Page 7 of You Deserve Good Things

Houston, Texas

Houston wasn’t home. It didn’t smell like home. Didn’t sound like home. Didn’t feel like home.

New Orleans had a rhythm—like her heartbeat was sync’d to a second line, like her streets hummed even when the city slept. The cicadas in the trees, the bounce of a hot summer bassline coming from somebody’s porch party, the smell of boiled crawfish, gasoline, and old rain? That was home.

Houston? Houston felt like the dial tone after a dropped call. Flat. Cold. Wrong. But maybe that was just me. I still hadn’t said a word since the night Silas died.

Not. One. Word. Not to Mama. Not to Daddy. Not to Jacory—especially not Jacory. Not even to myself.

Every time I tried, every time I opened my mouth like a sound was about to come out, it felt like my lungs locked up.

It was as if my voice got buried right next to my brother, like it went six feet under, never to be heard from again.

My soul, it was left on that corner, right there next to the chalk outline and the blood that stained the curb.

Sure, I was walking. I was eating. I was breathing; I guess.

But I wasn’t living . I wasn’t here. I was floating above everything, watching life move around me while I just .

. . existed. It felt like my life stopped that day, and I was stuck on a loop watching everything else steady orbiting around me.

Poor Mama! She tried to hide the way she hovered, but I saw it.

I noticed the way her eyes followed me in the hallway.

I saw the way she paused at my bedroom door, her hand on the frame like she wanted to come in but didn’t know how.

She’d try to act normal—fixing my plate, asking if I wanted to watch TV, suggesting little things like getting my hair done or going shopping—but the worry sat heavy in her throat.

Like she was waiting for me to break. Like if she stared long enough, I’d finally crack open and cry or scream or collapse.

But I didn’t.

Daddy was much quieter. He was way quieter than he’d ever been.

He used to hum while he worked, used to leave the door cracked when he was sketching plans for a house he dreamed of building one day.

But now, he just sat at the kitchen table in silence every night, palms together, eyes down.

He looked like he was praying. Like he was talking to God but forgot the words.

Guilt looked different on him. It seemed to have aged him overnight.

Of course, he didn’t say it, but I could feel it in him.

It was in the way he walked slower; it was in the way he barely spoke when Mama asked him anything now.

Silas’s death hollowed him out too. And that was what this house had become—a hollow shell, with three broken people pretendin’ to be whole.

People said grief looked like crying, like wailing, like tearing your clothes, like throwing yourself at the casket.

But grief wasn’t always loud. Sometimes grief was quiet as a grave .

It crept in and settled like dust. Coated your skin, sat on your chest, and made everything taste like ash.

Grief was waking up and feeling like you’d been buried too, just without the dirt.

And me? I was buried in silence.

Every day was a copy-paste of the last. Wake up. Go to school. Pretend to care. Come home. Lay in bed. Stare at the ceiling until my eyes burned. Fall asleep. Repeat.

Then one day, she happened. Daniale. Loud as hell. Colorful. Unapologetic. The complete opposite of everything I was.

I didn’t meet her—she inserted herself into my life like she’d been assigned the job.

I was sittin’ alone at lunch, like usual, picking at my tray. I hadn’t planned to eat. I never did. I was just waitin’ for the clock to hit that magic number so I could disappear again.

Then, clack. Her tray hit the table like a warning shot. She plopped into the seat across from me, her aura big as a marching band.

“Whew! These chicken tenders look like they’ve been through the struggle, but I’m too damn hungry to care.”

She didn’t ask to sit down—didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate, just entered like she belonged in my space.

Her nails were bright red, coffin-shaped, and loud. Her hair was in two space buns with edges laid like magic. Her earrings were hoops big enough to jump through, and she smelled like vanilla, cocoa butter, and a whole lotta confidence.

She squinted at me like I was a riddle.

“Aight. So, what’s your story, girl?”

I blinked.

She waited, leaning in, one perfectly arched brow raised.

Then she sighed. “Oh, okay. So, you are one of those mysterious bitches. Bet.”

I stayed quiet, but inside? I was halfway offended. Halfway amused.

She popped open her juice, sipped it like this was a casual meet-cute. “I don’t do quiet people. Makes me nervous. But you? You too pretty to be weird, so I’m gonna give you a pass.”

I nearly laughed. Almost. But it stayed stuck in my throat.

“You might as well get used to me now,” she said, smirking. “I talk a lot. Like, a lot . I’m loud. I’m nosy. I’m petty. But I got a good heart, and I give bomb-ass advice. So, you are in good hands.”

I didn’t say a word. Didn’t have to. She was already locked in.

She found me every single day after that.

Walkin’ with me to class. Sittin’ with me at lunch.

Talkin’ at me about everything from her mama’s crazy wigs to her obsession with cinnamon rolls and how she was gon’ fight her chemistry teacher if he gave her another “hating-ass quiz.”

And slowly . . . quietly . . . it started to help.

One day, she walked with me after school, shoulder to shoulder. She was talkin’ about some boy who tried to flirt with her even though he smelled like “sweaty ambition and two missed showers.”

I wasn’t really listening. Not until she stopped.

“Ayo,” she said, and I turned to look at her. “Real talk . . . I know you’ve been through some shit.”

I froze. My breath caught in my throat. She kept walkin’, like she hadn’t just dropped a whole emotional grenade on me.

“But I also know you have a voice,” she added. “Even if you ain’t used it in a while.”

I swallowed hard. She stopped again, looked at me, arms folded. “So, here’s the deal, sis. You got two choices: You gon’ keep runnin’ from the pain, or you gon’ start learning how to live through it.”

My lips parted. I wanted to speak. Needed to speak.

Tried to speak. But the words didn’t come.

Just that same emptiness in my throat. Like every sound I’d ever known was buried in Silas’s grave.

She didn’t get mad, didn’t press me. She just shook her head and grinned like I was a challenge she already planned on winning.

“Aight. I’ll wait.”

Then she linked her arm through mine like we’d been besties since diapers.

“Until then? I’m gon’ talk enough for both of us.”

And that was exactly what she did. Every hallway. Every lunch. Every walk home. Daniale became my noise. My color. My light . I still didn’t know who I was without Silas. Still didn’t know how to live in a world where he wasn’t at the door yelling about how late I was.

But Daniale? She made sure I didn’t disappear. She made sure I didn’t fade. She made sure I was still seen . And maybe—I was finally ready to be seen again. Even if I still wasn’t ready to speak.