Chapter Kahlani
KAHLANI
The last thing I wanted to do was sit in a court room.
But I couldn’t miss my preliminary hearing.
So, I didn’t have a choice. I would’ve much rather been at the hospital waiting for them to bring Moses out of the coma.
If I had missed court though, they would put a warrant out for my arrest. Reluctantly, I left Moses’ bedside.
He was still out, but I wanted to be the first face that he saw when they woke him up.
There was such an eerie feeling over me.
I didn’t understand what was happening to me and my family.
They say that you go through the worst storm right before your blessing.
Yet, my vision was blurry. I couldn’t see whether this was a blessing on its way or hell that I put myself in because of bad decisions.
“How much time can I get if I just plead guilty?”
The public defender assigned to my case looked at me like I was crazy. He was a white older man. Therefore, his face flushed red as he thought about it. “Are you sure that you want to do that?”
I looked into those ocean blue eyes and nodded my head.
I knew that I was giving up. Yet, after seeing Moses lay in that bed appearing lifeless, I didn’t have any energy to fight.
“Yes,” I finally answered. Even though in my heart I felt like what I was doing was right, I prayed to God that I was doing the right thing; that it wouldn’t come back and smack me in the face.
“How much time can I get?” I asked again.
“You don’t have a record. The least you can get is probation.”
“And the most that I can get?”
“Five or six years. You would have to do at least half that time.”
I leaned against the wall of the hallway. The public defender and I were waiting there for court to start. I was hiding my face behind the black scarf wrapped around my neck to hide from the cold in the old building.
All I could think about was Moses, though. Ever since he got shot, my mind hadn’t been clear, and I couldn’t concentrate on a thing.
Then word about Carlos’ murder broke in the early morning hours while we were still sitting in that hospital.
It was heartbreaking seeing the hardest thugs I knew completely break down in sobs.
Men who had stood ten toes in the streets their whole lives, who never showed fear or pain, were breaking down like little boys who’d just lost their first hero.
My heart even went out to Rah. For all the things I didn’t like about him, for all the ways I thought he was reckless, I could see the devastation in his face.
Carlos wasn’t just another man from the block; he was family to them, blood or not.
But watching all of that only made my own fear worse.
If Carlos could be taken like that, in the blink of an eye, what chance did Moses have?
He was lying a few rooms away, cut open and fighting for his life.
The thought of losing him clawed at me until I could barely breathe.
I couldn’t imagine walking out of that hospital without him.
The pain I saw in those men’s faces reminded me just how close I was to wearing that same look, and it terrified me.
I didn’t care about these charges anymore. I just wanted it to go away. I just wanted Moses to be okay.