BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

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TUESDAY
23.09.1990
ISAIAH

               My eyes fall shut with exasperation. For the length of the street, I prayed the reggae wasn't coming from our house but when I'm close enough to see silhouettes framed in the fogged living room window, there's no doubt about it.

I hoist the shopping bag higher on my palm when the plastic starts to blister the skin below my fingers and exhale slowly. She won't ruin today for me. I carve the vow into the front of my skull. After the day I had with Dorian, I refuse for it to sour. Nothing will get me in a bad mood tonight.

With the thought on replay in my mind, I ease the door open. The music is loud enough to bury the click of the latch. I beeline to the kitchen which is luckily deserted save for empty bottles, slip my backpack and jacket onto the counter, and tread to put away the groceries.

Do I risk eating? Or do I just dart upstairs before anyone sees me and hope I manage something for breakfast? My stomach rumbles to answer the question, but I've only untied the bag of toast when Muma speaks behind me.

'Nah. Yuh can't be here when me got friends over, yuh know that.'

My head drops to my chest as my eyes fall shut. Can't I get one day? I face her with the mantra gushing like blood in my ears — today was too perfect to be ruined, not even she can ruin today for me.

'I just got home. I'll be in my room. You ain't even gon know I'm here.' My voice cracks on the final word and I flinch instinctively — she'll give me something to cry about.

But instead, Muma just leans against the doorframe with a sharp glare. 'No.' She crosses her skeletal arms. 'Yuh ain't staying ya tonight.'

I toss the bread back into the cupboard. 'Where am I supposed to go then?'

'Go stay with yuh lover boy.'

I hang my head back to groan at the ceiling. Isn't four hours enough to sit on a bus for one day? Couldn't she have told me in the morning so I wouldn't've come back in the first place? The last bus will be leaving soon; I probably wouldn't make it if I wanted to.

I'm about to tell her this when I freeze.

My stomach drops at the sight of three needles resting over each other on the dining table beside her, caps removed and traces of whatever drugs percolating their barrels. My eyes snap to her, the needles, and back.

'You ain't sharing these, are you?' My voice comes out feeble through constricted lungs but, like an avalanche that collects deadlier mass the further it sweeps a mountainside, it grows heavier with each reiteration. 'You ain't sharing em, are you?'

Not even when the question has morphed into a yell, does Muma reply. Her gaze is vacant as if she's sleeping with her eyes open. Not even when I'm right in front of her does she hint at any emotion other than boredom.

'Them ain't reusable. It's dangerous! Muma!' With no premeditation, I grab her shoulders and shake. The effort is futile. I might as well yell at a clock to stop ticking. 'Why ain't you listening? You can get blood poisoning. You can get AIDS.'

Finally, her eyes cutlass to mine. 'And that's meant for yuh, ain't it?'

My lungs deflate. My grip eases on her shoulders and remorse bleeds into my panic when I realise how tight I was holding, until both drain and leave me numb. A Place Called Africa plays in some other dimension divided from me by a river. I drown at the bottom.

My hands slip off her and I turn around. 'Yeah. It is.' I pick up the needles, careful to touch nothing but the plungers. 'So don't. I'll-I'll buy em for you if it's bout money. Just don't share—'