Chapter 20.) Bad Decisions

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Christmas for the family was one of those "Huh?" moments. Renae called at the last minute to let everyone know that she wouldn't be able to make it to see everyone open their gifts. Dajon and Ary knew the reason and did their best with keeping up the good spirits for the kids. King's symptoms had gotten worse and scared the hell out of Renae when she found him seizing on the bathroom floor. She had no choice but to call 911 and King kept begging the paramedics to let him go once they got the situation under control, but per Renae's request, they took him to the hospital. Briefing the ER Doctor on King's current unexpected alcohol detox, Renae was able to tell the doctor about his hallucinations, night sweats, random rage outbursts, the constant vomiting, and his most recent symptom that terrified her; the seizure.

Renae hated hospitals for many reasons, it was as if it was a second home for her family but she had no other choice. She never had to deal with something like this before and since she didn't want to scare the kids, she knew the only option she had left was to seek actual medical help. King was aggravated but he also knew that she meant well. After spending an hour giving the doctor and nurses a hard time, he finally calmed down and allowed them to do their job as long as Renae agreed to stay by his side.

Renae witnessed fear in King's eyes a few times but this time, she could really see that he wasn't even sure if his body would be able to fight with and for him. She was so used to him being tough and fixing everything, that it made her a bit concerned to see that he wasn't sure if this situation was something that he could fix. But, he had her by his side. She'd stick around and go through the motions of his journey for as long as he needed her to. Oddly, for Renae, she was taking this as a new opportunity for the two to fall back in love with each other again despite certain circumstances.

New Year's Day had come and gone and the twins had celebrated their 25th birthday home. Reign didn't want to do a big celebration and neither did Kaari, so they hosted a dinner on a rooftop for family and friends. The day after, they all went go-kart racing. From there, they went to the Waterpark and ended the evening with one last dinner at Ary's and Dajon's house. Since school was back in session for the younger kids, they had to fly back to Georgia and get back to business. The news that Reign and Yae'Shawn planned on announcing came to a brief halt but they both agreed to announce things during spring break.

Yanna and Renae's friendship had ran its course and Renae still wanted to knock her head off her shoulders. There was no fixing things and everyone knew, even Kwan knew that one way or the other, Renae was going to lay hands on the woman she once saw as a sister. As for King's and Kwan's friendship, they were cool but Kwan knew that King no longer had respect for Yanna.

That was expected, he just hated the situation Yanna had him in and it was obviously weighing heavily on their son but shit, it was life. Not everyone was meant to be friends forever but the kids were innocent. Yanna messed up threatening Kairo multiple times and now she was reaping the consequences day by day.

It was January the 11th, King would be released from the hospital soon, and in a few days, he would be starting his outpatient treatments. Of course, Renae felt as if he should have enrolled in a thirty or sixty-day in-patient rehab center but King was not for it whatsoever. He didn't see himself as an alcoholic but he did admit that he abused the substance to cope with his emotions. Not wanting to argue about it, Renae just went along with his decision but told him that if that didn't work, she would personally escort him to the nearest in-patient center.

With him doing the outpatient treatment, he would still be able to be around the kids and the rest of the family as if things were fine but he would have individual meetings to attend and private therapy sessions. King chose to do the evening intensive sessions since his urges usually happened at night whenever he was alone. The doctor and Renae both agreed that that was a good start for him, it was just up to King to stick to it though.

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