Page 44 of Quasim III: King Inferno

“Hey B… mind if I come sit in with you guys?” He asked, which warmed my heart.

I smiled as more tears fell down and Syn embraced me. “Breathe and relax. Whatever that is going through your head isn’t happening right now.”

“I… I know. It’s hard to put it in the back of my mind like I usually do.”

Kobe took a seat. “Babe, it’s not meant for you to put in the back of your mind. If anybody knows, it’s me. We can pretend things never happened all we want, but spilling your cereal willhave you in the fetal position, reliving trauma you thought you unpacked.”

“Amen.” Dr. Devoe answered.

I looked over at the doctor. “Can you take notes for Hassan’s sake. I don’t want to know anything right now. I don’t want to do this… I can’t do this alone, please.” I felt Syn’s arm wrap around me tighter.

Dr. Devoe walked over toward me and took my hand into hers. “Everything is on your terms. I’ve been briefed on the circumstances, and I completely understand.”

As I laid back on the exam table, Syn held my hand, and I closed my eyes while the doctor took notes and clicked around on the sonogram. I refused to acknowledge this baby until Sim could do it with me.

This was the first for the both of us, after traumatic losses. I wasn’t going to do this without him.

“You needed some time away from that hospital. Look at your skin… you’re pale because you haven’t been getting any sun,” Kobe said from the kitchen as he cooked.

Both he and Synthia came to break me away from the hospital. I was happily sitting on the couch in Quasim’s room, talking about everything that was going on in the news while eating popcorn when they came and snatched me away.

They claimed that I was going to go crazy if I didn’t get away for a couple of hours. I hated to leave him alone, but they didn’t give me much of a choice. Capri had gone back to work to specifically fuck with Lucia, so she was busy with that. Meerhad agreed to be moved to the compound because Peach refused to be away from her father for another week. Plus, he missed Cherry.

Zoya had popped in to visit me and made sure I was eating, which I appreciated. For the most part, it had been just me being here alone. Of course, with the staff, and the occasional pop in from whoever was coming to see Quasim. I preferred being alone because I felt like I had been super emotional and that could be annoying at times.

After my prenatal visit where I tuned everything out, I started to lose hope. What if he never woke up. Eventually, I would have to tune into what was going on with my child. I wouldn’t be able to ignore things for much longer. My stomach was growing, and it had a slight bloat to it.

This baby was going to come, and it didn’t matter if I was ready or not. The thought of losing Quasim consumed me, and I knew stressing wasn’t healthy for me or the baby. It pained me to think I had come all this way only to lose the love of my life.

“Everyone is pale around this time… we’re heading into winter.” Syn replied, while checking her reflection in the oversized gold mirror that sat in the living room.

Kobe snorted. “Heading? Did you not shake off that damn coat when you came over? It’s cold… holidays will be here, and then we’ll be back into summer. I’ll find a gray hair and scream out because I’m not married and a father.”

“You’re spiraling and need to relax… time is moving way too fast,” I looked over the couch and chuckled, as he continued cooking.

“It needs to move faster so Kang can wake his ass up… I know you’re worried about him. Let me be the first to let you know that he’s going to wake up.”

“How are you that confident?”

Kobe sighed. “I was messing with this hood nigga… DL type and wanted to keep things a secret, which is fine with me. I don’t tell nobody’s business.”

Me and Syn were clued into this story, because to know Kobe was to know he would always have a story. “What happened?”

“He fucking stole from me… I was living in Brooklyn in this little rinky dink apartment, and he would come over and stay the night. This was when I was still working a typical regular job. I would leave him all the time… this man went into my closet in my shoe box and took my money.”

I gasped. “No.”

“Girl, yes. Then when I called him to press him about it, he got real fly out the mouth with me… I threatened that I would tell his homies what he really be doing.”

“Kobe, no… that’s so dangerous.”

“I didn’t give a fuck… he stole my money to start my business and do better. Some of that money Hams had gave me.”

“Okay… how did he react?”

Kobe leaned on the counter and sighed. “He came over trying to toss his weight around. Tried to put his hands on me, and I tore his ass up in that apartment. Then the bitch put a gun to my head and threatened to kill me if I opened my mouth about what we had going on.”

As he told the story, I could see that he was reliving what happened with each word. “Jesus.”

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