53. What we reap
WHAT WE REAP
T he second the gun went off, the world exploded.
Security flooded the room, shouting, boots pounding, bodies moving fast.
Mack was tackled hard, pinned before he even understood what had happened. His voice was lost in the chaos.
Spring didn’t see any of that. She was still on the floor.
“Preston—hey—hey, look at me,” she demanded, hands shaking as she pressed against his side, instinctively trying to stop what she couldn’t see. “Wake up, baby. Stay with me.”
His face was pale, sweat beaded at his hairline. But his eyes were open.
“Nubia,” he whispered. “I love you.”
Her breath stopped. “Don’t you do this. You hear me? You don’t get to leave. You’re Superman. Please, baby, don’t die on me. Please.”
Brian was already there, his calm cutting through her panic. “Okay,” he said firmly. “We’ve got an entry wound, heavy bleeding. Dr. Hale, I need pressure now.”
The coroner dropped to his knees beside him without hesitation, jacket off, hands steady.
“Compression here,” Brian instructed. “Elevate slightly. Don’t let him move.”
They worked in sync – efficient, precise. Brian checked responsiveness, breathing, pulse. “Stay with me, Preston,” Brian said. “Talk to me.”
Preston nodded weakly. “It… hurts.”
“That’s good,” Brian replied. “That means you’re still with us.”
Blood kept coming. Too much.
Brian looked up, decision already made. “We can’t wait for an ambulance. If we do, he won’t make it. My clinic is close.”
Talia was still crying, hands over her mouth, backing away as the crowd outside surged, panic spreading through the arena. Security funneled people out the back, lights flashing, voices shouting.
They lifted Preston carefully.
Spring refused to let go.
“I’m coming,” she announced, not asking.
Brian turned to her. “Spring, we don’t have time or space for you to ride with us. I need for Dr. Hale to work in the backseat if we’re gonna have any chance of saving him.” She hesitated, and Brian looked at her. “I love him, too. I’m going to do everything in my power to save him.”
They loaded him into the back of a vehicle, no sirens yet, no clearance. Just speed and desperation. Spring climbed into her car with Rae and Talia, driving directly behind them.
“I’m right here, baby,” she whispered over and over. “I’m not going anywhere. ”
Rae said nothing as she drove, holding her friend’s hand.
The city outside erupted. Traffic snarled. People stopped. Phones out. Confusion everywhere.
They took turns too tight, streets too narrow, the city suddenly an obstacle instead of a backdrop.
They pulled up to the clinic and moved fast.
They scrambled to turn the lights on, doors locked – controlled chaos.
Brian scrubbed in on instinct. The coroner followed suit, no words needed. “We’re going in,” Brian told her.
Preston, seeing Spring, tried to reach for her hand. She rushed to his side. “I love you,” he said again, faint now.
As Dr. Hale continued pressing the wound, she said, “You’re going to tell me that for the rest of our lives, okay? This isn’t the end.”
“We gotta go now,” Brian pressed.
They moved him into the back.
Spring, Rae, and Talia were left in the waiting room, hands clasped, tears silent.
Time stretching painfully thin. Talia paced the narrow stretch of floor, hands clasped tight, voice trembling as she prayed aloud.
“Lord, please… don’t take my baby. Not like this. Not today…”
Spring watched her, chest tight, something old and heavy stirring beneath the fear.
Talia stopped pacing suddenly and turned, tears streaking down her face.
“I gave him everything,” she said, voice cracking. “Everything. Every ounce of my life went into that boy. Every sacrifice. Every late night. Every dollar. You think this just happened by chance?”
Spring inhaled slowly, trying to hold the storm down—but it was already rising.
“You didn’t give him everything,” she said quietly.
Rae looked between them, sensing the shift.
Talia froze. “Excuse me?”
Spring stood now, hands trembling at her sides.
“You gave him pressure,” she said. “You gave him expectations. You gave him criticism when he needed comfort.”
Talia shook her head hard, anger rising through the grief.
“I made him strong,” she snapped. “That’s what mothers do. I protected him. I made sure nobody used him. Nobody controlled him.”
Spring let out a short breath that sounded too close to a laugh.
“Protected him?” she repeated. “By handing him over to people who only saw dollar signs?”
Talia stiffened. She charged towards her but was cut off by Rae who stood in her defense. Talia realizing the moment took a breath then,
“Don’t you dare act like you know what I sacrificed,” Talia said, voice sharp now. “You have no idea what it costs to build something like him. No idea what I gave up. What Mack gave up?—”
Spring’s head snapped up.
“Don’t,” she said, voice suddenly cold.
Talia blinked. “What?”
“Don’t even say his name,” Spring said, stepping closer now. “Not right now. Not in front of me. And I find it really fucking disturbing you just referred to your goddamn son as something. But I think that makes my point.”
Talia stared at her, stunned—not just at the anger, but at the certainty behind it.
