Page 65 of Quasim III: King Inferno

I didn’t bother to lock up my house as I got into the car and waited for the garage doors to rise. I prayed that these niggas weren’t standing outside waiting on me, but the view was clear. Cherish hopped into the passenger seat.

“Drop me back to the hood… they not scaring me.” She was adamant on being Billy badass, and I wasn’t going to convince her otherwise.

If this was what she wanted, I wasn’t going to fight her on the shit. I knew I was leaving the city to head for Miami to lay low.

Fuck.

Quasim

“Through the fire”by Chaka Khan played lowly, and for a minute, I imagined this was what Heaven was like. My eyes felt heavy as I tried to open them and focus on the room. Ramos had removed me from the ventilators, and I wanted to tell him to keep them in. I couldn’t tell which was worse, keeping them in or removing them.

My throat felt raw.

Like I had been deep throating bark from a tree trunk.

Pause.

You would think drinking something would make the shit feel better. It made me not want to drink because the feeling was uncomfortable. Then they had the speech pathologist assess my swallowing abilities, which made me feel fucking weird as shit.

She said that I could eat regular food, but to be on the safe side and start with soups and liquids. Every time I opened my eyes, my baby was right there with a bowl, ready to shove soup down my throat.

It was hard laying in this bed, though it was needed. My mind wanted me to get up and hit the road running. Every muscle in my brain was telling me to snap out this shit and get back to handling business.

My body said otherwise.

Every time I lifted a limb, moved my head or even opened my eyes, the shit felt like torture. I remember when Harley told me everything hurts, and her body felt like bricks. At the time, I didn’t think she was dramatic, but I couldn’t envision what she was going through. As I remained in this bed, I knew exactly how she felt.

Your mind wanted you to push through it and move on, while your body was struggling to get back to what felt normal.

Whatever the fuck that was.

My eyes finally stopped fighting against me and remained open as I focused on my father and mother dancing in the middle of the room.

Shit.

Maybe I was fucking dead. The sun came crashing down onto them, almost like it was focusing only on them. They were the focal point, and they deserved the shine that the sun was providing for them.

My chest burned and I wanted to laugh because it reminded me of when I was a child. The two of them would dance all the time, and Blaze would come running in the middle, wanting to dance with them. As we became older, the dancing became less and less, but the love for music was still there.

Our lives had gone through the fire, and even when those flames became too hot, we still remained untouched, unburned, and unbroken. My mother stared up into my father’s eyes like he was her entire world.

He was.

Through everything, she never stopped staring at him like that. Even when she couldn’t remember, or when she mixed me and Blaze up, she never forgot him.

As they swayed, he stared down into her eyes, letting her know that she was his, too. Nothing moved without her. He heldmy mother on a pedestal that no one could ever reach. She was his queen and had been, way before I became King Inferno.

“Still can’t catch the beat,” I said lowly, my voice scratchy.

They both turned to look at me and smiled while still in step with the song playing. “When you get yo’ lazy ass out that bed, say that shit to my face.” He grinned, kissing my mother’s temple.

She came over toward my side of the bed and rubbed my face. “Como está seu peito?”

“Eu vou ficar bem,” I assured her, and she gave me that motherly look.

I watched as she gripped the bed’s railing and looked away. “You are not superman, Quasim… you could have…” she didn’t finish her sentence because she walked toward the window.

My father remained where she had left him, and he looked over at me. “She’s right, Pop. I know I have put a lot of pressure on you being the oldest. When your mom’s health declined, I gave up and allowed you and Gams to take over… you always had to look out for your brother, step into your new position and I never gave you the chance to fuck up.”

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