Sugar Rush (Friend-Zoned 3)

Ceecee got spooked. Her little body stiffened, and that’s when she fell.

As far as everyone else knows, that never happened. How do I know that happened? Maddy sent me a letter after disappearing, a letter I still have to this day. I received it four days after she left. Turns out, she went and turned herself in to the police. She had been under suicide watch. Part of me was so angry with her that I wished she would kill herself.

A lot happened in the meantime. Ceecee had surgeries upon surgeries. She was either doped up or screaming in agony. She cried a lot in that time, and I cried with her. I didn’t understand what I had done for this to happen. But the answer is simple:

Shit happens.

You find a way to cope and you roll with it. You can be the stiff branch that breaks, or the tree that bends with the wind. It’s up to you.

Ceecee had already lost her Mom. She wasn’t about to lose me. Not then, not ever. We spent so much time in the hospital that we were on first name basis with all the doctors and nurses in the children’s ward. My Mom fed the staff. We exchanged Christmas gifts. They quickly became an extension of our already large family. They were awesome. I don’t know what I would’ve

done without them. Regardless of how sour I was, or how frustrated I was, they always took care of us. And they did it with a smile. Doctors, nurses, hospital staff…they were amazing.

Ceecee’s spine is severed. There’s no fixing that. We just had to learn to deal.

“Have you checked your room?”

Ceecee stares at me, eyes narrowed, shaking her head slightly. “Uh, yes. Yes, I have.”

I throw up my hands. “Then I’m stumped.”

She wheels her chair into the dining area, close enough to Tina to get assaulted with hugs and kisses. She huffs a frustrated, “I just don’t know where I left it.”

And I grin. My God, she is adorable.

Nik rolls up his newspaper and playfully smacks Ceecee over the head with it. “I don’t think my Cricket said good morning to me yet, Tina.”

Tina hugs her closer and looks over at her husband, love in her eyes. “I think you’re right, but I don’t think the princess is in the mood for your games, sweetie.”

Ceecee is almost thirteen years old. Not quite a child, not yet a teenager, stuck somewhere in between. I can see her changing every day. Every single day. I’m torn. I wish there was some way to stop her growing, but at the same time, I can’t wait to see my daughter bloom into the good woman I know she’ll be. But Tina is right, Ceecee has been frustrated a lot lately. I know this has to do with growing up. Hell, I’ve been dreading the hormonal changes that are coming.

Lucky for me, I have my sisters, my Mom, Tina, Nat, Lola, and Mimi to help me out with those talks when they come. I mean, c’mon! Talking to my little girl about her period and what to expect when I don’t have a fucking clue about it is just ridiculous.

Ceecee’s face softens. With a small sigh, she wheels herself around to Nik’s side, and smiling, he leans over, pulling her into a deep hug. Her eyes close as she rests her head on his shoulder. He whispers something to her I can’t quite here. I only hear her hushed response. “I know. Love you, Uncle Nik.”

He kisses her forehead, stands, then claps his hands together like he means business. “Right, school bag. You check the kitchen, and I’ll check everywhere else.”

Ceecee moves into the kitchen, and Nik searches the rest of the house. It takes me a little while before I realize I’m still standing in the middle of the dining area, watching them.

I don’t know what I would’ve done without Nik when Ceecee came home from the hospital. He moved us into his home and spent as much time as I did tending to her, and he worked full time while I took time off. But he worked as hard as I did, maybe harder, at making sure not only Ceecee was taken care of, but that I got as much sleep as I needed and was fed.

He is my hero. I have never told him that. He is a good man. He deserves a good life, a life invested in his family. His new family, not the one he was born into. Which is part of what makes this so hard. I don’t actually want to do what I’m doing, but I feel he needs it. The time is right.

Nik calls out, “Found it!”

Ceecee calls back, “Where did I leave it?”

As Ceecee comes out of the kitchen, Nik walks down the hall entrance with her school bag on his back. He hooks it over her chair and responds an amused, “By the front door, princess.”

Ceecee shakes her head, but a small smile appears on her face. Her cheeks color and she mumbles a sheepish, “Sorry.”

A horn honks from the front of the house and Ceecee makes a move to the school bus. As she passes me, she wraps her arm around my legs. I lean down to kiss her hair. “Have fun!”

She wrinkles her nose. “It’s school, Daddy.”

I shoot her my best teasing grin. “I know. Suffer.”

She punches my thigh while trying to suppress her smile and I mock jump. “Ouch, girl. We need to enroll you in boxing classes.”