’s wedding, I decided to show out.
The second we stepped onto the dance floor, a grin spread across my face.
The music was loud, the crowd was hyped, and for the first time all night, I felt completely carefree.
I threw my hands up and started moving to the beat.
Crow stepped in behind me, his hands settling lightly on my waist as he started moving to the beat.
Laughing, I threw it back against him, rolling my hips while the music pulsed through the speakers.
He matched every move, his chest brushing my back as we turned up together without a care in the world.
Every time I looked over my shoulder, he’d flash that cocky grin that made me laugh even harder, and before long, we had everyone around us hyping us up.
It was innocent, at least that’s what I kept telling myself.
We’d always joked around and had fun together, but this felt a little different.
Maybe it was the way he stayed so close without making it awkward, or maybe it was the way my stomach did the slightest flip whenever I caught him smiling at me.
Whatever it was, I pushed the thought away and kept dancing.
There was no point in overthinking something that probably meant nothing.
“Damn,” he laughed. “You been holding out on me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Boy, please.”
“Nah, for real. I ain’t know you could move like that.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
His gaze slowly traveled over me before settling back on my face.
“I can see that.”
The way he said it made heat creep up my neck.
“Keep looking and you’re gonna hurt yourself.”
“Trust me, sweetheart. Looking is the easiest thing I’ve done all night.”
I shook my head, but I couldn’t stop smiling. The liquor had us both feeling good, and for once neither of us seemed interested in fighting it.
The wedding was beautiful, but all it did was make me miss my sister. Before I knew it, I was standing outside Rose’s bedroom. Honestly, this was the first time I’d stepped foot in her room since she died.
The day after her funeral, I’d quietly closed the bedroom door and decided to leave everything exactly where it was. I couldn’t bring myself to pack up her life. It felt wrong, like moving her things would somehow make everything permanent.
I rested my hand on the doorknob for a second before slowly pushing the door open.
However, nothing had changed.
Her bed was still neatly made. A hoodie hung over the desk chair, and a pair of sneakers sat beside her dresser like she’d kicked them off before climbing into bed. Even the room still smelled like her vanilla perfume.
“Damn, Rose...”
My chest tightened as I walked over to her closet. The familiar scent of her perfume lingered on her clothes the moment I slid the closet door open.
For just a second, I could almost hear her voice. “Girl, stop going through my damn closet.”
A sad smile tugged at my lips. “I know... I know.”
I ran my fingers across a few of her jackets before kneeling toward the bottom shelf where she kept all her boots lined up.
“You had too many damn shoes.”
I pushed aside a few shoeboxes until I spotted the black combat boots she’d worn almost everywhere. Just as I reached for them, another shoebox resting on top slipped from the shelf and crashed onto the floor.
“Damn.”
The lid popped open, sending photographs, old movie ticket stubs, bracelets, birthday cards, concert wristbands, and little keepsakes scattering across the carpet.
I let out a small sigh and shook my head. “Still making a mess, huh?”
I knelt down and started picking everything up.
The first picture I grabbed made me smile despite the ache growing in my chest.
Rose and I couldn’t have been older than eight or nine. We were covered head to toe in mud after racing our bicycles through the neighborhood.
I chuckled.
“You ain’t never know how to stay outta trouble.”
Another picture showed us standing beside our very first motorcycles, grinning from ear to ear. We’d spent years saving every dollar we could just to buy those raggedy bikes, and to us they might as well have been brand new.
“You always did keep everything.”
As I reached for the last few keepsakes, a folded white envelope tucked beneath one of the photographs caught my attention.
I frowned. “I don’t remember seeing this.”
Curiosity got the better of me. I carefully slid whatever was inside into my hand.
A grainy black-and-white image stared back at me.
“What the...”
I lifted it closer, and my breathing stopped. It was a sonogram.
My eyes searched every inch of the blurry image before the truth crashed into me. Rose had been pregnant.
My fingers trembled around the edges of the picture as tears filled my eyes. She’d never gotten the chance to tell me. Never gotten the chance to become a mother. Then another memory came rushing back, and why she hesitated.
She hadn’t been looking at a security guard that day.
She’d been looking at another woman carrying a baby...
just like she was. That’s why she couldn’t bring herself to pull the trigger.
She knew exactly what that woman was trying to protect because she was protecting the same thing growing inside of her.
It hurt even more knowing my sister never got the chance to hold her unborn baby. And I never got the chance to hold my niece or nephew.
In the end, they both got shot.
Both mothers.
Both carrying babies.
And neither one of them made it home.