Page 46 of Street Heiress 3
Physically, her body was here, but mentally, I’m sure she was still at the crime scene. She hasn’t sat down once. Since we’vebeen in this room, she’s been standing in the corner. I felt fucked up in this moment as a partner because my girl was obviously hurting, and in a dissociating state, but I had my own shit going on, where I couldn’t be there for her the way that I should have.
In the quietness of the room, Riot picked up her feet, and she cried her way out of the room.
“Go check on her. She’s blaming herself for this shit. I know how survivors guilt works. Diego got hit, and she didn’t,” he said it to me in a firm kind of way, as if it wasn’t up for discussion.
My pops was calm, but in this moment, I knew that he was scared for Diego just like the rest of us. He sat back in his seat, with his arms draped across my mom, who was taking it hard. Diego was her baby. She still treated his ass like he was four. She’ll cut his food up and blow it for him if you let her.
I stood up, so that I could walk out of the waiting room area, and search for Riot. I happened to look to my right, and I found her at the end of the hallway. She was getting ready to walk inside of one of the family styled restrooms.
I rushed over, so that I could get to her before she went in and locked the door. I knew that once she got on the inside, and locked herself in, that she wasn’t going to answer the door for me.
I was able to catch up with her as soon as she touched the door. I pushed the door open at the top, she turned around and looked at me with red, puffy eyes, and tears that were falling. She then turned back around, so that she could go inside. I followed her, closing and locking the door behind me.
I posted up on the door. I folded my arms while watching her. She was pacing back and forth, while softly crying.
“He tried to save me. He…tried. He put.. he put my life before his. He saw… he saw the truck before I saw it. He leaped, trying to cover me… and… I saw the bullets go into him. I watched him lay there… and the last thing that he told me was to tell you thathe loved you,” she cried, and no lie, those were the words that broke me.
Knowing that all the things that he could have possibly said to her, what he chose to let her know was that he loved me. My eyes grew watery the second she said it, and when I blinked, tears fell. I couldn’t even fight this shit. I couldn’t even try to play big gangsta and not cry in front of her because the tears had a mind of their own.
“Don’t blame me for this, Dolo. Please, don’t. I acted as quickly as I could. I sent shots off towards the car, trying to get whoever was in there. I couldn’t see who was in there. I tried though. I know you told me before that I always seem to be somewhere when bullshit happens, but I hope you don’t blame this on me. Please,” she was hysterical, as she cried, standing in the middle of the restroom, looking at me.
Riot was in a yellow top, and you could see my brother’s blood on her top. The light denim jeans that she was wearing had scuffs at the knees, a little dirt, and some of his blood rested there as well.
I hated that she felt like I blamed her for this. Through my own pain, and everything else that I was feeling right now, I reached my hand out, pulled her to me, making her stand directly in front of me. I placed both hands on the side of her face, while looking her in her eyes. Tears dropped from my eyes just as much as they dropped from hers.
“I don’t blame you for this shit, bae. I swear to God I don’t. If anything, I’m standing here, and I’m blaming myself. I should have pushed a little harder for Diego to go in a different direction from me. I should have made him pursue ball and not try to follow in my footsteps. This shit don’t have anything to do with you. We don’t know who those niggas were in that black truck, but I can assure you that they were probably looking for me. Not you. Not Diego. I’m not blaming you for this. When I told youthat shit awhile back, telling you that you were always on the scene when bullshit popped off, I wasn’t even blaming you then. I told you before that when I said that, I was referring to hating that you always had to be around when bullshit pops off. Okay?” I asked her, and through her tears, she nodded her head up and down.
“How many niggas you think were in the car?” I asked, after I calmed down a little bit, and she did the same. I let her face go, but she was still standing in front of me. She was using the back of her hands to wipe her eyes.
“I feel like it was only two. Only the passenger side window was rolled down, and that’s the window that they were shooting out of. The back windows never went down. I had to have popped at least one of them. I sent out multiple rounds into that truck. One of them had to die,” she told me, and I nodded.
My mind went towards Elijah, and Elias. It had to be those two. They had been too quiet ever since we ran up in their spot and took their shit.
“Thank you. You held shit down for my brother, and you know I’ll always love you for that,” I responded, and with just a simple nod of her head, she ended it at that.
We didn’t leave out of the restroom until we both got it together, which was about five minutes later. Riot washed her hands at the sink because there was blood on her hands as well. I came over, and I did the same.
After that, I opened the door, so that she could walk out first, leading the way back into the waiting area. I didn’t let her go back to that wall and stand there alone. This time, I pulled her over to me, making her sit right next to me.
It was still quiet in here. The only sound was coming from my mom. She was still softly crying, and sniffing.
It took about another hour for the doctor to finally walk into the waiting room area. The second he walked in, it’s as if it wasa race for each of us to stand up out of our seats. We all got up quickly, barely giving him any time to fully get into the room.
Judging by his blue scrubs, and the exhaustion written all over his face, you could tell that he was fresh out of surgery. I’m not sure what had all taken place back there during surgery, but it was obviously enough to have him with this drained look in his eyes.
“Family of Diego Shaw?” he asked.
“That’s us. I’m his big brother. These are his parents. Everyone else in here is friends and family. My brother going to be good, right?” I had to go ahead and ask the million-dollar question.
I couldn’t bare having to stand here and wait another second. When I asked that question, and he sighed, I swear it felt like I saw every moment with my brother flash before my eyes. I felt as if my knees were going to give out on me, but my pops was right there to hold me up, even with him being strong, and holding my mom up as well.
“My name is Doctor Lewis. I’m the trauma surgeon who operated on Mr. Shaw. I know that this has been a long, scary few hours for all of you, so I’ll go ahead and get right to it. To answer your question, your brother is going to be fine. Surgery was successful,” he started, and when he said that to me, it felt like I’d just taken a breath again since Riot called me, screaming and crying about what had taken place.
I needed to hear those words. Hearing them gave me the calm that I needed. It gave everyone that relief. My mom was a wreck, crying, and thanking the doctor for saving her son.
Dr. Lewis went on to clear his throat, so that he could finish.
“Mr. Shaw sustained two gunshot wounds to the chest. One of the bullets caused significant damage to his right lung, which caused just a small collapse and some internal bleeding. Because of that, we had to insert a tube into his chest, so that we couldexpand the lung, and repair any of the damaged tissues. I won’t sugarcoat to you with what happened with the second bullet. I need you to know that Mr. Shaw cheated death. It missed his heart by mere millimeters. He is lucky to be alive,” he went on, and hearing that, just proved to me that there was a God up there, and He knew that nobody in this family would be able to properly function without having Diego here. I didn’t want to even have to envision a life without my little brother.
