But stayin wasn't the same as resting. My body was still, but my mind stayed pacin behind the glass, wearin grooves in the dark.It ran in circles, hungry ones. Worried ones. Tried to piece together what happened, who moved what, and why. No doubt about it, we got set up. The only question that mattered was who.The thought looped so hard it burned. The harder I tried to pull memory out of that fog, the more it fought me. My brain felt like a scratched record stuck between truth and nightmare.Still, I could feel that betrayal in my bones. Betrayal had a smell that never leaves you once you breathe it in.
Only a few people knew we was meeting with Abdul that morning. That's what kept biting at me. The circle was tight. Family tight. So whoever leaked that information they was close enough to shake my hand. Maybe even hug me. Or maybe a mutha fucka had been sittin up plottin. I kept replaying that day in my head like I was standing just outside my own skin.
Her voice cracked open that quiet like a flare in fog. "Rete avè m."Stay with me.Her words didn't sound like no prayer. They sounded like an order. So I stayed.What she don't know is what else came back with me when she called.Them bullets didn't just rip through flesh. They opened a door and put something in me.I can feel it even now, deep, and still, coiled around my ribs like it been waiting for me to notice. Something old. Something patient.They didn't just try to kill me, they planted me.And what grew wasn't gon' be the same man that fell.
______
Every time she'd whisper her prayers, I'd feel her spirit sweep through the room like a warm wind. Candles flickered, and the air got thick enough to choke on. It calmed the rage for a minute. Just a minute. But as soon as the air cleared, it came back hotter.She was saving me, yeah. But she was also holding the leash.
The longer I stayed trapped in this half-place, the meaner the thoughts got. I started talking to myself inside the dark. Started hearing answers that didn't sound like me."You ain't dead, Noles," the voice said."You resting. when you wake up...” The voice smiled. You can hear when something smiles. "...you gon' make 'em remember who you are."
It was right.Whoever pulled that trigger wanted to end me. But they made me remember.Somebody thought I was soft. Thought I got comfortable.They forgot what kind of man I am when you take something from me.I don't do mourning. I do math.If you spill my blood, I'm adding names till the numbers match.
I tried to move, to twitch a finger, a hand, anything. My body didn't listen. Felt like being buried under glass. I could see Ayida's shadow moving, hear her voice low and steady, but the dark had my limbs like it signed a lease on me.Still, I could feel her. Her touch. Her heat. That soft pressure on my chest when she laid her head there, whispering things she'd never say if she thought I was awake.It did something to me. Pulled me back when all I wanted was to drift. Made me remember who I was and what they took.I started counting nights. Couldn't tell time no more, but I knew when the air shifted. When the nurses left and the candles lit. When ma’s anger left the room and Ayida's calm replaced it.That's when the silence thickened. That's when I started thinking too loud.
The question who.It played over and over, louder than the machines. Louder than Ayida's prayers.Who set me up? Each time I asked, I felt the monsterin me stir.I didn’t fight it.I was done fighting.Fighting took too much air. Took too much explaining. Took too much hope. And hope was loud. Hope kept the noise running in my head like a bad engine knock you can’t ignore no matter how much you turn the radio up.Violence didn’t ask questions.Violence didn’t argue back.Violence was quiet.
I felt myself floating before I saw anything. Not flying. Floating. Like gravity forgot about me on purpose. Like I was being held up by something that didn’t have hands. Then I saw My pops. Back turned to me, standing in the dark like he owned it. The space around us wasn’t a room exactly, just black, thick, heavy. No walls. No ceiling. No floor I could name.
Everybody was there. I could feel them. Juste off to the side. Jules somewhere behind me. Pierre close enough I could feel his presence without seeing him. All my brothers in the same space, silent as a held breath. But I was zeroed in on him. My chest tightened before I even moved. My jaw locked. I felt the frown carve itself into my face deep enough to ache. Lines pulling my forehead tight, like my skin was bracing for something it already knew was coming.
