I nodded. “I like the sound of that.”
“Sessions are usually ninety minutes, so feel free to wait in here,” the physical therapist told me. “We have a full morning ahead of us.”
Seeing Aunt Addy in pain was bad enough, but hearing her cry out as she was placed in her wheelchair gutted me. I had the decency to wait until they were out the door before I allowed tears to fall.
When Aunt Addy returned, she seemed exhausted. She slept until her lunch was delivered. Then we talked nonstop for about an hour. She left for her afternoon therapies and came back just as tired as she had earlier. She woke up twenty minutes after her dinner had arrived, barely ate, and then went to sleep again.
A few minutes before visiting hours were over, Aunt Addison opened her eyes.
“Start on your list,” she whispered. “Don’t waste a minute of your life.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
She reached out for me with her right hand. As soon as I took it, she squeezed. “Live, Jazmyn. Live.”
“I will.”
She closed her eyes, and a few minutes later, her grip on my hand loosened, and it was clear she was asleep.
“Good night,” I murmured, before I left her bedside.
I held it together and didn’t cry on the way home. I just kept thinking about Aunt Addy’s words, repeating them in my head over and over again.
My phone rang right as I was sitting down to eat dinner.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Heyyyyyyy!” Aaliyah and Nina said in unison on a three-way call.
“How are you?” Aaliyah asked.
“How was the yoni steam?” Nina wondered.
“I was going to call you guys after I ate,” I began, taking a deep breath. “Aunt Addy’s hospital stint was more serious than I thought. She had a stroke.” They gasped and I continued. “She’s in a rehab facility for two weeks, and then she’s coming home. Today was her first real day going through rehab, and it was hard.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Nina said. “She’s going to be okay though. She’s tough.”
“And she has you there,” Aaliyah added. “You’ll make this week fly by for her.”
“I’m actually going to stay the full two weeks while she’s in rehab.” I got choked up. “I can’t leave while she’s in that place.”
“Do you need anything?” Aaliyah sounded like she might cry.
“What can we do? I can order you something and have it delivered there,” Nina offered.
“I love you both,” I said softly, holding back my tears.
That was an understatement.
Even though there had been people I talked to in high school, they weren’t friends. It was hard for me to get close to people in Chance once the bullying started. Aunt Addy encouraged me to go away for college and to be my full self. And within the first week of freshman year, I hadn’t just made a bunch of friends—I’d met my best friends in the world.
“Tell me what you guys have going on?” I inquired. “I need to think about something else.”
I listened to the happenings of their lives. Nina’d had another date and sexcapade with the man she’d met a few weeks ago during Richland Fashion Weekend.
“You’re not worried he only wants you for fun and sex?” Aaliyah wondered.
“That’s the only reason I want him,” Nina countered.
