10. Clover
10
Clover
C alling River’s phone one more time, I received the exact same results as I had the last four times. No answer. My girl was hurting something bad after coming to the realization that her father had indeed molested her when she was a child. When I got to her house after DaVinci asked me to check on her, she was a bawling mess. She couldn’t even get any words out for the first fifteen minutes. It was a struggle to get her to calm down but eventually, she did. That’s when she told me that DaVinci’s words were like a wrecking ball that destroyed the wall that kept those memories hidden. It unlocked everything for her, and she wasn’t handling it well at all. She remembered her father molesting her as early as the age of 4. That was by far the sickest shit I’d ever heard, but I wanted to support her in any way that I could.?
After spending the whole day with her, she assured me she was fine and just needed time to process. That was yesterday, and I hadn’t been able to get in contact with her since. I texted her this morning to see if maybe she wanted to go walking with me on a trail or something just to get some fresh air and there was no response. Just like me, she had her read receipts on, so I knew that she saw it. I wanted to respect her space but at the same time, I was highly concerned.?
“Riv, please call me back. I’m starting to get worried about you,” I pleaded to her voicemail before hanging up.
The longer I sat on the couch, the longer my gut was nagging me to get up and go to her house. DaVinci had been out of the house since earlier because he had an art buyer to meet with and the last thing I wanted to do was worry him. Especially if there was nothing really wrong. Five more minutes passed before I rolled off the couch and slid my feet into my Coach slides. Grabbing the keys to Vinny’s G-Wagon, I left the house and hopped into his truck. On the way to River’s house, I called her two more times and still nothing.
When I pulled up and parked, I jumped out in a hurry. I began to get extremely nauseous the closer I got to the door. I banged on the door for a good thirty seconds with no answer. I didn’t have a key nor a code to her door, so I had no choice but to call DaVinci. I hated to bother him while he was handling business. This was a dire situation though.
“Wassup, my baby?” He answered after the second ring.
“Hey, bae, what’s your code to River’s door?”
“My birthday,” he responded, and his tone shifted with his next set of words. “Why? What’s wrong?”
Punching in his birthday, I heard the lock coming undone. “I’m sure it’s nothing. She’s just not answering the phone, and I got a little worried,” I answered in a calm, even kill tone so that I didn’t get him worked up.
“I’m on my way,” he quickly hung up.
Sucking my teeth, I put my phone in the pocket of Vinny’s sweatpants that I was wearing. “River!” I shouted her name after being met with complete silence.
I paused to see if I could hear anything before proceeding around her house. Maybe she wasn’t home. Trudging up the stairs, I noticed the sound of running water. Okay, she was in the shower.
“Sista girl!” I called out again after pushing her bedroom door open. “It’s me, Clo. You weren’t answering so I came over.” Silence. “River?” More silence.
Listening to the water run, it occurred to me that it wasn’t a shower but a bath. The sounds were different. It also sounded as if the water was falling on the floor.
“River!” I gasped after opening the bathroom door and seeing her submerged in her tub. “What the fuck did you do?!” I screamed, rushing to the tub and turning the water off. “Fuck! C’mon!”
I reached into the cold ass water and struggled to pull her out. She seemed to weigh a lot more than she looked. Or I was just a weak bitch, one of the two. As I got her out, I didn’t notice anything obvious like cut marks on her wrists, so I wasn’t sure if she was purposely tryna hurt herself or what the hell happened. She was naked and there wasn’t anything that visibly told me she was doing this on purpose.
“River!” I felt for a pulse but didn’t really sense one. “No, not to-fuckin-day!” I immediately began CPR on her, pressing as hard as I could on her chest. “Bitch, I swear if you don’t open your eyes!”
I was trying to remain as calm as I could while performing CPR, but my heart felt like it was about to fall out of my chest. Just as I started to lose my shit, water came flying out of River’s mouth as she choked and coughed. Her eyes flickered open, and I breathed out a heavy sigh of relief.
“River, what happened?” I inquired, rolling her on her side to ensure she didn’t asphyxiate on her own spit.
She burst out crying and screaming. “Why did you save me?!”
“W-w-what?” I stammered in shock.
“I wanted to die!” She sobbed from her core. “I wanted to fuckin’ dieeeee!”
My heart shattered for her. It was so blatant how broken she was, and that broke me. “River.”
“No! I don’t wanna feel like thissss,” she wailed, sliding herself away from me. “Just let me die!”
“Ri, I can’t do that. And whatever is making you feel like this, we can work through it.”
“No we can’t!” She screeched, and her eyes suddenly went wide. “Get out!”
Turning around, I saw DaVinci standing in the doorway of the bathroom. His saddened eyes glanced at me before peeking back over at River.
“Baby, just give us a minute,” I gently coached him. “I got her.”
