The hospital was dark and cold. Despite the circumstances things seemed pretty calm. When I entered the room where Shyanne was, she was chained to the bed on 51-50 watch. They had her hooked up to the EKG machine, with the IV running through her veins. The bag was almost empty, and all I could wonder was if she was in pain. She just laid there totally quiet and zoned out, looking at the ceiling. Suicide, I thought. How did it come to this? Last time that we spoke she was on cloud nine, engaged to be married, to someone she had been messing with on and off for years. Her Pops was seated in a chair next to the bed. The room was gloomy with little to no light. As I was trying to find the words to say to acknowledge her father, her mother suddenly burst through the doors in tears. She approached Shy’s bed and hugged her tightly. A tear rolled down Shyanne’s face. Seeing her mother cry was always something she hated. I swallowed hard and felt extreme cotton mouth. Right, then her father looked at his daughter and asked “What were you thinking?!” Her mother and I looked at him in shock. Shy remained silent, more tears welling up in her eyes. All I could think was this in not the time for your judgement. I was dying inside, because my friend must’ve felt so alone to go to such extremes to want to take her life. She always wondered if her dad even loved her, and in her most vulnerable state he still appeared cold. The doctor entered and spoke with her parents briefly. He wanted to know if they had any information on why she wanted to kill herself. They shook their heads. The doctor looked real nonchalant and asked if she or any of her family had a history of mental health issues.  Everything about the doctor and her father was irritating to me. If I didn’t know why she did, I knew her parents were clueless. After all she used to tell me damn near everything. The doctor told her parents they’d be keeping her on a 72 hour hold. Low key, I agreed it might be best, because I didn’t want to lose my friend. In my mind, she might get out, try it again and actually succeed this time. The doctor insisted she get some rest, and everybody leave. I hugged her mom, kissed Shy on the cheek and told her I’d be available when she felt like talking.

As I was leaving the hospital, I heard someone call my name. Love, Love, aye yo, Love! I turned around to see some tall, dark skin brotha’. The sun was shining’ on his gold chain and it was low key blinding me. I couldn’t quite see who it was though. As, he got closer, I noticed it was Nathan, Shy’s fiancé. He was dressed in burnt orange basketball shorts, flip flops and a black t-shirt. He was real tall, dark, with wavy hair and had hella tattoos, just like Shy. They were super addicted to ink and had full sleeves. Hers had cupid, a lot of hearts, the shape of Cali and a whole bunch of stuff that symbolized love. On the back of her arm, from elbow to risk, she had “Love is bittersweet”. This girl was a true hopeless romantic and had been as long as I had known her. Personally, there was no way I was dealing with the pain.

Nathan and I embraced, but I immediately started questioning him. I’m like what happened? Where were you? Where’s little man? Little man was Shy’s 4 year old son. She loved him to death, and he loved her too. His father was never in the picture, so she was all he had. Nathan shook his head and let out a long sigh. He told me they were in Compton and had just got into a major fight, and she was already kind of up & down with her emotions. Apparently, Shy had hit her ex up, Travis and told him that she had took a bunch of pills. Travis was Shy’s boyfriend right before she started messing back with Nathan. He was a good dude but wasn’t ready to settle down. I didn’t see that break up coming, and neither did she. Travis told, Nathan that he didn’t know where Shy was, but if he did he needed to check on her and to keep him posted. Nathan, said “we had just got into an argument, and she dropped me off at my granny’s”. He asked her where she was, and she said, “outside across the street”. When he approached the car, he saw the empty pill bottle and called 9-1-1. When the paramedics arrived, she was dosing off. Apparently, the night before she took off in a full sprint out of nowhere and he was worried about her state of mind. When he caught up with her she said she was just tired of everything and felt hopeless.  Nothing in her life was going right. He said “I asked her?” The wind was blowing real hard, and planes were flying overhead. “Asked her what?” I said. “If she was thinking of hurting herself, she told me she wouldn’t.” All I could do was walk away. I didn’t want to play, the blame game, but felt like saying if you knew she was in a vulnerable state, why were you even arguing with her. He knew she was super sensitive and had already expressed her sadness. I wondered what part he played in me almost losing someone I considered family. My mind was just real messed up, and I felt like I needed to go smoke. As I walked to the car, my legs seemed so heavy. My heart was breaking for Shy. I sent her a text, telling her to call me as soon as she could.

