Page 123 of E'Levyn Days
I shook my head. “I’m straight.”
Her gaze moved between me and Navy. “She’s going to need patience.”
“I know.”
She shook her head. “No, baby. I don’t think any of us know yet.”
That was the truth as it lingered in the air. Lulu touched Navy’s forehead, whispered something I couldn’t hear, then left the room. Once the door closed, the silence felt more private. I pulled my chair closer to the bed until my knees nearly touched the frame. Navy’s hand lay palm-down beside her hip, with the hospital bracelet loose around her wrist. I slid my fingers beneath her arm again and rubbed my thumb slowly across the inside of it.
She didn’t move and I looked over her face, taking in every bruise, every bandage, every place Rome had left evidence of what he’d done. The swelling near her cheek had gotten worse.Her lips were dry despite whatever they kept rubbing over them, and faint shadows rested beneath her closed eyes.
“You should’ve never had to deal with none of this,” I told her. “Not Rome, not Marv, not me putting that gun to your fucking chin…” I said catching myself. “Well actually that’s how we got acquainted so I don’t know if I’d take that back.”
My thumb stopped moving and a different kind of guilt worked its way through the anger. I hadn’t put her in front of Rome’s car, but my world had closed around her too. Marv had come to her apartment because of shit connected to us. Because he was high, paranoid, and convinced everybody had betrayed him. I’d warned her to stay away from him without telling her why, like that half ass warning could protect her from a nigga too far gone to recognize who was innocent. I should’ve found him before he found her.
My phone vibrated against my thigh. Causing me to sit back. I pulled it from my pocket and looked at Mike’s name on the screen. I stepped away from Navy’s bed but didn’t leave the room. “What’s up?”
There was noise behind him was loud with slamming car doors and a big crowd wherever he was at, then Mike exhaled into the phone. “You might wanna call BJ.”
The way he said it let me know something was wrong. “What happened?”
“It’s Marv.”
I looked toward Navy. “What about him?”
“He got into some shit with Paper and a couple other niggas. From what I’m hearing, they started shooting at each other near one of them warehouses off Twenty-Seventh.”
I gripped the phone tighter. “He hit?”
“Yeah, but that ain’t what killed him.”
I stared through the glass wall into the dim hallway. A nurse passed pushing a cart, unaware that my whole family hadfound another way to fall apart before the night ended. Mike continued. “Marv tried to pull off after the shooting, lost control, jumped the median, and hit a tree. The Mercedes wrapped around that bitch. They said he was gone before rescue got there.”
For a few seconds, I couldn’t answer. I heard Mike say my name, but my mind had already gone somewhere else, back to Marv high and talking crazy. Back to him believing shit that wasn’t real. I had told him where that shit was going to lead. I told him to get sober, told him to get help. Told him I wasn’t chasing him through the streets while he destroyed himself, but none of that changed the fact that he was my cousin.
We grew up together, fought beside each other, ate in BJ’s kitchen together. Marv had been there through too many years of my life for the news of his death to land like he was just another nigga who made a bad decision.
I lowered my head and pressed two fingers against my eyes. “Damn.”
“I’m sorry, bro.”
A tear slipped before I could stop it. I wiped it away quickly, but another came behind it. “I fucking told that nigga,” I said, in a low voice. “I told him he was gone die behind that shit.”
“I know.”
“He wouldn’t listen.”
“I know man.”
I looked back at Navy. “Where he at now?”
“Most likely the county morgue. The police got the whole scene locked down.”
“And BJ?”
“She don’t know yet.”
I closed my eyes. BJ had already been worried about him. She had called me because she knew something inside Marv wasbreaking apart, and she believed I could pull him back from it, but I hadn’t. “Go tell her,” I said.