I didn’t miss the hurt in his eyes either. Everybody was so damn hurt and there was only so much I could do about it. I wasn’t born to do shit like this, but I was gon’ do whatever to make sure Vinny and my new family were good. He nodded a little before disappearing. Returning my attention to River, I eased to my feet and grabbed a towel from the cabinet in her bathroom.
“C’mon, sis,” I extended my hand in her direction. “C’mon, let’s get up.”
“Nooooooo,” she was crying so hard that she could barely catch her breath.
Squatting down, I blew out a sigh. “River, listen to me. The pain that you’re feeling is temporary. I’m not gonna let you lay here and die. Why do you think you survived that shooting? It’s clear that God has a purpose for you. Someone tried to kill you, and you tried to kill yourself, and you still have air in your lungs. What that tell you? Your mission on Earth isn’t complete, and God isn’t ready for you just yet. Now, get up.”
She was battered and broken, and I could see it deep in her eyes, but she finally sat up. Rising back up, I once again extended my hand in her direction. With shaky hands, she put one of hers into mine, and I helped her stand, immediately wrapping the thick towel around her body.
“I know,” I soothingly rubbed her back after she broke down crying on my shoulder. “I told you, I got you until you got yourself, and I meant that shit. I need you, River. Your niece needs you. You can’t leave us. I love you so much,” I whispered, fighting back my own round of tears. “Did you take anything, Ri?”
She shook her head up and down, crying even harder. “Y-yes.”
“Vinny!” I called for him, figuring he was lurking close by.
“Yeah?” He popped back in within seconds.
“Call the ambulance. She needs to go to the hospital and possibly get her stomach pumped. Tell them to keep it quiet getting here and transporting her,” I ordered, attempting to protect River’s privacy at all costs.
“Aight,” he didn’t hesitate.
Carefully walking her out of the bathroom so that we didn’t slip and bust our ass, I made her quickly get dressed. DaVinci was still in the room, but she wouldn’t even look in his direction. Even when he tried to speak to her, she acted like he wasn’t even there. Sending Lake and Brooke a text, I told them to meet us at the hospital. I needed all the help I could get.
“This all my fault,” DaVinci whispered while we were sitting in the waiting area.
River’s stomach had been successfully pumped, but she was undergoing a psych eval. And understandably so. The last thing any of us wanted or needed was for her to go home and attempt to do something like this again.
“What is?” I squinted at him.
“This,” he gestured around him. “All of this. I fucked my family up. My grandfather left me as head of this family because he thought I could lead us and look what the fuck I’ve done. Lake will barely talk to me, River can’t stand the sight of me, and I’ve killed both of our parents,” he rested his face in his hands and loudly groaned. “My baby sister just tried to take her own fuckin’ life because of me.”
“She tried to take her life because of the pain your father inflicted on her. That ain’t have shit to do with you.”
He glared at me with his eyes glossed over in tears. “ I opened that door for her. I reminded her of the pain. She would’ve gone on living her life like nothing ever happened if it wasn’t for me.”
“It needed to be talked about, DaVinci. If it wasn’t with you then who knows, maybe down the line when she had her own kids, the trauma would’ve come out and ruined their lives. She probably would’ve been a helicopter mom and not let them do shit, not even realizing that her own childhood trauma was the reason why,” I tried to rationalize the issue with him. “She had to deal with this eventually, honey.”
“Yeah, fuck this,” he hissed, getting up and storming down the hall.
“I got him,” Lake interjected just as I was about to follow Vinny. “Stay here with Brooke. Text me if there’s any updates.”
I wanted to console my husband, but I was very aware that he and Lake needed to have a conversation, too. Nodding my head, I slid down to where Brooke was and took a seat.
“I can’t believe all of this is going on. One thing after another,” she struck up a conversation, sliding her hands up and down her pants leg.
“It’s a lot happening, but if there’s anything I learned so far from being around this family is that everyone is tough. We’ll all get through this, I have no doubts about that.”
“Do you think their bond will ever be the same?” Brooke looked at me with hopeful eyes. “Between any of them?”
“With a lil’ time and a lot of therapy, yes, eventually everything will be back to normal,” I answered honestly.
She sniffled and wiped the tears that fell. “They need each other, Clover. Whether they want to admit it or not, the three of them need one another, so I hope you’re right. Lake is no good without River but for damn sure not without DaVinci. He looks up to him, a lot , so I really hope they can bounce back from this.”
I nodded but kept the rest of my thoughts to myself. Knowing that Lake didn’t know that DaVinci was responsible for their father’s death weighed on my conscious. When DaVinci told me that Lake had no idea about what happened between him, River, and their dad, I encouraged him to tell Lake.
The longer he kept that information from him, the worse it would be once it was revealed. DaVinci was actually scared to tell Lake because he knew that would add fuel to the fire. It wasn’t my place to open my mouth to anyone. All I could do was hope and pray that DaVinci did the right thing by Lake and finally bring him into the loop of the bigger picture.