He turned around slow. And it was the look on his face that did it. Smug. That same look he used to wear when he thought he’d won something. When he thought he’d played everybody in the room, and they was too dumb to notice. That look that saidI’m ten steps ahead of you and you still think we on the same path. I hated that look. Always had. Even as a kid, it made my stomach turn. Made myhands itch. Made me feel small in a way I swore I’d never let myself feel again. “You proud?” I asked him. My voice didn’t echo. Didn’t shake. Didn’t sound angry. It sounded flat. He didn’t answer. Didn’t have to. His face said enough. That demon in me stretched. Yawned. Smiled without lips. Before I even realized I’d moved, my hand was already on my hip. Gun came up smooth. The barrel lined up dead center of his forehead like it had been practicing for this moment.
His expression never changed. I pulled the trigger. The sound wasn’t loud like I expected. Just a dull, heavythud, like something dropping that was always meant to hit the ground. I watched the bullet take him backward. Watched his body fold wrong. Watched him hit the floor like gravity finally remembered its job.
I felt it. That quiet. That deep, clean silence slide through my chest and settle. I stepped closer and Stood over him. Looked down at the man who made me, and I felt broke me in the same lifetime. I pulled the trigger again. The second shot felt better than the first. That’s when I knew. The monster in me exhaled. Relief washed through me slow and heavy, like sinking into warm water after being cold too long. My shoulders dropped. My jaw loosened. The noise in my head, the constant grinding, the looping questions, the paranoia, cut clean off. Violence didn’t excite me. It calmed me. That realization settled in my bones like truth.
That’s when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Light. Careful. I turned and Ayida stood there. Tears streaking her face. Fear sitting wide and naked in her eyes. She looked at me like she didn’t recognize what was wearing my skin. She backed away slow, shaking her head like she wanted to speak but didn’t trust her voice. Like if she said my name outloud, something worse would answer back. “Yi—” I reached for her. She slipped away. Like smoke pulled back into the dark. And everything went black.
I dropped back into that fucked up space I couldn’t climb out of. That half-world between breath and memory. Between waking and drowning. The place where my body laid still, and my mind kept marching. It hit me then, Ayida kept my soul here. That part was true. Her prayers binded me. Her hands held me. Her voice pulled me back from wherever the fuck I went when the lights cut off. She stitched me to this side with blood and faith and love so deep it scared me sometimes.
But what she don’t realize and What shecan’tsee, Is she also fed the part of me that was never gon’ sleep again. Every drop of her blood that spilled for me. Every tear that soaked into my chest. Every prayer that dared call my name back from the dark. It woke the beast up right beside me. Didn’t create it. Just fed it. Gave it purpose. Her love saved me. But it also built the cage I’m about to break out of.
When I rise, it wasn’t just me getting up.It would be everything they tried to bury.
Ayida
A few days had passed of me following the same routine. It was finally the end of the week. I sat at my altar and lit the candles, letting silence take the room first so it knew who it belonged to. Flame by flame, the house began to breathe different, low, and full. The wick hissed like it remembered my name. Madame Laurent always said that's the sign the door slicked open a crack: when the wax talks back and the room leans toward you like family leaning in to hear the secret.
Altar work been part of me since I was little, knuckles ashy from chalk, knees dented from kneeling on wood. Madame made sure of that. "Si w bon ak zansèt ou, y'ap bon ak ou tou," she used to say.If you good to your ancestors, they'll be good to you too.I put my hand on the table to feel it steady. The cloth under my palm was clean and pressed; the lace edge curled like a white wave. I set a plate: two slices of orange, a little bowl of rice sweetened with condensed milk, three coins stacked on a saucer. The wine I poured slow. The room smelled like prayers that had lived here a long time.
I had come home from the hospital just after sunrise and crashed across the bed like someone had reached out of the sky and turned off my switch. When I woke up, it was late morning and my body felt like I had carried a roof on it. I barely slept these days. Barely ate. The mirror had been unkind for weeks: dark half-moons stamped under my eyes, cheekbones too sharp, my mouth set like I'd misplaced my softness and wouldn't admit it. I snuffed two candles with a pinch, then went to the bathroom and stared at the woman looking back.
Not having my husband had drained me in a way no fast could feed. His towel still hung over the shower rod where he left it last time he bathed here, one corner twisted like his hand had been there just yesterday. His house shoes waited by the mat, cocked to the side the way he always kicked 'em off. I ran water over my wrists to cool a heat I couldn't see . I felt my eyes fill again, hot, and foolish.
