“Where are you?” Tulane yelled. “I’ve been calling you for the last three hours. Every damn time, it goes to voicemail.” The hustle of his background got louder before it stopped.
“At the Stones’,” I answered as I sat on the edge of the bed.
“Why didn’t you answer the phone?”
“It never rang,” I replied. “My phone has been acting crazy since I fell on it earlier.”
“You fell? Are you alright? Is the baby okay?” To hear Tulane be concerned was heartwarming. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, he jumped into grandpa mode. This baby still had three more months in the womb before she made her grand entrance, yet Tulane bought so much stuff that I wouldn’t have to buy a thing for at least three years.
“I’m fine, Tulane,” I sighed as I rubbed my belly. The sound of a door being slammed echoed through the phone. “Where are you?”
“Picking up your sisters,” he replied absently. “We are on the way to the Stones’.”
“Why?”
“Why?” he repeated. “You were damn near shot. Six people were shot, including a damn child. Two of your friends’ lives are hanging in the balance, and you’re asking why we are coming? Yale, have you lost your damn mind?”
“But I’m okay, Tulane,” I repeated.
“You’re in shock,” he dismissively said. “You don’t know what you are feeling and won’t until the adrenaline wears off and you calm down.”
“I’ve seen people get shot before,” I sighed and shook my head. “I know what death looks like. The sounds, smells, and all of the things associated with it. I know what it is.”
“You know a glimpse,” he countered. “Which is why we are on the way. You aren’t dealing with this alone.”
“I’m not alone,” I replied as I looked around the empty room. Technically, I was in my room alone, but the house was anything but empty. Ever since Pop brought me back, their home had been in constant motion. People were coming and going, things were being yelled, and a few times, I’m pretty sure something was broken.
“Who’s there, Amethyst?” he questioned. “Let me talk to him. I was calling his phone nonstop, too.”
“He’s not here.” Tulane laughed humorlessly before he mumbled something, and then it got quiet. “Tulane?”
“He’s counting,” Spelman said, laughing, which made me smile. As a coping mechanism to address our behavior, Berkeley suggested that Tulane channel his energy into something else when he gets upset. At first, he drummed on tables or desks;then he started exercising, but it only made him more upset because he was sore the next day. One day, he started saying his capitals out loud, which we thought was hilarious, and it gradually turned into him stating random facts, and now he was doing square roots. “We are about ten minutes away. We will see you then.”
Twenty minutes later, I was standing at the front door watching as my sisters and Tulane got out of the car and approached me. Each of them looked completely different but exactly alike at the same time. Spelman had stepped into her role as the big sister with ease. She was always a step ahead of us, making things move or instructing something in the background without us knowing. Berkeley was the type of person who paid attention to the small details. She liked to ask the questions that no one else was thinking of until after she asked them. Her mind was always working; she was always plotting. Clarke was quiet; she let you forget she was in the room to make you comfortable, and then she’d stress you out and not care about the consequences. Seeing them together made me feel guilty; a big part of me wondered what Xavier would have been like, how her personality would have meshed with ours if she had been quiet like Clarke, silly like Berkeley, or bossy like Spelman. The guilty feeling of knowing that I was responsible for taking her life would always eat away at me.
“Did you know the square root of 876 is 29.597?” Berkeley asked after she hugged me. Her big, expressive eyes rolled in annoyance before she stepped back. “Because I do, and I can tell you right now that I am not impressed by knowing it.”
“I stressed him that bad?” I asked with a small laugh. I hugged Clarke and Spelman, then looked over at Tulane, whose handsome face was twisted with anger. “Tulane.”
“Yale.” He pulled me into a hug, kissed my forehead, then stepped back. “Where are the Stones?”
“In the house talking,” I answered, and he nodded. He kissed my forehead again, then stepped around me to go inside.
“Have you seen him?” Spelman asked, and I nodded. There was no reason to pretend like I didn’t know who the him she was asking about was because I did. “And what did he have to say?”
“The obvious,” I answered with a slight laugh. “He only noticed I was pregnant after the shooting happened.” I rubbed the spot that my baby was kicking. “Everything was happening so damn fast we only saw each other for a few seconds before he was being pulled in another direction.”
“And he hasn’t shown up here yet?” she asked, and I shook my head. “You know he’s going to. As soon as he gets a chance, he’s going to show up and ask a million fucking questions.”
“He’s not entitled to shit but what I give him,” I said.
“Well, technically, he kind of is entitled to knowing if that’s his baby or not,” Berkeley suggested, and I rolled my eyes.
“Who’s damn side are you on, Berkeley?” Spelman asked before I could.
“Yale’s, of course, but what we are not about to do is deny a man his right to be a father. Yale admitted she was fucking on Amethyst before he sent her away. There’s a chance it’s his baby.”
“I’ve already set up to get a DNA test as soon as the baby is born,” I sighed. In the week I’d been back, I’d made a lot of moves. One of the first things was setting up the DNA appointment. Even though Amethyst pissed me off and broke my heart, I agreed with Berkeley: he had a right to know if this was his child, and if so, he could be a part of their life.