On my drive home, every driver on the road was moving slow as I don’t what. I was super anxious and couldn’t wait to get home and roll up. For now, I’d just have to hit the little I had rolled up from earlier. The tint on my windows was super dark, so I cracked the window, just enough for the police to be able to see in. Last, thing I needed was to get pulled over for some bs. My sub-woofers was beatin’ causing my license plate to rattle. Tupac “Keep Your Head Up” was on the radio. Shy loved her some Pac, so much that she cried when he died. She was a cry baby low key, but everybody from Cali loved him.

Before I knew it, I’d pulled into my driveway. The pavement was full of dirt, and cracked gravel. One of the neighborhood smokers, Sharee, came rolling up with a raggedy ass synthetic wig, most her teeth were missing, and she wreaked of beer. She said, “Bay Bay” was trying to see what he could get for $15 and slid me all ones. I rolled my eyes but told her to give me a minute. As, I hopped out and headed inside, the phone rang. It was my bro, he had a raspy voice, real distinguishable.

“Hey Love, what it do sis?” …the raspy voice said.

I’m like what’s up bro?

“Let your bro get 7 until later.”

Alright, give me 20 minutes and I’ll pull up.

I through on my favorite little Hollister hoodie and headed back outside to give Sharee the weed. She rolled off, by this time the sun had begun to set.  It was dark, when I pulled up on my bro, he could tell something was up. He asked if everything was cool, I told him what happened.

 

 

Chapter 2

History

Shy and I were thick as thieves growing up. She was my right hand, my go to. We shared everything, even clothes sometimes. It was cool though, because we were both kind of tom boys. Tomboys that were boy crazy though. Born in the 80s and products of the crack epidemic. Both our parents were recovering addicts. My dad was in and out of jail constantly, so he was rarely around. My mom only cared about her damn self, and whoever her new nigga was. Shyanne’s parents were both in the house with her, but strict as fuck.

Things were really different back then. Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat didn’t exist. We had stuff like Black Planet, AIM and the party line. The computers were big and super bulky. Internet was dial up, and we only had one line. That meant if the phone rang, the internet connection would get interrupted. I’m thankful the internet was as major as it is now though, because ain’t no telling what our wild assess would’ve uploaded.

Since, Shyanne grew up in the house with both her parents, it came with much more restrictions. Basically, she couldn’t do shit. Most of our peers would be like, so you live with both your parents? They’d be shocked to find out it was both her biological parents too. Many of our peers weren’t afforded the same household structure. Her lack of maturity didn’t allow her to see this as a blessing at the time. In terms, of material possessions she was spoiled. Although, her dad was mean, he kept her laced. She always had the newest J’s. When she went to her new school, she told him she had to have the best labels; Moschino, Iceberg; etc. My mother wasn’t buying me no high-priced shit like that, so I’d borrow Shy’s.

Unfortunately, her father was verbally abusive. He was real young and transitioning from the street life. All our friends thought he was super fine though, but Shy couldn’t stand him. Pops was always on her head, and her mother wasn’t one to speak up. Her mom was really pretty. She had silky black hair, was real thick and had pretty skin. Shy looked just like her, they were both sensitive and cried easily. As mean as her Pops was, she never got whooping’s. That was rare too, because the rest of our crew was getting they ass beat. She would say, I rather get my ass beat and be able to get it over with, then be on punishment all the time. Plus, the way he used to talk to her was messed up. He’d call her all kind of dumb muthafucka’s and tricks. He was breaking her down emotionally.

Shyanne wanted the old daddy who used to buy her Clear Canadians and take her for rides in his candy apple green, low rider from time to time. What she got was the recovering addict, who still had his gang member mentality and was always on 10. He was always judging her, when she did open up to him, he’d through it in her face. That really hurt her. She felt like nothing she did or said was ever right, it’s like he forgot he was a kid and had a past too. When he found out she started smoking weed, it was downhill from there. According, to him that was messing up his serenity.

No exaggeration, Shyanne was on punishment damn near all of grade school. He’d curse her out and put her on punishment. The cycle was crucial! She could never go to the mall or come over to my sleepover’s. It really sucked, because I missed her most at those times.  She understood me most and was the sweetest friend I had. When it came to my feelings, about my parents, I was only comfortable talking to her about it. We would cry to each other about what we wished our dads would be like for us. I’d tell her when how much I loved her, and things would eventually get better for us both. We made a pact to always be there for each other, no matter what! Unfortunately, the relationship with Shy and her father continued to get worse with time.

 

 

FYI- This is a movie/book I’m writing. Please take a moment to comment, like and/or share what you thought about what you’ve read so far. I’d like to know if this is something you could see yourself reading and/or watching. Thank you for taking the time to read “A Piece of Me”.