The doorbell cut through the quiet. That sound made me straighten like a girl getting caught crying and wiping her face on the back of her hand. "One second!" I called, voice rough. When I opened the door, Chiana stood there dressed down, Nia in big gold hoops, and Amina with her hair pulled up and her mouth set for business. My chest tugged. I stepped aside. "Come in," I said.They came in all at once pulling me into a deep hug. I didn't even realize I'd been holding my breath till it slid out against their shoulders. We'd seen each other in hallways and parking lots, exchanged quiet nods at the hospital by the coffee machine, but I hadn't let them sit with me proper. If I wasn't at the hospital, I was face-down asleep or at the altar with my hands black from smudge.
"We came to cook breakfast and have mimosas," Amina announced, sitting down two grocery bags. She went straight for my cabinets without asking, pulling pots, finding the skillet I for the bacon she had started to pull out of the bag."Ayida, open these blinds, baby," Nia said, shifting around the living room like sunshine itself had hired her. She snapped curtains wide. Light poured across the floorboards in long strips. Dust brightened then settled, polite again.
Chiana touched my elbow, eyes flicking to the altar, then back to me."Here, drink this mimosa and sit back. Let me paint your nails and toes," she said. Not a question. A blessingthat sounded like an instruction.I sat down on the couch, letting the cushions sigh beneath me. The glass was cold against my fingers, condensation running down my wrist. The first sip burned sweet, champagne and pulp tangling on my tongue, bubbles rising like a tiny resurrection. I didn't realize how empty my body had been until that first swallow settled in.
Amina moved around the kitchen, hips swaying towhat about your friendsby TLC floating low from Nia's phone. Bacon popped, eggs hissed, and the smell of buttered biscuits filled the air so thick it it made your stomach growl when you breathed in. For months this house had smelled like candles, ash, and grief. Now, it smelled like women. Like laughter and life trying to crawl its way back into my walls.Chiana sat cross-legged on the rug in front of me, her braids swinging forward as she started rubbing the chipped polish off my toes with a small cotton pad. The scent of acetone mixed with vanilla lotion floated through the air as she moved her wrist, wedding ring shining when the light hit it. She didn't say much, just hummed under her breath. Every few minutes, she'd look up, smiling soft. "You need some color," she said. "Something bright. Sunshine yellow or wild coral something to brighter up your skin."Her voice brushed a tender place inside me I hadn't touched in a while. I smiled, faint. "You think so?"She chuckled. "Girl, you know I got you."I dropped my gaze.
Nia floated through the living room with a duster in her hand, humming loud enough to fill the silence I was too afraid to break. The scent of lemon pledge and orange tangled together as she wiped down the picture frames, dusting off the faces of my mama and Madame Laurent on the wall. It made me realize how long it'd been since I'd cleaned up, since I'd cared. There were ashes from burned-down candles on the coffee table, rose petals dry and curling to the floorboards, and cups from the hospitalthat I never threw away because they still had his name written on them.I was losing myself trying to get Noles back. Piece by piece, day by day, I'd been trading my own reflection for his. It was breaking me down, mentally, physically, spiritually. I'd been walking through this house like a ghost trying to haunt her own life.
I sipped the mimosa again, slow. It was sweeter, too sweet. The sweetness hid a bitter aftertaste. My hands trembled as I moved to sit it down, then I felt myself lose complete control.The glass cracked in my hand before I even realized I was holding it too tight. A soft pop, a shimmer of sound, then a sting."Ayida!" Chiana's voice shot up, breaking through the music, through my trance.I blinked, and the world came back in flashes. The glass stem snapped, shards glittering against my skin. Blood ran down my arm, thin and bright as the morning sunlight. It didn't hurt at first, it just looked unreal. Like something spiritual had split open. My chest rose and fell too fast. My throat locked.
"Ayida, gurl, you bleeding!"Amina rushed over from the kitchen, towel in hand, her calm switching straight into mama mode. She wrapped my arm tight, pressing down on the cut until the blood slowed. Nia dropped the duster and came running too, her bracelets clinking like a warning bell.
