Writing too many prescriptions for narcotics came with extra observation from the higher ups and the state. Symphony didn’t have time for it. Some days, it was hard to determine who was actually in pain and who wasn’t. It was a slippery slope. The practice she worked with was pretty chill. There were two other doctors. One Indian woman and an Asian man. The nurses were cool, and Symphony liked her job. Her first year of residency was done in the ER and while she loved helping people, she hated the ER for many reasons. Even outside of the emergency room there was never a dull day of being a doctor. The part she hated was delivering bad news. It was the least favorite part of her job. One that she had to endure because the end goal was to save as many lives as she could. Work was the distraction that she needed, so she wouldn’t constantly stress over her sister. Monique was once her best friend. She became isolated and withdrawn out of nowhere and by the time the family realized she had a problem; Monique was beyond the point of wanting help. She didn’t even have the desire to get sober for her son.
It wasn’t until Monique’s addiction had been outed that Symphony thought back to the time her sister came in for a visit and complained about knee pain. She flat out askedfor Percocet’s and Symphony being her sister, wrote her a prescription for thirty. No, she didn’t think her sister was in that much pain. Shit, Symphony herself would admit that if she had bad menstrual cramps or a headache, an opioid would relieve the pain and help her to get some good sleep. She didn’t think twice about it. Until the next month, her sister was back. When she refused to write another prescription and her sister began to beg, that was when she knew.
Monique’s addiction broke her heart, but it wasn’t about Symphony. Monique was the one hurting herself, and Mason was hurting more than anyone could understand. Yes, Monique was Symphony’s sister, but she was Mason’s mother. That pain had to hit different. Monique’s struggles were the one thing that Symphony could honestly say she was unhappy and stressed about.
So many years and so much time had been spent on studying and becoming a doctor. Accomplishing that goal had been the top priority for a long time. It was so important that Symphony rarely dated. Men ogled her often. They made slick remarks, and she was asked out on at least one date a month. However, after so many years of being hyper focused on school, Symphony had fallen off the bike and forgotten how to ride. She had more of a routine and was settled into her career, but now, the thought of putting herself out there scared her. Dating was like a game of Russian roulette. Things could go really right or really wrong. The options were few and good men were fewer. Some days, she didn’t possess the energy to see if her soulmate even existed.
Failed relationships and marriages stayed in the back of her mind. The fact that her own father was murdered by his mistress would always be one of her most traumatizing experiences. Symphony was nine, and her sister was eleven when their lives changed forever. It was late. Very late, and the girls were supposed to be asleep. Neither were interested in slumber, andthey were whispering about which boys at their school were the grossest when a deafening pop made them jump. Their hearts raced, and their eyes bulged out of their skulls as they tried to figure out what the noise was. As they laid frozen in bed, they heard a blood curdling scream.
Symphony and Monique sprang from their beds. Monique’s side of the room was closest to the door, so she was the one who opened it. As they raced down the hallway, the screams grew louder. They attempted to follow the direction of the wailing, but their mother burst into the house before they could get outside. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she ushered the girls back into their rooms and demanded that they stay there. It would take more than an hour for them to discover that their father had been with his side chick that evening. They stood at the window eavesdropping. The police told their mother that the woman admitted to having sex with Daniel that day.
When they were done, he told her that was the last time they could mess around because he had to start being faithful. The mistress claimed that Daniel said he didn’t want his wife to divorce him because then he’d have to pay his own bills plus child support for two kids. His mistress didn’t want to accept that he was trying to end the relationship. She cried and begged. He got agitated and put his hands on her. She grabbed her gun from the closet and followed him home. When Daniel realized that his scorned lover followed him, he struck her in the face twice. Then, she shot him.
Symphony was only nine at the time, but she was smart. Smart enough to know that her father was sleeping with another woman and that woman murdered him in his own yard. The sisters had to watch their mother grieve for a year. Her grief was different each day and some days, it came out in the form of anger. Since Daniel was a cheating piece of shit, she was sure that it was stupid of her to be sad, but they’d been togetherfor fourteen years and shared two children. Maybe he deserved what he got but all in all, there were still days where she missed him.
Then, there were the days she was pissed beyond belief. She was never mean or abusive toward the girls. Instead, she held her anger in. Sonya walked around with resentment and rage bubbling inside of her because her husband had been so selfish that he would rather remain where he obviously didn’t want to be because he was trying to avoid child support. If it was possible to dig him up and beat his ass, she would have done it more than once.
Sonya had never done a drug, and she wasn’t a heavy drinker. She coped with her grief by eating and gambling. Those were her two vices. More than once, Symphony and Monique saw their mother pacing and stressed because she’d lost the rent money. There were also the times she hit big, and she would burst in the house moving like a tornado telling the girls to get dressed, so they could go spend some money. Whenever Sonya hit big, she was smart enough to pay the bills up for a few months, take the girls shopping, and get everything she needed for the house from food to cleaning supplies.
