Page 36

Quasim

“Through the fire” by Chaka Khan played lowly, and for a minute, I imagined this was what Heaven was like.

My eyes felt heavy as I tried to open them and focus on the room.

Ramos had removed me from the ventilators, and I wanted to tell him to keep them in.

I couldn’t tell which was worse, keeping them in or removing them.

My throat felt raw.

Like I had been deep throating bark from a tree trunk.

Pause.

You would think drinking something would make the shit feel better. It made me not want to drink because the feeling was uncomfortable. Then they had the speech pathologist assess my swallowing abilities, which made me feel fucking weird as shit.

She said that I could eat regular food, but to be on the safe side and start with soups and liquids. Every time I opened my eyes, my baby was right there with a bowl, ready to shove soup down my throat.

It was hard laying in this bed, though it was needed. My mind wanted me to get up and hit the road running. Every muscle in my brain was telling me to snap out this shit and get back to handling business.

My body said otherwise.

Every time I lifted a limb, moved my head or even opened my eyes, the shit felt like torture.

I remember when Harley told me everything hurts, and her body felt like bricks.

At the time, I didn’t think she was dramatic, but I couldn’t envision what she was going through.

As I remained in this bed, I knew exactly how she felt.

Your mind wanted you to push through it and move on, while your body was struggling to get back to what felt normal.

Whatever the fuck that was.

My eyes finally stopped fighting against me and remained open as I focused on my father and mother dancing in the middle of the room.

Shit.

Maybe I was fucking dead. The sun came crashing down onto them, almost like it was focusing only on them. They were the focal point, and they deserved the shine that the sun was providing for them.

My chest burned and I wanted to laugh because it reminded me of when I was a child. The two of them would dance all the time, and Blaze would come running in the middle, wanting to dance with them. As we became older, the dancing became less and less, but the love for music was still there.

Our lives had gone through the fire, and even when those flames became too hot, we still remained untouched, unburned, and unbroken. My mother stared up into my father’s eyes like he was her entire world.

He was.

Through everything, she never stopped staring at him like that. Even when she couldn’t remember, or when she mixed me and Blaze up, she never forgot him.

As they swayed, he stared down into her eyes, letting her know that she was his, too. Nothing moved without her. He held my mother on a pedestal that no one could ever reach. She was his queen and had been, way before I became King Inferno.

“Still can’t catch the beat,” I said lowly, my voice scratchy.

They both turned to look at me and smiled while still in step with the song playing. “When you get yo’ lazy ass out that bed, say that shit to my face.” He grinned, kissing my mother’s temple.

She came over toward my side of the bed and rubbed my face. “Como está seu peito?”

“Eu vou ficar bem,” I assured her, and she gave me that motherly look.

I watched as she gripped the bed’s railing and looked away. “You are not superman, Quasim… you could have…” she didn’t finish her sentence because she walked toward the window.

My father remained where she had left him, and he looked over at me.

“She’s right, Pop. I know I have put a lot of pressure on you being the oldest. When your mom’s health declined, I gave up and allowed you and Gams to take over…

you always had to look out for your brother, step into your new position and I never gave you the chance to fuck up. ”

“Pops—”

“I don’t give a fuck about what you gonna say. Blaze got to have a life, fuck up, and then get everything he wanted. You never got the chance… shit was taken from you. Life was so unfair to you, Pop.” He sniffled.

His ass wasn’t emotional at all, so seeing him hang his head and avoid looking at me, I knew he was fucked up. My mother removed herself from the window and held her arms out, and my father walked over toward her, resting his head down on her shoulder while she held him as tight as she could.

“Quin, this is not your fault,” she whispered. “It’s mine.”

“The fuck?” I started choking as I was trying to raise up out this bed. “You were failed, mommy… fucking failed. This shit ain’t your fault and not yours, either. Ya’ll did what you had to do, and I did what I had to do…do,” I continued to choke.

“We all did what we had to do for this family with no regrets and no shame. We protect our own and that is what we did and will continue to do. I don’t want to hear this mess anymore,” Gams entered the room, coming over to put the pink basin on the table next to my bed.

