When You're Ready (31 page)

“Cancer or something,” Tara shrugged. “Anyway, she’d been calling Nola for a while, but she was so wrapped up with
you
,” Tara rolled her eyes in disgust, “that she only talked to her yesterday. She hopped on a plane this morning

“To Texas?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, “to, you know, have one last visit and all.”

“Do you know where her mom lives?”

Tara narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“I need to be there for her. If her mom dies, she’ll be all alone.”

“She has me,” Tara said, popping a hand on her hip and scowling at me.

“And she has me too,” I returned her glare. “Look, I love Nola, okay? And it’s making me crazy that one, she’s upset with me, and two, she’s dealing with this by herself. I just want to be there for her. Please…do you have a number or an address for her mom?”

“I might, but…” she paused, biting her thumbnail.

“But what?”

“I’m not sure I should give it to you. That thing at the beach really scared her. She doesn’t know if she can trust you.”

Pissed at myself, I let out a rush of air. “I know, but I promise you, I’ve been nothing but good to Nola. She told you that, right?”

Tara relented and gave me a small nod.

“Good.” Thankfully, Nola told her friend
something
nice about me. “And I would never hurt her, ever. If her mom is dying, she needs one of us to be with her and support her. Can you get on a plane and go to Texas right now?”

Tara sighed. “No.”

“Well, I can. If you know how I can find her, please, just let me know so I can go be there for our girl.”

Tara teetered back and forth on her heels for several seconds like she was mulling over my words. “So you love Nola?”

“More than anything.”

“And you’d never hurt her?”

“I’d rather die first.”

“And you never killed anyone?”

I bit back my anger and urge to actually kill Bear. “No…never killed anyone.”

“And you’ll go to her right away?”

“Yes, this very second.”

Tara let go of a heavy sigh. “Okay, be right back.”

She hurried through the restaurant to the back room and I felt a small seed of hope growing deep in the pit of my stomach. If I could convince Nola’s over-protective friend my intentions were nothing but good, maybe I could convince her too.

Tara returned a few minutes later, clutching a small slip of paper with a phone number and an address scribbled on it. “Here,” she thrust it into my hand, “this is her mom’s info. Nola gave it to me in case I needed to reach her.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I picked Tara up and twirled her around in a hug. To my surprise the pint-sized woman who’d just given me hell was smiling, and so was I.

“You’re welcome,” she said, when I put her down. “But Scout…”

“Yeah?”

“If you hurt Nola again, I sweat to God, I will find someone to make you disappear.”

34
Nola

My old bedroom was exactly how I left it three years ago. My squeaky daybed was pushed against the wall opposite the window; a UCLA poster was pinned to the corkboard above my old desk; and a pile of books still rested on the floor. I surveyed the remnants of my old life and tried to wrap my mind around the last two days. First, there was the thing with Scout—the fight with Bear and the news that he may or may not have killed someone when he was younger. I know I should have stuck around and demanded an explanation, but I was so freaked out about the whole scene I just ran.

Scout, a killer? I couldn’t fathom it, but you never could be too sure about anybody these days. I mean, what did I actually know about Scout’s teenage years other than he got into fights, fell in love with computers, and his parents were on drugs? He wasn’t exactly an open book, and honestly, neither was I. Both of us seemed content to acknowledge that we’d had a messed up childhood and had somehow survived it. But now…I couldn’t get Bear’s words out of my head.

The old fucker ended up dead.

Whatever happened that night had to be horrible, so horrible that Scout would rather beat Bear’s head in than let him tell me about it. That had to be a sign right? A very, very bad sign.

So I ran. I got the hell away from Zuma as fast as I could. First, I sprinted until it felt like my lungs were going to pop, then I walked about a mile down the road until I got to a gas station. Once there, I called Tara first, but when she didn’t pick up, I ordered a ride on Uber and waited. While I was biding my time—and ignoring Scout’s calls—I decided to call my mother. She’d left about a dozen messages, way more than normal, so I knew something big was up. I was expecting her to ask me for a few hundred dollars, but when she picked up the phone her voice sounded so weak and raspy, I thought she was someone else.

“Nola, I’m dying.” That’s how she broke it to me, straight and to the point. She didn’t beat around the bush or soften the blow with pleasantries, just told me she was dying like we were discussing the weather. At first, I thought she was just being dramatic. Whenever the temperature climbed above 90, my mother would complain the Texas heat would kill her. But when I heard the rattle in her chest as she coughed through the next few words, I knew it wasn’t a joke.

“What do you mean you’re dying?” My mother
could not
freaking die. Sure, she’d pretty much abandoned me; still, I figured we patch things up some day. Maybe when I was a mom and she was a grandmother we’d have a come to Jesus meeting and apologize for being estranged for years. But all that was out of the window now; my mother was
dying
, and I felt like my world was imploding yet again. “That’s not funny, mom,” I said, hoping she was just yanking my chain.

“Cancer,” she coughed again. “And I don’t have much time. You should probably come home for a few days.”

“Days?” I mumbled in a daze.
Days?
She only had a few days?
“
What…what are you even talking about, mom? You don’t have cancer.”

“I do, Nola darling. Just found out about a week ago. I called you first.”

“A week…” I clutched my phone, stunned, kicking myself for not calling her back sooner. “A week isn’t long enough to die, mom.”
At least I hoped.
“I’m sure you can still beat it. You can undergo chemo, or radiation, or—“

“Nola, I’m dying, baby girl.” She cut me off, putting an end to my fantasy of a reconciliation. “The doctor said it’s already spread to my organs, so there’s not much they can do.”

