Something New

I whipped my neck in her direction and saw the confusion across her face. He stepped closer, and I held out my hand to stop him. “She hasn’t invited you in, and neither have I.”

“It’s okay, Imani.”

I squinted at him while directing my question to her, “Is this him?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed.

“Hey,” he greeted me. “I’m uh, Elijah Stone.”

I looked him up and down, knowing damn well I wasn’t in the right mental state to give him the third degree like I wanted to. “Mmm.”

I stepped to the side to let him in and closed the door behind him. With my back pressed against the door, I watched their interaction as if I was a fly on the wall.

“Elijah? I can’t believe you’re here,” Isa cried, crashing into him, belly, and all.

He wrapped his arms around her and caressed her back. “You called, and I came.”

Isa glanced over his shoulder at me. “Are you okay?” I mouthed to her.

She nodded quickly before speaking up to give us a proper introduction. “Elijah, this is my sister, Imani. Imani, this is Elijah, the father of your nephew.”

“We were just about to go to the hospital,” I reminded her.

“Imani, let me talk to Elijah for a minute alone, and then we’ll go, okay?”

I dipped my chin in a nod. As badly as I wanted to get to Bleu’s side, I knew I couldn’t face him alone. I needed my sister by my side. “I’ll be in the back if you need me,” I told her.

Once I’d slipped down the hallway, I made sure to keep the door ajar so that I could at least hear their conversation.

“I’m sorry you had to see me like this. I’m a mess right now,” Isa spoke up.

“I don’t care what you look like. I wanted to be here for you.”

“Elijah, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

“What are you sorry for?” she asked.

“For what I said to you when you told me. I know it’s been months, and we’ve moved past it, but it was something I never apologized for. I shouldn’t have disrespected you like that. I was angry, and I–”

“You had every right to be angry with me. What I did was terrible. I think about it every day,” she confided.

“You don’t have to carry that guilt around with you anymore. It’s in the past. I just wanna think about the future and moving forward,” he told her.

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” Isa sobbed.

“I know it’s hard.”

“Yesterday, I still hated her. Now, all that hate has just been replaced with so much grief that I can’t breathe. It’s like an anchor is pushing down on my chest, and I’m scared. No, I’m terrified of everything. This baby is coming into the world with one aunt and two parents, and that’s it. Everyone else is dead. And the last parent–the–the last p–. She’s gone, and w–what if this baby ends up hating me as much as I–” she choked out.

“Shh. Shh. It’s gonna be okay. You don’t have to worry about any of that. This baby is gonna be fine, regardless. You can believe that,” he assured her.

“I’m just so scared.”

“It’s okay to be scared. I’m scared too,” he admitted.

“I don’t want to raise this baby alone.”