Page 55 of Between Passion and Revenge, Part One (The Griot Chronicles #1)

SHAE

H appy by Clinique wraps around me before my mother’s arms do. I’ve been in bed for almost a full day, and my mom cuddling behind me is a better anchor than a weighted blanket any day.

At first, I took to bed from overwhelming emotions.

Once Yennifer and Ezra pulled me off the bathroom floor where I’d collapsed into tears after receiving not one, not two, but four positive pregnancy tests, Yenn’d plugged my details into a pregnancy tracker website and determined that I’m approximately eight weeks pregnant.

Oh, and the baby is the size of a raspberry.

But now I can’t get out of bed because it’s hit me that I’m twenty-three, pregnant, and I have no idea where the hell my baby’s father is. He was supposed to call me, but he never did.

Nor is he answering my calls.

Is it because I’d asked him to move with me to Boston?

Ezra foretold it. I’m in a Tyler Perry production.

“Yennifer didn’t tell me anything except that you needed help, so I came as soon as I could. But I have to be honest, baby, I’m thinking the worst.”

I sniff, biting my lip to keep myself from crying again. I’m pretty sure if I tried to produce more tears, my tear ducts would simply revolt.

I click the side button on the phone that hasn’t left my palm the entire night. Still no word from Storm.

While I didn’t tell him the news that he knocked me up via text, I did send him a text or two or thirteen letting him know I needed him and it was important.

So what’s so important in his world that he can’t call me back?

That’s because he doesn’t actually care.

Storm’s face when I asked him to come with me to Harvard has my tears starting up again, and they fall into my pillow.

“Is it about that boy you’ve been seeing?”

I sniff but manage to nod my head.

“Did he hurt you?”

I shake my head, but then think better of it and nod, before shaking my head again.

“Physically? Emotionally? Some…other kind of way?” An edge of tension starts to stew in my mom’s tone, so I pull my big girl panties up and roll over to face her.

“Nothing like that,” I say, breathing out heavily through my mouth since my nose is clogged.

Then, like the mother she is, she reaches past me to snag a Kleenex from the box I’d taken to bed with me and wipes my eyes and nose for me.

Which starts another set of tears.

“Shae,” she says, her brows creasing and now moving into the space of alarm. “What’s going on? Please tell me, honey.”

“You’re going to be so disappointed in me…I’m pregnant.”

I release the words in a rush, not allowing myself to stop and try to make the raw truth prettier.

It is what it is.

I’m pregnant outside of wedlock, which is something my super-religious parents always posed as a near unpardonable sin—especially since their lives were irreparably changed when the same happened to them.

But Mom surprises me when she hugs me tighter and makes a happy sound.

“Shae Rivers! I could never be disappointed in you. Are you kidding? You’re having a baby! My grandbaby!”

I stare at her in shock until she places a smacking kiss on my cheek.

“Shae, I love you. This is a wonderful thing,” she says.

I have to tell her the truth.

“I’m not sure I want to keep it.”

The silence that falls is so thick I could choke on it, but Mama still maintains her unjudging expression.

“Okay. It’s okay not to be sure. Do you want to talk it out with me?”

Yes. No.God, it feels terrible having this discussion without Storm present. Without him even knowing I’m pregnant with his baby.

Still, I nod and turn around fully, pressing into my mama as if doing so would solve all the world’s problems.

“There are so many layers to this,” I say, and Mama hums and starts rubbing my back.

“Okay, let’s peel them back one at a time,” she replies.

I blow out a breath, warming the space between our bodies.

“Well, there’s the issue of Harvard,” I start, leaving the opening for her to tell me what to do about that.

“Well, what are the concerns and options there?”

Of course she’s going to make me work through my own conclusions.

“The concern is how is it at all possible for me to start graduate school at one of the most rigorous programs in the nation in a few short months? Especially when a few months after that, I would give birth?”

She hums again, processing the problem.

“That is a pickle. So what are some options?”

I bite my lip.

“I guess I could…” run into the night and hide forever? “I guess I could maybe defer a semester or a year. That way, I’ll have time to adjust to everything before adding in the stress of school.”

Mama nods. “Okay, and what else is a concern in this scenario?”

I clear my throat and try to sniff again.

“Well,” I start. “There’s the issue that Harvard is fu— um, freakin’ hard. So there’s the issue of how I’ll do schoolwork and take care of a baby?”

She nods again.

“You’re right. That’s impossible without help.”

Now it’s my turn to hum.

“You know your father and I will be there for you.”

I jolt. Daddy is going to shit a brick.

“Hey,” Mama says, tilting my chin up. “You leave your father to me. He’ll come around. He doesn’t have much room to talk, after all. Considering how you got here.”

She taps my nose with the tip of her index finger, and I smile, but it doesn’t quite land right.

“So yes. I need some help if I decide to go that way.”

Mama nods.

“Maybe…with Storm’s help?” She’s gentle when she touches on the topic, and I clutch at my phone again, making it light up.

No new notifications.

Still.

“I think that maybe…um…I don’t know where Storm is with things.”

More tears come then, and I know she wants to ask more questions, but instead, she just keeps rubbing my back as I choke through my tears.

When the sobs slow, she says, “You’re forgetting the biggest question of all, Shae.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“What do you want? Not me, not your dad, not that Sandoval boy. What do you want? Do you want to be a mom right now? Do you want to go to Harvard? What is it that you want—just for you?”

I look up at her then, my chin trembling. “I don’t…I don’t know what I want, Mama.”

Except Storm. I want Storm desperately.

But he’s not here.

“Well, baby,” she says, stroking my face. “You’re in a big girl problem now, which means you’re gonna have to figure that out, and soon.”

I sniff again, nodding slowly. She’s right. I know she’s right. Why am I so afraid of making a decision?

Storm should be here.

“But lucky for you, I can be here to hold you while you figure it out. Because I’m always going to be here to support you, honey. Whatever you decide.”

I smile then, the first smile I’ve truly felt since looking at those pink lines.

“How did I get so lucky to have a mama like you?” I ask.

She pulls me closer. “God always gives you what you need.”