Chapter 35 Mehar
Mehar
Mrs. Pak dismissed us early because half the class failed the practical on microdermabrasion and she needed a minute to compose herself before she said something she couldn’t take back. Her exact words were “I need to go pray for patience before I lose my license.” I respected it.
I was packing up my kit when I noticed Shayla at the station next to mine.
She was pulling her sleeves down over her wrists but not fast enough.
I saw the bruises. Dark and raised, the kind that settle deep into brown skin and don’t fade for weeks.
Maybe four or five days. And the concealer under her left eye was good but not good enough because I’d spent years hiding the same marks with the same techniques and I could spot the blend line from across the room.
“Shayla.”
She looked up and smiled but it was that fake smile I recognized because I used to wear the same one. It’s the one that doesn’t reach your eyes but says, “ I’m fine” when nothing about your life is fine.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine.” Her voice cracked on the second word and her eyes filled up and the smile collapsed and she shook her head. “I’m fine, Mehar. Really.”
“You don’t have to be fine with me.”
She wiped her eyes fast and looked around to make sure nobody else was watching. “It’s not what you think.”
“I’m not thinking anything. I’m just telling you that when you’re ready to leave him, let me know and I’ll help. No judgment, no pressure, no timeline. Just whenever you’re ready. But you should get ready soon. Because it only gets worse from here.”
She looked at me for a long time. Shayla was twenty-three, sweet, quiet, the type of girl who stayed after class to help Mrs. Pak clean up because she genuinely liked it.
She had dreams of starting her own skincare line specifically for Black girls dealing with acne because she’d struggled with it her whole life and hated that every product on the shelf didn’t fully address hyperpigmentation.
She was smart and kind and talented and she was going home to a man who put bruises on her wrists and made her practice concealer application for reasons that had nothing to do with beauty school.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“I mean it, Shayla. Whenever you’re ready. You got my number.”
She nodded and I squeezed her hand and left it there because pushing too hard pushes people back into the arms of the person hurting them.
I learned that the hard way. You have to let them come to you on their own clock even when every cell in your body is screaming at you to drag them out the door.
I walked to the parking lot and got in the new SUV Quest had replaced the old one with. New driver too. Luke. He was older than Davis, quieter, ex-military. I missed Davis every time I got in this truck but I couldn’t think about that right now without falling apart.
I sent Quest a text asking how he was feeling.
Just a few days ago he had gotten the vasectomy reversal.
I knew he said he would but I couldn’t believe he was taking these steps to have a baby with me.
From the day I got to know him through Prime and Zainab it was clear that he was not about that having a family life.
But he wanted it with me. And after everything I’d been through, I wanted it with him.
I thought I would spend my days punishing men in my dungeon.
That I would just be single and living it up alone.
He came along and showed me that I could have something different.
True love. He had opened me up in ways that I never thought imaginable.
And I knew I did the same for him. I couldn’t wait to get married and have his babies. A sentence I thought I’d never say.
Quest: I’m good. Just getting some work done from home. I checked out the list of places you like. We can go see them this weekend.
Me: I can’t wait.
I had Luke take me to Bryce’s apartment off of Georgia Ave. I hadn’t seen my brother in a couple of weeks and Samaya was due any day now and I wanted to check on them and drop off the money I’d been putting together from my savings and the cash Quest gave me without me asking for it.
Bryce opened the door with a Glock tucked in his waistband and his eyes scanning the hallway behind me before he let me in.
The apartment was small and tense. Samaya was on the couch looking like she was ready to pop any second, her feet up on a pillow and her face set in an expression that had nothing to do with the pregnancy and everything to do with the man standing in front of me.
“You still walking around with that gun?” I asked him.
“Until I know for sure Mekhi ain’t coming for me, yeah.”
“I told you, the truce is real. Quest handled it. Mekhi gave his word he’s leaving you alone.”
“Mekhi’s word don’t mean shit to me. That nigga wanted to put a bullet in my head three weeks ago.”
“His word,” Samaya said from the couch without looking up, “don’t mean shit to nobody. Just like yours don’t mean shit when you told me you were gonna get a real job and take care of this baby.”
The room got tight. Bryce’s jaw clenched and he looked at the floor and I could see the weight pressing down on him. This wasn’t just about Mekhi or safety. This was a young man with no income, no crew, a baby coming, and a girlfriend who was losing patience with him by the hour.
“I’m working on it, Samaya.”
“Working on it how? You sit in this apartment all day with a gun in your pants watching the door. That ain’t working on it. That’s hiding. I need a man who provides, Bryce. I need someone who goes to work and comes home and handles his business. Not someone who’s scared of his own shadow.”
“I ain’t scared of nothing.”
“Then why you won’t go outside? Why don’t you get Mekhi before he gets you!”
I stepped between them because this was about to go somewhere it didn’t need to go. “Samaya, he’s being cautious. There’s a difference.”
