“Same thing I said. I hate he’s in there but it might be what he needs.”
“Ain’t his girl pregnant though?” he asks.
“Yeah and he’s probably gonna be locked when she has the baby. He gon’ have to live with that shit.”
The bartender returns with our drinks. “Your food will be out shortly,” she says.
“Thanks,” he says.
“’Preciate it,” I add. After downing the rest of my current glass, I take a big sip of my new one.
“But Kadean isn’t causing you to do this.” Rick nods toward my empty glass. “What’s really up?”
Until Adora found her mother’s phone, Kadean and I were the only two who knew about that night, but even he doesn’t know that I still have the phone. I kept that all to myself. Looking back, I think I felt a connection in a weird way. If I had never met Adora, I probably would have eventually tossed it and my possession of it would have remained a secret.
“Before I tell you this shit, just know I’m not on no creep shit. Some unique things just happened to coincide and I didn’t handle it right,” I begin, trying to piece it all together.
“I think you drunk already, bruh. I didn’t understand shit you just said.”
“I’m not drunk. Trust. I’m sober as fuck. Imma make it make sense.” I take another sip then continue. “You heard about that accident on that back road to the mountain? It was in January,” I say and he nods.
“Yeah, I remember that.”
“They thought there was another driver on the road, but because of the rain that night, the police couldn’t say for sure. Well, there was another driver. It was Kadean.”
“What?”
“Yeah, and of course, he called me and I went.”
“Was he drinking?”
Nodding, I say, “But he wasn’t at fault. That was confirmed recently.”
“Shit,” he sighs. “I remember that. Somebody took her to the hospital.”
“Me,” I admit. “I couldn’t leave her there.”
“Damn, bruh. What the fuck?”
“Yeah and that ain’t even all of it,” I say and take another sip. I need it for my next words. “She was Adora’s mom,” I add and he freezes. He was about to drink from his glass but stops. “Yeah,” I confirm and he shakes his head.
After taking his drink, he places the glass back on the bar and turns to look at me. “How the fuck? How did you even know?” he fires. “You knew who she was at that dentist office?”
“Not before I got there and heard her voice.”
“How did you even connect her to the accident? Bruh, I’m trying to figure this out.”
“Kadean accidentally grabbed her mother’s phone that night, thinking it was mine. When I got home, I saw it wasn’t. I didn’t know what I was gonna do with it but it rang. Shit freaked me out.”
“You answered?” he asks incredulously.
“Nah. Hell nah,” I scoff. “It rang back-to-back then there was a voicemail. My head was all over the place. Having to go get him, dealing with his drunk ass, and getting her out of the car to take her to the hospital had me on edge. I wasn’t thinking straight. Next thing I knew, I was opening the phone and listening to the voicemail.”
“Wow!”
“I know. I know,” I admit while shaking my damn head. “It’s fucked up but I did. It was her daughter, just checking to see if she made it to work. Guilt hit me hard as fuck and I got mad atKadean and myself all over. I couldn’t sleep. I got up and found an old c-cord charger and charged the phone.”
“Bruh, shit. That’s deep. You charged it?”
