Chapter 49 Mehar
MEHAR
Janelle was right. She was always right.
I left the session feeling lighter than I had in days, which wasn’t saying much because the bar was underground.
But she’d walked me through the breakup with Quest without judgment, without telling me I was wrong or he was wrong, just helping me see the situation from both sides.
She’d said that his reaction came from a place of deep wounding and that my refusal to quit came from a place of self-preservation and that two people operating from pain at the same time will almost always collide instead of connect.
“Neither of you is the villain in this,” she’d said. “You’re both just protecting the parts of yourselves that have been hurt the most.”
She’d also asked me about how I was sleeping and eating and whether I’d been keeping up with my journaling.
I hadn’t. She told me to start again tonight, even if it was just three sentences.
‘Write what you’re feeling without editing it,’ she’d said.
‘Let the page hold it so your body doesn’t have to.
After the session, I ran errands to keep my mind occupied.
Grocery store for things I didn’t need. Target for candles and a new journal.
I stopped at a coffee shop on Connecticut Ave and sat by the window for an hour scrolling apartments on Zillow and pretending I was okay.
Then I drove to the school to check on my enrollment status for next semester because forward motion was the only medicine I trusted.
By the time I pulled into the hotel parking garage, it was early evening and the sun was cutting through the concrete levels in long orange slashes.
I found my usual spot on the second level near the elevator.
The garage was quiet, most of the spaces empty.
I turned off the engine and sat there for a second, checking my phone.
A text from Zainab asking how I was doing.
A missed call from Bryce. A CashApp notification from a client tribute I hadn’t opened yet.
I grabbed my purse and opened the car door.
I didn’t hear them. Didn’t see them. Something hard cracked against the back of my skull and my vision split in two.
My knees hit the concrete and before I could scream a hand grabbed my braids and slammed my face into the side of my car.
I tasted blood and felt my body being dragged and then there was nothing.