Paths

BITTERSWEET

It was officially Nairobi's father's birthday and only two days before the fourth anniversary of his death. Four years ago, Sekani was shot four times outside of his best friend's club while celebrating his 35th birthday. He fell into a coma and after being told that it was highly unlikely he would ever wake up, his mother took him off of life support two days later.

Nairobi still felt like it was yesterday when she found out that her father was shot. It was approaching two am when her mother burst through her room telling her they had to go to the hospital. Even though she could hear the urgency in her mother's voice, Nairobi still couldn't wrap her head around the words that her mom had told her. She spent the whole car ride convincing herself that she would arrive at the hospital and her dad would be okay because to Nairobi her dad was invincible. She felt her world change when she saw her grandmother fall into her mother's arms as they walked through the doors of the emergency room.

Nairobi realized just how fast the world worked, the whole ride home she watched as people rode past still living their own lives while hers had just fallen apart. Most people didn't even blink an eye, gun violence was normal in their community another dead black man, was soon to be replaced by the next person who wanted to run the streets.

She even sometimes felt like her own family had just gone on with their lives, Nairobi felt like she missed out on the chance to properly grieve. When her father died, she saw her brothers cry twice, once at the hospital and again as they lowered him to the ground. Nairobi only saw her mother shed a single tear about her father's death and she wouldn't admit it but there was a period after his death when she resented her mother for that. She could never really wrap her head around it, her parents were on and off from the age of fifteen until they were twenty-nine years old.

She could never fault her mother for moving on, but she could tell her mom was still trying to navigate between being a new wife and grieving Sekani. Because of this she always felt like her mom was closed off to certain conversations about her dad even if her mom didn't mean to be, especially ones that involved his occupation.

With all these factors combined Nairobi felt like she was left to grieve her dad on her own. She would never blame her family for that because she knew that it was unintentional and everyone grieved in their own way. The whole first year after Sekani's death, instead of her siblings and her mom, Nairobi leaned on Kaier for support.

It was partially what made their relationship so strong, even though they were young and only almost a year into their relationship, Kaier made being there for her a priority. He was constantly buying her books to give her other things to think about and showing up to her house with flowers to drag her out of bed and force her into doing whatever he could afford as a freshman in high school. It was also another reason that it was so hard for her to walk away from him, even in her most depressed state he never gave up on her. It sometimes made her wonder if she was giving up on him.

All things considered, Nairobi was slightly surprised when she was awoken by her mom who let her know that Kaier was at the front door. They had a yearly tradition of him driving her to see her dad's grave but she had figured since their conversation last weekend that he wouldn't show up, he was also still blocked so they had no communication. She rolled over to look at her phone reading that the time was ten in the morning. She pulled her phone off the charger reading messages from her sibling group chat about what time they were pulling up to the annual block party their family had for Sekani.

She wiped the crust out of her eyes, as she slid out of the bed putting on the teddy bear house shoes that sat beside her. She opened her room door as her stepfather walked up the steps, "Good morning baby girl." He said placing a kiss on her forehead. "You doing okay?" He questioned surveying her face. Marvin knew that his step-daughter would never say if she wasn't but he always asked. He didn't have any kids of his own because before he met Sunny he never wanted any, but after they married they became his family and he didn't take that lightly. Nairobi always took into account that Marvin was never a parent and didn't always know the right thing to say but she knew that he loved her so she gave him grace. She also just appreciated that he wasn't some evil stepparent.