Paths

RATCHET HAPPY BIRTHDAY

It had been a week since Tylil passed away and officially one more week until Nairobi left for school. The past week had been a mix of emotions for her. After burying her cousin two days ago, she still couldn't get the vision of his dead body out of her head. She'd been doing everything to keep herself busy and keep her mind off of it.

Today was Kaier's nineteenth birthday, and despite the fact that they weren't together she was always excited to celebrate his birthday with him, most of the time even more than he was.

She stood in front of his door with a bouquet of flowers and a circle cake in hand. After her father passed she remembered hearing her grandma say that no one ever brought a man flowers until he passed. Since then she always made it a point to buy the men in her life flowers on their birthday.

Kaier answered the door with only a pair of boxers on and his long locs up in a bun, with a lit blunt in his hand. Immediately a wide grin came across his face as he pulled her in. "Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you!" She sung obnoxiously.

"Thank you Nai." He smirked. Despite it being almost ten am she was the first person to tell him happy birthday.

"How does it feel to be nineteen old man?" She teased him, grabbing the blunt out of his hand and bringing it to her mouth.

"Chill on me." He laughed. "Shidd I feel the same." He responded taking a seat next to her on the couch.

"Sorry I haven't been talking to you all week." She apologized laying her head on his shoulder.

He wrapped his arm around her leaning back on the couch. "You good I understand." He responded. Kaier knew better than to expect to hear from Nairobi. When she was going through things she figured them out best on her own.

"And thank you for the phone. Mine was cutting up my fingers." She laughed.

"You welcome." He chuckled. "You been good though? I didn't wanna blow up your line." He spoke looking down at her.

Since their breakup, he had been doing his best with giving her space. He was so used to them talking or hanging out everyday, now he constantly had to remind himself that all day communication wasn't usual for exes. He also wanted to respect that fact he had fucked up what they had, so he couldn't expect things to remain the same.

Nairobi nodded her head, "I've been okay. I just feel so bad for my auntie." She shook her head. "I can't get him out of my head."

Kaier nodded his head in understanding, the first time he saw a dead body was his freshman year of highschool. The image hunted him for months and what made it worse was that he could never tell Nairobi about it in fear of what she would think of him. He also knew that she was going through the loss of her father, it felt extremely selfish of him to put his problems onto her.

"You gonna be okay." He assured her.

Nairobi nodded her head believing him. "Okay enough sad shit." She sat up passing him the blunt. "What you want to do today?" She cheesed.

Kaier shook his head, "Nothing. My brother throwing me a party later so I just wanna chill until then. You'll chill with me?" He questioned.

"Of course." She nodded her head. "I want to cook you breakfast!" She spoke getting excited. "Do you have breakfast food?" She questioned walking to his kitchen.

He shook his head, "Nah I don't have shit in there." He laughed.

Nairobi smacked her lips as she looked in his empty refrigerator. "I keep telling you need to keep food in your refrigerator. I'll be back I gotta go to the grocery store."