Symphony’s freshman year in high school, her mother won $47,000 in May. She went ahead and did the girls’ school shopping for the upcoming school year along with the Christmas shopping. By the time Christmas rolled around, the $47,000 was gone, but the bills were covered, they had a deep freezer filled to the brim with food, and they had the best Christmas of their lives. Two years went by before Sonya hit big again but that time, it was only $6,000. Sonya finally stopped gambling when Symphony was twenty. She was already behind on bills and lost her entire paycheck. She got evicted, and her car got repossessed. It took her about seven months, but she workedhard, stacked her money, and got back on her feet. She started going to church and hadn’t gambled since.
She also cut her unhealthy addiction to food and lost more than fifty pounds over the course of a year. Symphony was extremely proud of her mother. Though she never drank or did drugs, she still had vices and for that reason, Sonya tried to be very patient and understanding when it came to dealing with Monique’s addiction to pills.
Monique had a village behind her for sure. She just had to find it in her heart to be genuinely tired and want change. Prayerfully, she would do so before it was too late.
Block strolled out of one of his favorite Miami restaurants with his mouth practically watering. It had been months since the last time he’d eaten from the establishment, and he was more than ready to devour the food. It had been a busy morning, and he was famished. Block also knew that once he got dressed and left his hotel room it was up from there. His brother’s game and the bachelor party he was attending were two events that he knew he wouldn’t be sober for. The food he was about to inhale was going to lay the foundation for his day of indulgence.
Block drank alcohol in Diamond Cove, but it was rare that he drank during the day. There were too many responsibilities in his day-to-day life that made drinking and not being focused pretty much impossible. He’d been smoking weed for so long that he didn’t look at being high as anything that wasn’t a part of him. Weed mellowed him out. It didn’t make him act out of character or bring out any undesirable traits, so he didn’t look at being high as a bad thing. In fact, it was pretty much a necessity when he really thought about it.
When he was out of town, he didn’t have to have eyes in the back of his head watching his own surroundings and trying to keep Mario out of trouble. His work phone was on DND, so there weren’t an abundance of emergencies and problems from people reaching out to him with wanting him to solve every minor inconvenience. When he was out of town, Block was only responsible for himself. And that was how he preferred it.
A black Jeep pulled up blocking the rental car Block was driving. His gaze lifted, and he observed the vehicle as the passenger door opened, and a light skinned cutie hopped out with a scowl on her face. She was wearing a shirt with the name of the restaurant embroidered on the left side. Her expression gave away the fact that work was the last place she wanted to be. She looked to be in her mid-twenties. Her 5’6 frame was curvy enough that she could have been a bottle girl, dancer, shit, something more appealing than a fast-food employee. But Block wasn’t judging. He didn’t know her story and not everyone cared about those kinds of jobs or the fast money that came with them.
When she noticed him eyeballing her, her facial muscles relaxed, and she offered a bashful smile. Block’s orbs darted over toward the Jeep to see who was driving. He wasn’t going to be disrespectful and try to get at her if her nigga was dropping her off at work. A woman that was equally as pretty as the fast-food worker, was studying him as hard as he’d been studying the passenger of the Jeep.
“What up?” he diverted his gaze back to the person of interest. “You single?”
She had to clock in, and he had to go, so he might as well get straight to the point.
“Yes, I’m single.” That bashful simper returned.
“How old are you?” Block’s head angled to the left.
“I’m twenty-five.”
Had she been any age under that, he would have passed. There were some mature women in their early twenties, but he wasn’t interested in finding out which side of the coin she would end up on. There was too big of a chance that they would be extremely childish, and that would irritate the fuck out of him and turn him off at the same time, so he didn’t even bother.
“Word? I’m Block. I’m not from Miami, so I gotta move kind of fast if I want to get to know you.” His eyes trailed the length of her frame. “What you doing tonight?”
“Nothing. I get off at ten. My sister is picking me up, and I’m going home.”
“Let me get your name and number.”
Block pulled his phone from his pocket and locked in the sexy stranger’s information. Ebony. He repeated the name in his head as he got in the car. Shorty had on a work shirt and a pair of jeans. Her braids were pulled on top of her head into a bun, and she had short, clean nails that weren’t done. Despite her face card being valid, she didn’t fit the typical bad bitch aesthetic especially not for Miami. But not everyone was like that. Not every female was flashy and over the top. Everyone didn’t walk around with a face full of makeup every day. Not all women had lip fillers and faces filled with Botox. Block didn’t knock any of it, but he liked plain females for some reason. Women that were that ‘90’s kind of fine.’ That was and always would be his preference.
Back at the Airbnb, Block was greeted by Lethal. Brazil was with his team at the stadium getting ready for the game. Block had barely set the large bag of food down before Lethal was standing beside him peering into the bag.
“Ugh, what’s that smelling like that?” he frowned. “Bro, you got fish?”
