𝐁𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐄

10

The beeping of the monitor in the hospital is driving me crazy. Worse, no one is here to hold my hand.

Babe FaceTimes me, one of the rare moments where her phone can call through from the club. Maybe they granted me this small blessing...will that cost me too?

"Oh sweetie. Your face," she cooes sadly.

"I know," I can hardly mumble. The medicine helps, but it only dulls my pain. "I'm gonna kill that bitch, Babe."

"Bunnie, please, don't," she begs, "I don't know what the club would do to you-

"Fuck the club," I snap, and cry out as pain moves across my face.

"Bunnie, you don't mean it."

My mask sits haphazardly across my eyes. The things I do for this stupid establishment. "Do you see it? My black eye?" She peers at my face, but shakes her head no.

"She fuckin' gave me a black eye too. They're doing emergency surgey for my tooth because it lodged a part of it deeper in and only left a bit. I'm so fuckin' pissed, Babe. And she told me something. I can't tell you over the phone. I have to tell you when I get back."

A knock came down on my doorway, and I say my goodbyes to my friend.

"Hello, Courtlynn Cerbey, right?" the doctor confirms.

I nod.

"You're doing better. Doing well. We just want to run a few more tests to make sure that you don't have a concussion or anything." He takes a glance around my room. Nothing any different from a usual hospital room. "Any family or friends...a partner, that I could call?"

I start to shake my head, but the way that he mentioned a partner feeds me curiousity. "Um, yes. Someone should be coming soon," I lie.

"You have a young man waiting for you in the lobby. He's rather insistent on seeing you. Would you like me to bring him in?"

"Uh, sure," I say.

NJ still came, after everything? How did he even find out?

Stocky shoulders, and those familiar, hardened eyes met mine. Did I leap into a time machine? Could my father still be so young?

"It must be the drugs," I say out loud, breathless.

"No," he slides his hands into his pockets, his stance not inviting. "The hospital called my father when you were admitted. Who you are you?"

"Don't be dumb, Ali," an annoying voice cut in.

A female replica of him made her way in, the same slender face, the same calculating and judgemental eyes, coily hair, brown skin. "He's father's...other daughter."

I frown, sure now that the hospital had slipped me something crazy. Maybe it had been Vanilla back at the club who had done it?

"I'm my father's only child. His one and only-

"His first," the girl corrected me, her expression studying. Gloved hands, a blouse with puffy shoulders, red painted across her lips, a pitying drawl to her words. Surely I couldn't be related to her! And her brother...her twin, (our brother?), he was no better. Basketball shorts and some random sports shirt. He looked too average, too unreal. They didn't look like any of the struggle that I wore from nine and on. They didn't look like any sort of struggle.

But darling, some people hide their struggles, I remember my aunt would tell me before sleep when bullies picked on me at school for one thing or another and I would scowl in my bed, not wanting to go back the next day. Little fighter Courtlynn.

"Well, since I've inconvenienced you, you can leave," I snap, feeling my anger boil up. The girl looked on at me with pity, and the boy only shrugged, "At least she's aware of her effect." The girl, my sister...gave him a glare, "I'm Amina. Sorry about Ali. He was rude from birth. I remember he flipped the bird at me when he was a baby." She sat at the edge of my bed, "I remember overhearing our father talk to our mom about another sister before, but now you're real and in front of us."

"I don't care. I'm still first in line," Ali grumbled, leaving the room. "I'm his son."

"He wanted to know if you were real just as much as I did. Don't believe his attitude," she gave my chest a gentle pat. "Where have you been all my life, Courtlynn?" she says my name unsurely, like it's a bad word that she shouldn't say.

My anger reignites all over again. "Living with my aunt, crumbling under debt, while-while-

I don't need to finish my sentence as she pulls her gloves off, her expression apologetic. "Our mother didn't want children when they got together, and when she finally did, the doctors said that she couldn't. Me and Ali were her miracle babies. By then...Dad didn't want to rip you away from a life you had gotten used to again. So he let you stay with your aunt."

"You seem well-informed for someone who wasn't sure if I was even real," I state.

Her gaze falls, but I don't feel sorry.

"What was Ali talkin' about when he said 'first in line'?" I demand.

Amina abruptly stood, "We'll pay your hospital bills. I'm sure now that we've come to see you, Dad will want to visit you too. Don't worry about any of that."

"I'm sure he won't," I snap.

I'm helpless to stop her, so I can continue to fume and rant, as she walks for the door.

"I'm glad someone got to feel his love. I sure didn't."

Amina turned, holding her gloves in one hand, an apologetic expression on her face. "Don't worry, you didn't miss out on much."

First in line. First in line. First in line.

"Is he some sort of royalty?" I blurt out, but Amina is already gone.

"Fuck," I ball my hand up in a fist hitting the side of the bed. Meet your siblings. You see they lived a great life. They leave. Why does bad shit keep happening to me?

At least my debt won't be worsened, I think to myself.