Mine

Better?

BEYONCÉ GISELLE

"Get better."

"You should get better."

"She needs you to get better."

"I hope you can get better."

Those words are all I've been hearing, every time I turn to someone for advice, I don't know what I expect maybe I should get better. I stood from the edge of my bathtub and approach the pill bottles I'd been staring down for hours now.

I stare at myself in the mirror contemplating whether or not I can do it. Onika walks into the bathroom she'd just woken up she looks at me, and I stare back, I notice the bruises on her face from the day before. She looks between me and my pills, she leaves and returns with a glass of ice-cold water. The picks up the correct pills and holds open her palm, she looks up at me with a sweet smile. "Take them with water, they'll go down easier." She said. I took them and chugged the water with my eyes closed.

"I'm proud of you, B." She said. I just stared back blankly, it didn't hurt, it wasn't scary, and they don't even have a taste, guilt washes over me as tears fill my eyes.

"I'm sorry," I say as I cry pathetically in front of her, I feel her arms wrap around me, it takes a second but I hug back.

"It's okay." She says while pulling away. She lifts one of the pill bottles and inspects it.

"It says you're supposed to take these with food, do you wanna order something or do you want me to cook?" She asked.

"Can you cook?" I ask.

"Of course." She says while smiling wide at me, she stands on her tip toes and kisses my cheek, then leaves the bathroom.

I really wish she was here. I put the pills in my hand, stare at them, throw them both into my mouth, and swallow them dry. She was right they do go down easier with water. I turn the tap water on cold and take a mouthful, I cringe slightly but still swallow. I contemplate trying to make the breakfast Onika made for me the last time I attempted to "get better" but I choose not to. Cooking has never been my strong suit.

ONIKA TANYA

"Yo Nic! What do I do with this?" Aubrey asked. He and Wayne convinced me to let them help me unbox all the baby stuff, most of it was random toys and stuffed animals that my family sent me. But some of it was stuff from my last shopping trip. I watch them stand in the middle of my living room with a large paper of instructions for assembling a child's bookshelf.

"I already told y'all you don't need to do all that, thanks for all the help bringing stuff in the apartment but you really don't have to." I reasoned. They, Robyn, and my family are far more excited about this child than I am. I've been reading about childbirth and people are saying it's the most painful thing a human can experience, I mean I'm not surprised, you're creating a whole human. I'm not even that far along but the time is speeding by, I watch myself get bigger every day. I wonder what her reaction would be. Would she be happy?

"Nic we actually want to do this, you really want us to leave this to Rob's stupid ass? She'll probably turn this bookshelf into a chair." Wayne said and Aubrey nodded in agreement.

"Not too much, y'all ain't much better, remember Aubrey you just barely graduated, and Wayne you would've dropped out if your mom didn't force you to finish." I sassed back. They just rolled their eyes and went back to the nursery. I unpause the Telenovela I was watching, people make fun of me but these shows really take the idea of a dysfunctional family and run with it. I watch people get slapped back and forth, cheating husbands and evil sisters getting exposed, and babies are separated at birth, it's fun and it's distracted me from my own dysfunctional family situation. After about forty minutes I hear yelling and high fives coming from the nursery, I get up to check out what happened now.