17. Drew & Pretty
TWO WEEKS LATER
“Pretty!” I shouted as I raced across my yard. I was watering my plants when I heard something crash. I opened the gate connecting our yards. “Pretty?” I looked around her yard and slowly moved toward her studio.
I pushed the door open and looked for her, but all I saw were beautiful paintings in various stages of completion. I had never been inside of her studio, and I had seen her works before, but none of these. They were on a different level—full of emotion, pain, and yet beautiful.
“Pretty?” I called out again.
“Drew.” Her voice was weak and sounded pained, but where was it coming from?
I rushed out and to the other side of the studio to find her sprawled on the ground underneath a window; her leg was twisted at an odd angle. Her head rested against a rock, and there were speckles of blood on the rock.
“Pretty, what the hell happened?” I asked as I rushed to her side. I wanted to lift her into my arms, but I knew that might make the situation worse.
She tried to speak, but her eyelids fluttered. I pulled my phone from my coat pocket and dialed 911.
“Pretty, the ambulance is on the way. I don’t want to move you, baby girl, because I might make shit worse. Please hang in here with me.”
Her eyes rested on mine, and a sweet smile crossed her face. It scared the hell out of me, and I didn’t scare easily.
“Pretty, don’t do this shit. Aye, I ever tell you about the time I won the game when we were down by twelve points, and they counted us out? It was the Super Bowl.”
I launched into telling her the story I knew I’d never shared. My mind scrambled for ways to keep her focus on me. I succeeded until about two minutes before the ambulance arrived. I was ready to lose my shit when she closed her eyes and didn’t respond.
“Come on, girl. I can’t lose you, not when I just found you.”
It wasn’t about a potential loss of life. I wasn’t focused on the fact that she could lose her life. In reality, I didn’t believe she would, but there was something else going on in my mind that didn’t make sense. Something I didn’t have time to decipher.
“Mr. Jennings, I hate to disturb you, but can I get your autograph?”
I looked up at the young male intern holding out a pad and paper. I stifled back my initial response to tell him “Then don’t” in response to his “I hate to disturb you.”
I mugged him instead, and I knew he felt all my pent-up frustration in that one glance. An hour had passed, and I hadn’t heard a word about Pretty’s condition.
“I’ll tell you what. If you can get me news about Miss Jolie Mercier’s condition, then I can do you one better.”
“You can?” A na?ve expression lit his face. I had the thought that I might take a selfie with him and post it on my social media accounts with the hashtag #rudeassniggas. I decided that wasn’t cool. Besides, I wasn’t trying to exploit her situation.
“Yeah, get me the news I’m looking for, and I’ll give you that autograph and give you a shout out on my social media pages.”
“Bet,” he replied and scurried off to do my bidding.
I glanced up to see a group of people hustling into the space I was in. I knew who they were, but that was only because I spotted Mael leading the pack. I had met him when he came to her house to go house hunting.
His eyes landed on me, and his jaw clenched. He could believe what he wanted to about me, but I wasn’t on that shit now.
I stood. “Hey, Mael,” I greeted.
“Hey. Any word on how she’s doing?” he asked.
“Nah, not yet. I just sent an intern to figure it out, but they won’t tell me anything. Hopefully, he can get news soon,” I answered.
“Maybe we can find something out,” an older man stated from behind Mael as his green eyes assessed me.
Mael turned and introduced me to his family: his sister, Chloe; his parents, Yanis and Renee; and his brothers, Enzo and Maxime.
“How did you find her?” their mother, Renee, asked.
Pretty looked just like her mother except her body shape and coloring.
Her lighter, caramel color was several shades lighter than her mother’s deep, beautiful, mocha complexion.
I knew she must have gotten that from her father’s creamier, olive complexion.
Pretty said her father was mixed with black and white, and her mother was of Nigerian descent.
Where Pretty was slim but shapely, her mother was a thick, curvy woman, who looked damned good for her age.
“I went to check on her because I heard something crash, and I found her laying on the ground outside her studio.”
I wanted to spare some details, so I didn’t tell them about the rock. I figured the doctor could do that when he gave an official update.
When the ambulance arrived, I’d gone into her house and searched for her phone.
I knew there was someone she needed me to call.
By the time I got to the hospital, I had finally decided on Mael.
I knew nothing about her family relationships and didn’t want to create an uncomfortable situation for her.
I did know that Mael was cool with her, so I figured he could decide who to call from there.