"Lauren... Lauren wake up!"
Before opening my eyes I said a silent prayer that everything that had happened in the last twenty four hours was just a dream, but when I finally opened them, and saw aunt neicy standing over top of me shaking my leg. I had no choice but to embrace my reality.
"Get up and go to my house, and get you some sleep." She ordered.
I sat up in the chair and looked around in the ICY waiting room.
"I'm fine aunt neicy," I told her wiping the corners of my eyes to remove any visible signs of sleep. Aunt neicy sat down next to me.
"Lauren you have been here all night and I'm here to relieve you, so here." She dug inside of her purse and retrieved a set of keys.
"Go to my house and take you a shower, eat, and lay down for a little while."
"No, I'm not leaving."
Aunt neicy day the keys down in my lap.
"Don't make me tell you again." She said forcefully.
"If anything happens before you get back I will call you." I lowered my head.
"I'm afraid something is going to happen to her if I leave." I swallowed the lump in my throat with the hopes that I would be able to reverse the tears that were about to fall.
I've held them back for as long as I could because I didn't want to be the one who always breaks down in a crisis, but when aunt neicy pulled me close to her it gave me a safe haven to let what I was truly feeling go; guilt.
Aunt neicy once told me that if anything were to ever happen to my nana, they would have to pull me off of her casket, and I was afraid that day was in my immediate future.
She was never thrilled about me moving to Atlanta. To her I was running from my problems and to a certain extent maybe I was.
I felt as if I didn't have a family and since nip and I weren't together, moving to Atlanta was the only thing that made sense to me.
I was ready for a fresh start and a new beginning.
I didn't think I was going to find any peace in the same zip code as nip so I did what I thought was best for me and my baby and I left.
After I finished wetting up aunt neicy shirt with tears, she told me where she parked her car and she more or less pushed me, out of the hospital, but before the elevator doors closed I heard a voice.
"Hold the elevator please, thank you." She said wheeling a cleaning cart backwards into the elevator.
"You're welcome." I moved over to the right so that she was able to get both herself and the cart into the compact elevator. "Which floor?"
"I'm going downstairs to the... Lauren?" She stopped speaking in mid sentence. I looked over at her.
"Jade?! Girl hey!" We both reaches out to give each other a hug at the same time. Crystal is sam baby mom, she got two kids by him.
"How have you been? What are you doing here" I asked bombarding her with questions.
"I've been back in California for a while now." Jade replied.
"How are the kids doing?"
"Girl don't get me started on my bad ass kids, especially Lil Sam. Oh my gosh! Lauren it's so good to see you." She smiled cheerfully.
"It's good to see you too."
"When Samantha told me that you moved to Atlanta I said she's would leave California right when I moved back.'"
"I know right!" I laughed.
"I just got back in town yesterday. We're just standing here not going anywhere." I said noticing neither one of us had pressed the button to go down to the lobby.
"What are you doing here at the hospital so early?"
"My grandma had emergency surgery." I told her.
"Oh no!" Jade had a disappointing look on her face.
"Is she going to be alright?"
"Prayerfully so, but right now it's still touch and go. I'm getting ready to go to Ms.Neicy house for a little while but I'm coming right back."
When the elevator reached the ground floor after exiting I followed jade over to a seating area close by the hospital entrance.
"what made you come back to California Jade? When you left you vowed to never return."
"Girl when I say Lil Sam has been giving me hell, that don't even describe half of it." She rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
"He got it honest, let's not forget he is a asghedom." I giggled.
"And you ain't know?" She cocked her head to the side.
"How's that pretty little girl of yours?" She asked.
"She's fine, hanging with her daddy." She laughed.
"Awee that's so cute." She smiled.
"Yea, she—" our conversation was interrupted you two woman who had just walked through the hospital doors at the same time.
"Bitch that ain't even his baby so I don't know why your cousin has a problem with my damn sister." The heavyset girl shouted out pointing her finger.
"I could say the same thing for your sisters ugly ass baby!" The other girl abruptly returned.
One of the first things I zoomed in on was that one girl had a beige rubber band in her hair that she was using to keep her ponytail, which was as long as my thumb, in place.
"Call my neicy ugly one more time and you gon be laying in one of these fucking hospital beds!" She threatened.
"Bitch if the lil girl ugly than she just ugly...."
*pop*
She punched the girl dead in the face, charging at her, knocking her over.
Jade and I looked at each other at the same time.
"Should we break them up?" I asked.
"Hell, naw!"
"There go security right there, let them do their job and put their asses out for good this time."
"For good? You know them?"
"Not personally, but apparently the fat girls sister" she pointed.
"And the other girls cousin got a baby by the same dude and they both had their babies on the same day."
"Jade You is lying." I covered my mouth with my hand and looked back over at the wild women who were now being separated by two nurses.
"Girl how bout the two girls that had babies are in rooms right next door to each other."
She laughed.
"Ghetto news at its finest." She sighed.
"But let me get my ass back to work before I get fired." Jade stood up.
"I'm going to tell my aunt Bessie I saw you."
"Please do." I stood up grabbing the keys.
"By the way how is she doing since Yvette passed away?"
"I guess she's doing as well as to be expected, but she did take my cousins death really hard."
"I did too, it's still so unreal. I hate to talk about it."
"I know, me too. She loved you and even though y'all weren't on good terms, she always talked about you."
Jade and I exchanged phone numbers before she went back to work.
