Raw & True

o01

Chapter One

(Marley Wright)

✨Monday, April 10th 2017✨

"Hello, may I please speak to Ms. Marley Wright?"

"Um speaking, may I ask who's calling?"

"This is Dr. Brown at Presbyterian Hospital. I'm here with your brother, Mr. Micah Wright Sr; he was brought in today due to an overdose. I've tried contacting everyone on his emergency contact list but you were the first to answer. I'd love to go over his condition with you in person if you're not too busy."

"No, no, not at all." I started grabbing my things off my workspace. "I can be there in 15 minutes."

"Okay, thank you, Ms. Wright. I'll see you when you get here."

I hung up and set my head down in the palm of my hand for a second before standing up from my seat. There wasn't much traffic in my nail salon due to it being a Monday morning, so I knew if I left the two nail techs that were here alone, they'd be fine.

"Everything okay, Marley?" my "brow girl," Georgia asked.

"Actually, no, it isn't," I said, still confused about the call. "I need to go check on Micah; y'all think y'all will be fine without me for a few hours? I should be back by three. "

"Yeah, we got this. It's still early and Erica will be in at one," my nail tech Carla assured me.

"Okay, thanks y'all. I'll be back," I told them on my way out of the salon.

Once I made it to my navy blue 2015 Nissan Juke, I gave my mother a call. The phone rang out while I prepared to drive off. Once her voicemail picked up, I hung up and tossed my phone into the passenger seat and made my way to the hospital. I'm sure everyone saw this overdose coming with Micah; I'd be lying if I said I didn't see it coming myself. It'd been three months since I found out about Micah's cocaine and pill problem but I had a feeling my parents knew about it since it started.

After his wife Diana lost her battle with ovarian cancer, Micah was left to raise their children, 17-year-old Micah Jr. and 15-year-old Miracle, on his own. Of course, the family helped out; there were too many of us to not help out but whereas my older sister, Marlow, helped financially; it took me and my younger brother Moriah to actually help raise them. I'd take Miracle out every other weekend; most of the time, we'd just hang out at my house and have girl time and other times, we'd go out on spa dates or to get our hair done. I knew she appreciated the girl time and it was something we did before her mother passed, so she knew it was genuine. My brother Moriah would spend a lot of time with Micah and Micah Jr. as well but with Jr. getting older, he was more into hanging out with his friends on his off time.

I offered to take the kids in while sending Micah Sr. to rehab after I found out about his addiction but he tried to convince me that he wasn't that far gone. After this call today, I was sure he was beyond 'too far gone' and no matter how much he protested, I was going to get him help today.

It took a little while to actually make it to Micah's room after I arrived at the hospital. Approaching his room, I noticed a middle-aged brown-skin male in scrubs standing in front of his door, looking down at the clipboard in his hand. My heels hitting the floor caught his attention and the doctor looked up at me with a weak smile on his face.

"Ms. Wright?"

"Yes, sorry it took me a little longer to get here than expected." I shook his hand and took a seat in one of the chairs in the hallway. "Is my brother okay? How did he get here?" I rushed out, still trying to calm down a little.