Spring swallowed hard, voice trembling now—not from fear, but from years of buried disappointment.
“You know when I was young…” she said slowly, voice thick, “I used to look up to you.”
Talia didn’t move.
Spring’s voice dropped lower.
“I thought you were everything a mother was supposed to be. Strong. Fearless. The kind of woman who built greatness out of nothing.”
Her expression hardened.
“But look what you did to your son.”
The words landed heavy.
Unavoidable.
Talia’s face twisted, grief and anger colliding.
“Don’t you dare sit there and judge me little girl. I did what I had to do,” she whispered.
Spring shook her head.
“No,” she said quietly. “You did what you thought mattered most. Fame. Success. Control.”
Her voice cracked now.
“And somewhere in all that… you forgot to love him the way he needed to be loved.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Rae stepped forward slightly, unsure whether to intervene.
Talia’s shoulders sagged.
“I sacrificed everything for him,” she whispered. “Everything.”
Spring’s eyes filled, but still no tears fell.
“And he paid for it,” she said.
The words hung between them—sharp, final, impossible to take back.
Spring sunk into a chair, hands shaking as she pressed them together. “Please, God…” she whispered. “Please.”
Rae wrapped an arm around her. There was nothing else to say.
Inside the clinic, Brian worked with focus borne of years and urgency, sharpened by love. The coroner assisted, steady and precise.
Outside, the world waited.
Sirens finally sounded in the distance.
But inside that room, everything came down to one thing: God, bring him back.
And Spring didn’t stop believing – not for a second – that he would come back.
The doors stay closed longer than they should have.
Spring watched the clock without actually seeing it. The second hand kept moving like it was cruel, like it didn’t understand what was at stake.
Rae was praying now – quiet, desperate, the kind of prayer you say when you didn’t care who heard you anymore. Talia sat rigid, hands clenched in her lap, whispering her son’s name like it was a lifeline.
Spring didn’t cry.
Talia shook her head. “The first time I heard him sing, he was five years old. Sang Tony Terry’s ‘Everlasting love’.
He sounded beautiful, like an angel – hell, he sounded better than Tony Terry.
When he was done, I didn’t clap, I didn’t hug him.
I critiqued where he was off-key, where he could come in stronger. What kind of mother does that?”
Spring said nothing; she’d learned not to talk in moments like this. Absolution worked best when undeterred.
“When you came in his life,” Talia went on, talking directly to Spring now, “I… I didn’t like it.
You had his attention, and I guess in some way that made me jealous, but right now, in this moment, I realized you were the only person he ever had in his corner.
Lord help me, what have I done?” Talia began to cry again.
Spring didn’t say one word. She sat silent, still – like if she moved, something irreversible would happen.
Another hour passed before the doors finally opened.
Brian stepped out first. After years of knowing her friend, something knotted in the pit of her stomach.
Spring knew.
She didn’t need words – he hasn’t said anything yet. It was in his face. The way his shoulders sagged. The way his eyes couldn’t quite meet hers.
No.
“No,” she said before he spoke. “No, no. Brian…”
Brian swallowed hard. “Spring?—”
“He was talking to me,” she yelled at him. “He said he loved me. He was still here. You promised me.”
Brian closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “I’m so, so sorry,” he said quietly. “We did everything we could.”
The words landed, but they didn’t make sense yet. They just floated there, meaningless.
“Preston Cole is dead.”
The sentence cracked the room in half.
Spring felt no pain, just absence . Like somebody had reached into her chest and removed the future.
Her knees gave out. Rae caught her just in time, holding her as the sound finally escaped – raw, broken, animal. The kind of grief that didn’t care about dignity. “No,” Spring sobbed. “No, no, no – you promised me. You promised.”
Talia’s scream cut through everything, a sound so full of loss, it felt ancient. She collapsed into a chair, rocking, hands pressed to her face. “My baby,” she cried. “My baby.”
Spring couldn’t breathe. All she could see was him in the car. His voice. I love you.
All she could hear was the echo of it – over and over – like the world was cruel enough to keep replaying the last thing he gave her. “We just got married. I was supposed to grow old with him,” she whispered.
Brian knelt in front of her, voice shaking. “I know.”
“He was going to be a father,” she said, one hand instinctively on her stomach now, the reality crashing in so violently she gasped. “He was going to hold them. He was so excited.”
The room went quiet.
Rae’s breath caught.
Talia looked up, devastated all over again. “Oh God,” Talia whispered. “My son…”
Spring folded in on herself, grief finally consuming her whole body.
Outside, sirens wailed. Phones buzzed.
The world kept moving, unforgiving and loud. But inside that small clinic hallway, time stopped.
Preston Cole was gone.
And Spring Greene – wife, mother-to-be, woman who finally found home – was left holding the echo of a love that was too big, too pure, and taken far too soon.