All of us remained quiet because when she spoke, we all listened. “Gams?—”

“Quinton, you may have come to me grown, but I raised you. You have loved my daughter correctly from the moment that you saw her. Have you both been through some crazy mess? Yes. But you remained. When you could have run, you remained and still loved on her. Where you fell short, you raised your boys not to. You have shown the love you have for your boys… taking out your brother is not something that is easy, and I don’t care how easy you make it seem.

Where you fell short as an older brother, you have shown Moochie how to be the best big brother to Dumplin. ”

“You killed Red?” I bypassed everything that Gams was chatting about right now.

I tried to remove the blanket from me, and she held onto my hand. “Rest… you will not hop out this bed and ride a bike like we didn’t almost lose you,” she scolded.

“Where’s my wife?” I knew arguing with Gams was like going toe to toe with the devil. “And my brother?”

Although I had been awake, the only people I had seen besides Gams and my parents were Blair and Elijah. It was like nobody knew I was awake, or it felt like they were hiding me.

“I’m right here, baby,” she pulled the bathroom door closed behind her.

I looked at her. “By yourself?”

“By myself… I’m okay, Simmy.” She assured me as I held onto her hands.

Kissing her hand, I stared into her eyes and my chest became tight. Blair Inferno was my world and knowing the pain she endured always made me upset. Not knowing how many showers she had to take alone, not knowing if I would ever wake up.

I don’t know what the fuck I had been doing in life before she came along, but my chest was tight when she wasn’t around me. Yesterday, when she insisted on grabbing clothes for me because I had none, I never wanted her to leave.

Even when she kissed me on the lips, I never wanted her to remove her lips from mine. Imagine me being reunited with my daughter, something I had always wanted — had spent years dreaming about it — and the minute I had her in my arms, right where I had wanted to be, all I thought about was my wife.

I thought about her having to mourn me and lose someone else she loved. The thoughts brought tears to my eyes as I stared at her, never wanting to let her go. Never wanting to let her down or put her through losing me.

My body was worn and tired because I fought like hell to make it back to her and Elijah. We had all been broken and were only fixed when we were together. When it was the three of us, we were completed. The cracks would always remain, but that was what made us special.

“What hospital is this and where is Blaze?” I tried to lean up, and she quickly put more pillows behind my back. “What are you all not telling me?”

I touched my chest because I couldn’t even complete the thought. Before I went down, I remember Blaze being on the ground. “Simmy, you need to relax. Your blood pressure is elevated.”

“Is my brother fucking de?—”

“Don’t even say those words, Pop.” I heard his cool ass voice and turned my head slowly, with tears falling down my face.

He was on crutches with a smirk on his face, as he hobbled over toward me. “Elijah and B needed time with you… I wanted to respect that.”

“Although I told him that it wasn’t necessary.” Blair added.

He made it to my side of the bed and looked down. “Pop, I thought… thought I lost you,” his voice cracked as he looked up at me.

His eyes were red while he stared into mine. “Never going anywhere… always right here. I made you that promise, right?”

My pops let the side railing down and Blaze came closer, leaning his crutch onto the side of the bed. I held my arm out, although that shit felt like it weighed twenty pounds. As gently as he could, Blaze tossed his arms around me and held onto me tightly.

“Don’t do the shit to me again, King,” He sniffled, and I squeezed him as much as I could as his locs brushed against my face.

We embraced, never letting each other go because I wasn’t ready to do that yet. The seconds before he came into the room had been the worst few seconds of my life. Imagining a world without my brother wasn’t something I was ready to do.

“This is what you did. You may have not experienced it yourself, but you have always stressed to these two how important their relationship is. Before their wives, before their parents… their relationship is the most important, and you’ve done that.

” Gams leaned her head on my father’s arm as he hugged her.

“I hear you, Gams.”

“Jesus,” Me and Blaze turned to look at Blair, who had tears streaming down her face as she looked at us.

“Come on, Michael,” Blaze chuckled, and she ran around the bed to hug him.

“Meer, there isn’t a world that I would want to be in that didn’t have you… you’re my best friend… and my person,” she continued to sob.

“As I lay in this bed with staples in my chest.”