The three dots popped up almost instantly.
Yana: She told me to ask you.
That made my stomach drop in a different way. Princess hadn’t forgotten the flight details. She was the most organized person I knew. If anything, she probably had the confirmation emails printed and color-coded already. She wasn’t confused. She was redirecting.
Another text came through.
Yana: Why y’all acting weird?
I swallowed. The room suddenly felt too small. I glanced back at Malik, who was still scrolling on his phone. I turned around and typed back.
Me: Who acting weird.
A small twist shot through my stomach. Yana had noticed the shift between her mother and me. She was old enough to understand, even if we were apart from each other.
Her reply came quicker than I expected, and I had no time to brace for it.
Yana: Yes y’all are. I thought the baby stuff was just rumors? I seen the blogs.
That felt like more than just a text; it felt like she held a mirror to me and forced me to look at myself. She had seen the blogs. Of course, she had. She was at that age where social media wasn’t just entertainment, but it was information as well.
I leaned back in the chair and exhaled. I still had my back to the soundboard, but I felt the stare from Malik, which burned through the back of my head. I didn’t care. I couldn’t control the heaviness that sat in my hands.
Yana wasn’t asking about gossip. She didn’t ask whether the blogs were true or not or even mention if the kids were at school whispering in the hallways. She was asking about stability. She was asking whether her parents were okay or not.
She was asking whether her Auntie Kennedy’s wedding would look like the picture we all had in our heads just a few weeks before, during spring break, when we were joking and laughing around Los Angeles; whether she would see her mama dressed up, me in a tux, and all of us walking into the church as if we belonged to each other.
Her text made me read more between the lines. She wasn’t asking for flight information. She was asking if she would be safe in the middle of us—if this thing we were building was cracking.
I typed out a response but then erased it. I had to get it right. I spun around in my chair and then typed again.
Me: It is rumors. Don’t let that stuff get in your head.
She opened the text, and I saw that she read it. There was a longer pause that time. I waited for a second until the three dots appeared again.
Yana: Then why she ain’t just tell me the flight time?
That hit harder than the rumor question. Princess hadn’t told her to ask me because she didn’t know. She told her to ask me because she didn’t want to speak for me. That small shift was loud. Yana sent another message before I could respond.
Yana: I don’t like that y’all doing this.
I exhaled at those words. She had seen this before. She’d seen tension and distance before when her mama was going through a divorce with the man she’d known to be her father growing up. My throat went dry. I suddenly saw it from her perspective: two parents who had finally found their way back to each other, now moving stiffly again, talking through her instead of to each other.
That was how confusion grew in a child. I knew that all too well.
Me: I’ll check the flight info and send it to you. And we’ll talk tonight. I promise we good.
That wordpromisefelt fragile. She didn’t respond right away. That silence from her felt heavier than any argument with Princess.
Before I realized it, Malik had walked over and was by my side.
“Everything straight?”
“I’m good, bruh. What you order?” I quickly locked my screen and slid the phone into my pocket.
“Cava, nigga. I been here in L.A. so long, y’all done turnt me into a bougie nigga.”
I laughed. “Ain’t nothing bougie about the nutrients you put in your body, my boy! You ain’t get me nothin’?”
