Never Satisfied: A New Orleans Tale

"What about Sky. Is he okay?"

Beep... Beep... Beep...

Gasping for air, I forced my eyelids a part and strained to see as my eyes attempted to focus. It felt like I had been sinking in a bottomless lake and was finally able to resurface.

Slowly I tilted my head and noticed a machine with several tubes attached to it. My eyes followed the tubes and I noticed that they were all latched on to me.

"Ms. Harris?" The stern, deep voice caught my attention. "Take it easy ma'am." The woman used the bed's remote to elevate me after witnessing the struggle I was going through to sit up.

The first thing I noticed when I saw her was the way she looked at me. Those big, pale blue eyes couldn't hide the remorse she was feeling as a subtle tear dripped from her heart shaped face.

"I'm detective Sierra Mitchell," she paused to flash me her badge, "and I'm here to talk with you about what happened today."

"Huh?"

"Can you remember how long you've been here?"

I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on the answer. "I'm not sure."

"You've been here for about three hours now." She spoke calmly as she updated me on what was going on. "Now, you may experience a few muscle spasms and feel kind of tired and out of it, but don't panic okay. That is typically the norm for trauma patients." She eyed me for a signal that I understood her and I nodded. She then proceeded to say, "Also, the doctors believe you may have suffered a few seizures while en-route to the hospital so you may be experiencing some memory loss. Can you recall how you got to the hospital?"

"No ma'am," I hoarsely stated, feeling the dryness of my throat.

"Okay I need you to try really hard to think for me. Can you remember anything at all?"

"Um," I squeezed my eyes lids together, straining my brain to replay what went down. "I remember being in the kitchen. I-I was cooking."

"Okay, that's a good start," she praised my effort. "What happened after that?"

"Then I remember feeling kind of dizzy and I just blacked out." I opened my eyes and was met with the engaging stare of the detective. She was waiting for more. "I can't remember anything after that."

"Can you remember if someone was there with you? Was your boyfriend home?"

"I can't fucking remember anything okay!" This bitch was starting to get on my damn nerve.

"Ms. Harris I need you to calm down before you overexert yourself. Now I know it's hard," she tried to level with me. "Listen, I get it. I know what you're going through. My father was an army sergeant. He was one of those anal types who required nothing short of perfection, especially when it came to my mom. The way he used to treat her, was like she was one of his subordinates back in Vietnam." She took a moment to take a deep breath. "And the way he would talk to her was so condescending, barking orders at her and calling her all sorts of degrading names if she didn't do something to his liking. And my mom was one of those 'stand by your man' types, so she would just take it. For her, a happy husband equaled a peaceful house. But, over time, my father took his abuse to the next level and started hitting her. I remember one time my mom even asked him, 'Why are you hurting me like this when I do everything you ask?' All he had for her was, 'Just because.' That taught me that no matter how hard you try to please an abusive person, they'll always have a reason to abuse you even if it's 'just because.' So don't be afraid to speak Ms. Harris, even if you think it's your fault." She tried to proceed with the interrogation, but I was too tired to even hear her anymore.

"Detective Mitchell, I'm done!"

"Alright then." She took the hint and handed me a card with her contact information on it. "How about you give me a call when you're ready to talk, on your own terms," she said before excusing herself from the room.

Once I was sure she was gone I let my head fall back and just laid there, letting the morphine take it's affect as I stared at the flickering florescent lights dangling from the ceiling.

"So you finally up, huh?" an ebony toned, slender chick interrupted as she came through the door. It was clear from the scrubs she was wearing that she was a nurse. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel okay. The left side of my face feels kind of funny though."

"Oh yeah love, they had to stitch you up right quick." She quickly stepped out and came back with a small mirror in hand. "You had a nasty gash on your cheek. That guy cut you pretty deep," she said handing the mirror to me.

Right away I saw the long cut running down the left side of my face as I stared into the mirror at my reflection. When I noticed my swollen lip and the black eyes I lost it.

"Oh my God!" I gasped, recalling the feeling of Sky's fists meeting with my face. Suddenly, the monitor I was connected to began beeping rapidly. I was struggling to catch my breath as I felt my airway closing up. My eyes were nearly bulged out of their sockets, feeling a burning sensation in my lungs, as I tried to cough the imaginary obstruction out of my throat.

"Yeah girl, you did good telling that cop you ain't remember shit," the girl went on, apparently not paying attention to the wheezing sounds I had been making. "Definitely don't need them dicks sniffing around... Especially since the gun Ri cracked ol' boy over the head with got at least two bodies on it." She paused, waiting for me to respond. However, all she got out of me was the whistling sound of me sucking in air as I continued to asphyxiate.

The dumb bitch must've mistook me choking for being shocked at the information she had just divulged because she kept on going! "Yes ma'am that was my brother's piece. Are you okay girl?" She leaned closer to me. "Shit!" As I began to black out, her stupid ass had finally released something wasn't right and quickly ran to the station right outside of my room.

Quickly, she returned with a bronchodilator and put it to my pale lips.

With tears in my eyes, I puffed on that inhaler like it was a Kool Filter Kings cigarette.

"I'm sorry love!" She said once I was able catch my breath.

I waved off her apology. "How do you know Kyrielle?" I asked taking deep breaths.

Who the fuck is this dumb bitch and how does she know so much?

"Oh my bad, I'm Shatoya, Nique's big sister," she briefly introduced herself. "But anyways, girl I thought you was dead when he brought you in."

"With you as my damn nurse I will be soon!" I mumbled under my breath.

"Huh?" Her slow ass didn't hear me.

"Nothing girl." I shook my head. "Who brought me to the hospital though?"

"Nique did. He even stayed about an hour just to make sure you were going to be good."

"Really?" For some reason, hearing that made me smile.

"Yeah. And he would've stayed longer, but you know how niggas get when they know the cop are about to come."

"Where is Kyrielle?"

"After she dropped you off by Nique, she had to go back to your crib to clean up."

"Clean up?"

"Yeah, you already know. I think they said the police are over there right now looking for evidence."

"What about my boyfriend, Sky. Is he okay?"

"I guess girl. Nique told me that Kyrielle said she couldn't find him or the gun"........