Page 5 of The Cancer I Chose (BLP Signs of Love #4)

I stood behind the wooden chair, waiting for him to take a seat in front of me.

Despite his question, I remained silent while I sorted through my thoughts.

After my conversation with Nuri Symone, I left the crib and came straight here.

My father was my person and my voice of reason when the violence sleeping peacefully in my soul began to shake against the cages of its prison.

If I let that monster out, there would be hell to pay, and he was hard to lock back up.

That slippery muthafucka could rage for days before I could gain control again.

Knowing Zero was back had me seeing red.

This was also information my father needed to know.

All the shit that nigga was up to had impacted all of us.

I would be damned if I let him take anything else from me, starting with Nuri Symone.

I snorted, thinking about him marrying her.

It wasn’t going to fucking happen, and I was willing to put it on my life.

My father lifted an eyebrow, knowing that I was having a conversation with myself right now.

“Whatever it is, we will get through it together,” he assured me, taking a seat in front of me.

I was never good with words. It wasn’t until my father found me at four years old that I found my voice.

My journey to learning to speak was difficult.

I wasn’t as developed as the other kids my age because I didn’t have a consistent caregiver who could teach me or from whom I could mirror speech, other than curse words or slang, for the first few years of my life.

That time in my life was loud. I could still hear shouting or ringing in my ears from the gunshots and violence I experienced.

Around the time my father started allowing me to shave his head, I’d developed a stutter and stopped talking altogether.

Sometimes, it would be weeks before I spoke again.

He always wanted me to know I was safe with him, even if my brain moved faster than my mouth could keep up with.

I picked the bag up from the floor and began sorting out everything that I would need to give him a clean shave.

Since I was eleven years old, I’d been shaving my father’s head for him.

It had become our bonding time. Sometimes, we talked.

Other times, we watched TV or listened to music.

Then there were days when we sat in complete silence, with only the scrape of the sharp blade to entertain us.

My father was always on my timing and allowed me to dictate the type of session we’d have.

I spread the shaving cream all over his head until it looked like a blanket of snow. Reaching for the razor, I began to clean him up. After a few minutes of silence, I sighed heavily and dropped my shoulders.

“Zyro is back.”

I saw his body tense. He sat up and slowly turned to look at me. His face was set in a scowl, but I could see the worry in his eyes. “What are you going to do, Sekai?”

“He threatened Aunt Bernice,” I disclosed instead of giving him the answer he wanted.

“Kai.” His voice was stern. He knew I was a wild child, but when it came to Zero, I would become a demon.

“I’m going to handle him... permanently.” I added the last part so there was no confusion about what I planned to do with that pussy. The Earth would rejoice the day he was discarded from its surface. Shit might even cure global warming or something.

My father ran his hands down his face and sighed. He plopped back, and I picked up the razor to begin shaving his head again. He knew there was nothing he could say to change my mind. This was personal. I wouldn’t rest until that nigga was pushing up daisies and eating dirt for eternity.

“Be smart,” he warned, even though he knew I was smart as a whip.

This wasn’t something I could rush into.

I had to be strategic and patient. I would get him when the time was right.

I had too many people to take care of to be reckless in the way I moved.

If I went down, my family would crash and burn with me.

I couldn’t ruin them because of my vendetta, but Zero would be handled.

“I’m going to get married.” I damn near sliced him by the way he jumped forward. “Chill, I almost cut you the fuck up,” I mumbled.

He waved me off. “Fuck the shave. Sit down. We need to talk.” I looked up at the ceiling before placing the razor down and taking a seat on the chair instead. He began to pace in front of me. “Make it make sense, Son.”

I leaned forward, placing my forearms on my thighs and tucking my hands together. “I met this woman. She’s wrapped up in some shit with Zero and needs protection. If I marry her, then he can’t have her and what she stands for.”

My eyes floated up to my father. He was staring at me like I’d lost my mind. It was kinda funny with the shaving cream still molded to his egghead. It would’ve been the perfect meme if I had been in the mood for jokes.

“Why are you trying to wrap yourself up in her shit?”

I shrugged lazily. “She doesn’t have anyone else to turn to. We both know if Zero gets his hands on her, he will ruin her.” I sat back and slouched lower in the chair. “She’s too precious for that,” I whispered more to myself than him.

“Why do you keep calling him Zero?” He chuckled.

I shrugged. “That’s his name, ain’t it?”

Nuri Symone’s big and wild hair appeared in my mind. Her chubby cheeks were the next feature I thought of. Then it was her sweet scent. She looked like chocolate, but she smelled like caramel, and I needed to figure out why because it should be a crime to smell so edible.

“You care about this girl?” he asked, switching back to the topic at hand.

“I don’t know her,” I honestly replied.

“This is crazy, Sekai. Marriage isn’t something to play around with. How can you marry a woman you don’t know? If you insert yourself into this, you will be responsible for her well-being.”

“I know.”

“And you still want to go through with it?”

“Yeah.”

He dropped his head into his hands. When he finally looked up, he turned to glance at me.

I valued my father’s opinion and understood why he was so against this.

However, I also knew what I felt in my heart.

God had sent Nuri Symone crashing into my arms for protection, and I wasn’t going to run from that responsibility.

I could help her, and I was going to, no matter what anyone said.

The truth was that I was already wrapped in this.

Marrying Nuri would just put us on the same side of the same war.

“If you do this, then you don’t play about this woman. You protect and provide for her as if you’re in love with her. If she’s desperate, then that means she has nowhere else to turn. You will be her family, and we both know the Walker motto.”

“Family is more than blood and bone. Any person you choose to be your family should be provided for, protected from all danger, and loved with every fiber of your being,” I recited.

He nodded his head proudly. My father had created that motto after I came to him crying about how the kids in school said he wasn’t my real father.

He sat me down and let it be known that I didn’t need to come from his nut sack to be his son.

He said he was my father because he took care of me, taught me, and protected me.

He said he was my father because he chose to be, and nothing would change that.

I never questioned who he was to me again.

He held a hand out to me. I accepted it, and he snatched me into his chest. He wrapped his arms around me.

“Exactly. Handle your business, but know that you are my son, and I would lose my fucking mind if something happened to you.” He kissed me on the forehead, then released me.

“Now, come on and finish shaving all the gray hairs you just caused to sprout on my head.”

I chuckled. “Man, your hair is gray ’cause you’re old as shit.”

After talking it out with my father, I felt better about my decision.

Now, I just had to share it with Nuri Symone.

I wasn’t sure what she would say, but I wouldn’t force her into anything.

If she said yes, it would be of her own free will.

She would become my family. One thing I didn’t do was play about my family.

I was putting belt to ass every time for mine.

If she said yes, she would become exactly that. .. mine.