Page 17 of Certified Pressure
I shook my head and sat back on the bed, letting the news settle.
“What if I don’t get picked?” I asked.
Kash gave me a look like I had lost my mind. “Girl, you are a bad bitch. You think they not gonna choose you? If for some wild reason they don’t, then I’ll take one for the team, get that money, and we still good. Either way, we winning.”
Her confidence made me laugh, and for the first time in days, it didn’t feel forced.
After a little while, Kash stood and grabbed her bag. “Alright, I’m gonna go. I’ll call you later. You need anything, say the word.”
She pulled me into a long hug, and I held her tighter than I meant to. When she left, I walked down the hallway to check on Zurie. She was still sleeping, curled into the exact same spot I left her in. I sat on the edge of the bed for a second, watching her chest rise and fall. Then I stood, went back to my room, and grabbed a towel and some clothes.
The shower felt like it had been waiting on me. I stood under the water with my head down, letting it run over me, trying to wash away everything I couldn’t say out loud. I closed my eyes, but the silence made my thoughts louder. The fear, the guilt, the what-ifs. It all lived up there, stuck between exhaustion and trying to stay sane.
Then I opened my eyes and looked down at the tub.
The corners were black with mold. Not just a little, but thick spots that looked like ink stains creeping across the porcelain. It looked like the walls were slowly rotting from the inside out. The caulk was cracked, and the edges were discolored, and I thought about how long it had been like that. How we’d just learned to ignore it, to shower around it, and accept that this was what we had to deal with.
I stared at it for a long time, and something shifted in me.
I didn’t want to raise my sister around mold and broken windows. I didn’t want to keep pretending like we were okay when we weren’t even close. I didn’t want Zurie to think this was all there was.
After I got out, I dried off and threw on a big t-shirt. My skin was still damp, but I didn’t care. I padded down the hallway and climbed into the bed next to my sister. She didn’t wake up. She just rolled toward me, her small hand finding mine in her sleep like she always did when she was scared.
I stared at the ceiling for a minute, then closed my eyes and prayed.
It wasn’t loud or in a fancy way. Just a quiet whisper in my head asking God to let this be the right move, to keep Zurie safe and guide me through whatever I just signed up for. And then I let sleep pull me under, holding onto Zurie’s hand for the rest of the night.
Days had passed and I still hadn’t received a damn email.
I kept checking the site just to torture myself. It had a little countdown banner across the top that said today was the final day for selections, and every time I refreshed the page, nothing changed. It was still the same damn announcement.
I didn’t have no new notifications, no email in my inbox or spam folder or anything that looked remotely close to something coming from Pressure’s team.
At first, I didn’t care. I really didn’t. When I submitted, it was for Zurie, not for me. I wasn’t pressed about staying in some mansion or chasing after some flashy, high-profile man just because everybody else was. But hearing Kashmere talk about it all week had started messing with my head a little. She kept talking about the outfits she was packing, what she planned to wear to breakfast, how she had bought three new wigs just in case one of the Diamonds tried her. Every time she opened her mouth, she made it sound like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And I couldn’t lie—I started wondering what it would feel like to walk through the front doors of that mansion with my head high instead of hanging low like it had been lately.
Still, I played it cool, acting like I wasn’t checking my email every two hours or scrolling through hashtags to see who got picked. I kept it quiet even when it started eating at me, even when that little voice in the back of my head started whispering that maybe I just wasn’t good enough to be picked.
The days blurred together.
I had been spending most of my time taking care of Zurie, helping her walk short distances through the apartment just to keep her body from getting stiff. I helped her with her stretches, made her favorite soup from scratch, and rubbed lavender oil on her temples every night to help her sleep. When I wasn’t doing that, I was dodging the chaos that kept finding its way back into our living room.
My daddy had been in and out again, still yelling, demanding money and accusing Mama of holding out on him when she had nothing left to give. Mama screamed back, calling him every name under the sun, and then locked herself in her room until it was quiet again. The noise never lasted too long, but it neverfully stopped either. It was always waiting to come back, like it was part of the walls now.
I had started writing out backup plans, googling donation sites and looking up private foundations that offered grants for pediatric surgeries. I had even called a woman at one of the Chiari support organizations, and she told me she’d email me a list of hospitals with payment plans, but the tone in her voice said it all. Even with help, it still wasn’t going to be enough.
By the time the sun went down, and the sky faded into a burnt orange mess outside the living room window, I already knew what it meant. Nobody was calling. Nobody was emailing. My name wasn’t on the list.
It was close to ten when I finally gave up for real. I had taken a hot shower, rinsed the conditioner out of my curls, and changed into one of my stretched-out t-shirts. I didn’t even bother putting lotion on. I just felt heavy, and tired in a way that lived deep in my bones.
I walked down the hallway and peeked into Zurie’s room. She was laying on her side, facing the wall, her little blanket pulled all the way up to her chin. Her room was dim, lit only by the soft blue glow of a nightlight in the corner.
When she heard me, she turned her head a little, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Sissy, can you read to me?”
I forced a smile and nodded. “Of course.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the same book we’d been reading for months now,Luna and the Skyflower Tree. The spine was bent, and the pages were soft at the edges from so much use, but Zurie loved it. She always asked for the same parts, and I always read them the same way.
