Prime would be here at 6 AM to pick us up. Three hours in a car with a man I wasn’t sure I could trust anymore. Then facing Meech—facing my past—while everything in my present was falling apart.
And after that?
I didn’t know. Couldn’t see past Monday. Couldn’t imagine what came next.
A knock at the door made me jump.
I wasn’t expecting anyone. Wasn’t in the mood for company. But when I looked through the peephole, my stomach dropped.
Brandi.
She looked terrible. Eyes red and swollen. Hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Wearing sweats and a hoodie like she’d just thrown on whatever was closest.
This was a woman in mourning.
I opened the door.
“Brandi.” I pulled her into a hug immediately. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” I felt terrible for my fakeness. Her son was making my boy’s a living hell.
She crumpled against me, sobbing. Her whole body shaking with grief.
“He’s gone,” she whispered. “My baby’s gone.”
“I know. I know.” I held her tighter, guilt twisting in my stomach. “Come inside. Come sit down.”
I guided her to the couch, got her some water, sat beside her while she cried. The piano music from Yusef’s room had stopped. He must have heard her.
A moment later, his door opened.
He stood in the hallway, frozen. His face had gone pale.
Brandi looked up, saw him, and something in her expression shifted. Softened through the grief.
“Yusef, baby.” She wiped her face, trying to compose herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He walked toward her slowly. Each step looked like it took effort. Like he was forcing himself to move forward when every instinct told him to run.
“I’m…” His voice broke. Tears spilled down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry about Nigel, Miss Brandi.”
Then he was crying. Really crying. The kind of sobs that shook his whole body.
Brandi stood and pulled him into her arms, holding him the way mothers do. The way I’d held him a hundred times.
“I know, baby,” she murmured, rubbing his back. “I know. He was your friend. This is hard for you, too.”
I watched them embrace—my boy, crying in the arms of the mother whose child he’d killed—and felt like the worst person in the world.
“Yusef.” I kept my voice gentle. “Why don’t you go to your room, okay? Let me and Miss Brandi talk.”
He pulled back, wiping his face. Nodded. Couldn’t meet Brandi’s eyes as he turned and walked away.
His door closed with a soft click.
Brandi sank back onto the couch, exhausted.
“That boy loved Nigel,” she said quietly. “They were so close.”
I couldn’t respond. Could only nod.
