Once I got myself together, I pulled my phone out to call my wife. The phone rang multiple times before it went to voicemail. I called back again, and she answered.
As soon as I heard her voice, my heart rate accelerated. I tried to keep my voice as steady as possible because I didn’t want to scare her.
“I need you to come to the hospital.” They called my name over the intercom again, so I couldn’t answer any questions.
I knew she would come, so I put my phone away and headed back to the emergency room. Luckily, it wasn’t anything serious, because I needed to be around for Janiyah’s arrival.
Twenty minutes later, Janiyah came barreling through the emergency room doors. I moved in her direction and pulled her into my arms. I took a minute to inhale her scent. I closed my eyes as I held her in my arms.
“Arsel, what’s wrong?” She tilted her head up to look at me.
God, I missed her so fucking much, and after today’s events, I needed to make shit right with her. I couldn’t imagine something happening to her. The thought of it made my blood run cold.
I released her and grabbed her hand. “Let’s go to my office.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I promise I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
It didn’t take long for us to get to my office. Once inside, I closed the door and sat on the edge of my desk.
Janiyah stared up at me, concern etched on her beautiful face. I took a second to admire her. I could tell she just threw on some clothes to get here, but she still looked pretty to me. My wife was bad, and she looked it at all times, even when she didn’t feel it.
“Arsel, what’s wrong?”
My eyes watered, and I hated to be the one to break the news to her, but it had to come from me.
I grabbed her hands and held them in mine. “There was an accident.” I paused for a second. “It was Monica and Trevor.” Janiyah gasped and put her hand over her mouth. Her other hand was still in mine. “Baby, they didn’t make it.”
“No.” Fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
I pulled her up from the chair and held her in my arms as she cried.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I tried my best.”
I told her everything that happened, from the moment the ambulance arrived on the scene to when I tried to save Trevor.
We stayed in my office for a while, until Janiyah was ready to go. We spent a few minutes in both of their rooms. I was told their families had been informed, and they were coming.
We might not have been best friends, but we had a pretty solid relationship, and this kind of shook me up a little. With us being the godparents, I wasn’t sure what would happen to their daughter.
I comforted my wife until she was ready to go home. I was still on the clock, but I assured her to call me if she needed me. She agreed and went back to her grandmother’s house.
I had a feeling things were going to change for us; I just wasn’t sure what those changes were going to be.
“I finally got her to go to sleep. How are you feeling?” my grandmother asked as she sat next to me on the couch.
“A lot of things. I can’t believe Monica and Trevor are gone. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Mikayla. I feel like I didn’t have enough time with Monica. I hadn’t seen her in a while, and it’s bothering me a little. Like, should we have made more of an effort?”
My grandmother patted my knee and shifted to face me. My emotions had been all over the place for the last few days. First, after learning about Monica and Trevor, I took on the responsibility of Mikayla for the time being. Then, seeing Arsel for the first time after three months had me feeling things. I didn’t think we would see each other under thosecircumstances, though. I missed him, but I was still staying with my grandmother.
We’d been there to comfort each other during the funeral and texted to check on each other, but I hadn’t seen him since the funeral. For three days, Grandma and I had been Mikayla’s caregivers because neither of her grandparents wanted to take her, or they were unable to do so. At least that was what they said, but I wasn’t so sure. She was a toddler, so I knew it would be an adjustment for them. I thought she would be more comfortable with them since they were family, but they hadn’t seen it that way.
The first day was a little rough for us all because I hadn’t seen her in a minute, and I was sure she had forgotten who I was. The second day wasn’t so bad. She was a ball of energy, but she brought light into the house.
“You can’t put that on yourself. Life happened, and everyone was so busy. I’m sure Monica never thought anything negative if you guys didn’t talk all the time. I mean, it was you who was listed as Mikayla’s emergency contact. What time are you supposed to be meeting with the lawyer?”
I was surprised when I got the call to pick Mikayla up from the day care center where she attended. Monica mentioned she put me down as an emergency contact, but I had completely forgotten about it. I knew I was the last resort, so I never expected to actually be called.