“That has to be something, you can’t just give up, mom.”

“I’m not giving up, I’m going to be with daddy,” she said, talking about my father. “It’s been 10 years since he’s been gone. I miss him.”

“I miss him too,” I sighed, thinking about the last time the three of us were all together. We’d spent the day shopping at a local market in Saint Ann’s for fresh fish, veggies, and breadfruit for dinner. My father cooked a gigantic meal and all of our neighbors came and stayed late into the night, listening to reggae and talking about the good old days back in Kingston. By morning, my father was dead and my childhood was over. Hearing about my mother’s terminal cancer felt like I was losing them both all over again.

After talking to my mom, my issues with Scout took a backseat. I didn’t have the time or emotional energy to sort out my feelings. However, as I sat in my old bedroom trying not to think about the fact that I’d truly be an orphan once my mother passed away, I was struck by how alone I felt. In spite of everything that transpired, I missed Scout, and I wanted to feel cared for and loved in only the way he could.

It had been almost two days since I’d seen or spoken to Scout, but I needed him more than ever. Still, the thought that he might have taken a life, while I struggled to deal with my mother’s impending demise, gave me pause. I could have been signing myself up for nothing but heartache if I ran back into his arms, but the thought of going through my mother’s death all by myself felt too overwhelming to bear.

My hands shook as I searched through my bag, grabbed my phone, and scrolled to his number. Suddenly nervous, my finger hovered over the send key as I mentally went through the pros and cons of calling Scout.

Pro: He made me feel safe and secure.

Con: He may not be the person I thought he was.

Pro: I didn’t want to deal with everything alone and he would come running if I called.

Con: I wasn’t sure I wanted him to come running.

Everything was a mess. My heart and my mind collided, making everything feel topsy-turvy and completely out of control. I took a deep breath, tried to calm the butterflies banging around in my stomach, and pressed send. The phone didn’t even complete an entire ring before Scout’s voice came pouring into my ear.

“Nola?” he said, sounding a bit frantic. “Baby, is that you?”

“Yes….it’s me.” A sense of relief came over me when he answered the phone, releasing the dam of tears I’d been holding at bay since I got to Texas. “I…I’m at my mothers, and…” a sob escaped and I started to bawl, overcome by the stress of the last 48 hours.

“I know, baby, I’m on the way.”

“But…how?”

“Tara told me what happened. She said you flew to Texas to be with your mom, so I flew down there to be with you.”

“Of course,” I choked out through my tears.
Of course
Scout was coming to be with me;
of course
he wanted to be by my side;
of course
I instantly felt better—about everything.

The man I loved so much it scared me was on his way, and somehow, even though I was on the verge of losing my mother
and
my mind, I knew I would get through it.

“Nola, about Saturday—“

I sighed. “We don’t have to talk about that right now.”

“Baby, I just want you to know that I didn’t…I mean, I know I’ve done a lot of crazy shit in my life but I couldn’t…”

“I know, Scout.” Somehow, my doubts faded away and I was certain he couldn’t have killed anybody. Sure Scout still had some unhealed scars from his messed up life; so did I. We were two sides of the same screwed up coin, but I hoped finding each other was the beginning of our healing.

“Hear me out please?” he said, still trying to state his case. “I know I messed up, big time, but I promise you I never—“

“Scout,” I said, bringing his explanation to a halt, “I know you didn’t kill anyone.”

“You do?”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “Yeah…I do.”

“But how? When you ran away, I thought…”

“I know; I messed up too, I was scared. But I know you couldn’t do that to anyone, it’s not in you.”

Scout exhaled loudly on the other end of the line. “Baby, I love you so, so much.” His voice caught in his throat and it sounded like he was trying not to break down. “When I get there, Nola, I’m going to tell you everything, okay? Every single thing until there’s nothing else between us but the truth.”

“And love…a whole lot of love.”

“Of course,” he said, chuckling. “But you have to promise me you won’t get scared and run away again. You have to promise you’re
really
ready to commit to me this time.”

“I promise,” I crossed my heart with an imaginary X, “for real this time.”

35
Scout

I was the fucking luckiest man
in the world
. Before I could even knock on Mrs. Chambers’ door, Nola came bounding out of the house and damn near tackled me to the ground. Her eyes were red and puffy and she was still crying, but she was also smiling and grabbing onto me so hard I thought she was going to take us both down.

“You came,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face and pooling on my neck. “You actually came.”

“I said I was on my way, baby.” I smoothed down her wild curls and inhaled, trying to breathe in that familiar scent that made me feel totally at ease. Nola still smelled like ripe oranges, but this time it was mixed with an earthy aroma I couldn’t quite place.

It was like we were suspended in time. Nola clung my neck, crying and mumbling apologies while I fought to keep my composure because we both couldn’t be emotional wrecks. Nola had to be strong for her mother, and I had to keep it together for her; I couldn’t lose it in the middle of her mom’s yard, but I admit, I was close to breaking down.

When several minutes had passed and we were still standing in the middle of the tiny lawn, I picked Nola up and carried her to her mother’s small porch. I sat her down on the steps and plopped down beside her. Nola crawled in my lap and laid her head on my chest, it felt good to have her in my arms again, but her affection seemed to be about more than just missing me.

“You okay?” I asked, wiping her tears. As elated as I was to see her, it broke my heart to see her in such pain.

“Not really, but I will be.”

“How’s your mom?”