“There’s no difference when the rent is due and the fridge is empty.” She shifted on the couch and winced from the movement. “And my brother is in prison because of those Banks people and nobody’s doing anything about it. Keyvon is sitting in a cell and Bryce won’t even do anything about it.”
“I told Keyvon not to go to that casino,” Bryce said, his voice tight. “I told him and Jerome both. They didn’t listen. They went in there hot because of Dimonte and now they’re locked up. That’s not on me.”
“He’s my brother!”
“And he shot up a building full of innocent people! What do you want me to do about that?”
Samaya turned her face away and crossed her arms over her belly. The room was quiet except for the sound of traffic outside and the hum of a refrigerator that probably didn’t have much in it.
I sat down next to Bryce at the kitchen table and lowered my voice. “What do you need?”
“I need a job, sis. For real. Mega’s dead, the Vipers are done.
Whatever was left of the crew scattered when word got out.
I got no income, no connects, and a baby coming any day.
I can’t keep living off what you bring me.
” He looked at his hands. “Can you ask Quest if he’s got something for me?
Anything. I’ll do warehouse work, deliveries, I don’t care. I just need something legit.”
I looked at my little brother. He was asking me to ask the man he’d robbed and burned for a job. That took more courage than anything he’d ever done with the Vipers. Courage or sheer stupidity.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said. “I can’t promise anything but I’ll ask.”
“Thank you.”
“And take that gun out of your pants before you shoot your dick off. You’re gonna need it.”
He almost smiled. Almost.
Samaya made a sound from the couch that wasn’t part of the argument. A sharp intake of breath followed by a groan that came from somewhere deep. She grabbed her belly with both hands and her eyes went wide.
“Bryce.”
“What?”
“It’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“THE BABY, brYCE. IT’S TIME.”
The next twenty minutes were chaos. Bryce couldn’t find the hospital bag Samaya had packed two weeks ago because he’d moved it to make room for something and couldn’t remember where.
Samaya was cursing him out between contractions while I found the bag in the closet behind a stack of Jordan boxes.
Luke drove us to the hospital because Bryce’s car was out of commission.
And Samaya was gripping my hand in the backseat so tight I thought she might break my fingers.
They took her back and I sat in the lobby and waited. I texted Quest: “Samaya’s in labor. I’m at the hospital with Bryce.” He responded: “Tell lil bro congratulations.”
Three hours later Bryce came through the double doors looking like a different person. The fear was gone, the tension was gone, and what was left was something I’d never seen on my little brother’s face before. Wonder. Pure, unfiltered wonder.
“It’s a girl,” he said. “She’s healthy. Seven pounds, four ounces. We’re naming her Skai.”
“Skai.” I stood up and hugged him and he held on tight. “That’s beautiful, Bryce.”
“You wanna see her?”
He took me back to the room. Samaya was in the bed looking exhausted and softer than I’d ever seen her.
Whatever anger she’d been carrying at the apartment had been replaced by something bigger.
She was holding a bundle wrapped in that white blanket with the pink and green stripes, while staring down at it with an expression that told me every fight she’d ever had with Bryce and every fear she’d ever carried had just been made irrelevant by seven pounds and four ounces of baby girl.
“She’s perfect,” Samaya said without looking up.
I walked over and looked down at my niece. Skai Ali. Tiny face, full head of dark hair, fists curled up by her cheeks. She was sleeping with that newborn frown that babies make when the world is too bright and too loud and they haven’t decided if they like it here yet.
I touched her hand and her fingers wrapped around my pinky and something inside my chest shifted. Not broke, not cracked. Shifted. Like a door opening into a room I didn’t know was there.
I thought about the world this baby was entering.
A world where Shayla hid bruises under concealer and went to class pretending to be fine.
A world where Khadijah couldn’t leave a house in Baltimore because of secrets she couldn’t tell.
A world where Serenity spent her twenties being passed between men who used her body as currency.
A world where I shot my ex-husband five times and still had nightmares about what he did to me before I pulled the trigger.
And I thought about my own daughters. The ones I didn’t have yet but could feel waiting for me somewhere in the future. Girls with Quest’s stubbornness and my fight. Girls who would grow up in a world that wasn’t safe for them unless somebody made it safe.
I was tired of watching women get hurt. Tired of being one of them.
Tired of surviving violence and calling it strength when what it really was is exhaustion dressed up in resilience.
I didn’t just want to survive anymore. I wanted to build something that kept other women from having to fight to survive.
I didn’t know what it looked like yet. A shelter, a foundation, a program, something. But standing in that hospital room holding my niece’s hand, I decided I was going to figure it out. For Skai. For Shayla. For Khadijah. For Serenity. For the daughters I hadn’t had yet but was already protecting.
I kissed Skai’s forehead and told Bryce I was proud of him and hugged Samaya and walked out of that hospital into the late afternoon sun feeling different than when I walked in.
Not heavier. Lighter. Like something I’d been carrying for years had finally been given a name and a direction and a reason.