Seeing Shane Gray ✓

twenty three | wait

"I have diabetes," I tell her, tossing my test results on the kitchen counter.

Her gaze follows it and she tilts her head, frowning down at my past blood sugars.

"I fainted in school last week," I tell Mom whose gaze snaps up to my face. "The nurse recommended some tests and I got them done. The doctor says I'll need lifetime insulin therapy and he needs to meet either you or dad to discuss it since I'm not old enough to direct my own treatment." I scoff. "Funny, since I'm already managing everything else myself."

"Taylor --" Mom breathes, her eyes widened in horror.

"I'm not whining or complaining or anything," I say, tugging at the hem of my T-shirt so that it reaches halfway down my thighs. "You don't have to come see a doctor or anything because I already got the prescription. I can inject myself and all that so you don't need to do anything. I'm just telling you so you know what to say if you get a call from a medic or someone that they found me passed out on a sidewalk --"

"Tay," Mom sobs dryly.

"I'll be fine," I conclude, my voice emotionless as I turn away from Mom and leave the kitchen without a backward glance.

Mom doesn't call me back, and I don't know if she tells dad about my tests or not. Neither she nor dad come to my room to ask me anything, and I leave it the next morning, heading straight to Marla's house. The first thing I see when I get there is a ruckus of boys and girls, hurrying this way and that as Marla's big mom yells into a phone.

"No, I ain't listening to your bullshit about your son bein' sick because I don't know the hell you talkin' about!" she snaps, smacking Cole on his head as he races past her after Mika.

"Yo, Toot Toot," he screeches as he passes me by and barges out of the house.

"Sorry, Tay!" Mika calls over his shoulder as they file side by side into the Chevy Georgia rolls out of the garage.

I watch them leave, laughing to myself.

"No, I won't listen to your sorry ass," Mama Harley yells into the phone, brandishing a big hand around as if she wants to slap whoever she's talking to. "My daughter been cryin' since she got back and I'm gonna fly up to Boston and beat your boy's ass up, ya hear me?"

She hangs up, slamming the landline phone into its stand on the wall. I wince, feeling sorry for the poor reciever of her insults. I have a vague idea of who it was.

"Good morning," I say to her when she turns around.

Her broad face cracks into a faint smile though her eyes continue to flash with rage and sadness.

"I'm going to head up and see Marla," I tell her.

"How she doing?" Mama Harley asks me, smoothing out her flowery apron tied around her gianormous torso. "Hasn't left her room in nearly a week, that girl. Why she cryin' over that piece of poo? He broke her poor little heart."

I nod, lowering my gaze to the red and black carpet.

"I always knew that boy was trouble," Mama Harley rambles on, wringing her belt in her hands. "Twenty-two years ol', he is. And with all the prayin' and the perfect Muslim shit. Marla deserves better. Back in Trinidad, she would have a prince at her feet. My pretty baby. He prolly cheated with some hoe up in --"

"He's not twenty-two, Mrs. Rudder, and he's sick," I tell her calmly, fully understanding her frustration because of her daughter's pain. Despite having eight children two of whom are married and live in their own homes, Mama Harley has an ocean of love for each of them. I have to admit, her hugs even make me feel like I'm her daughter. Not only is she big and mushy but warm at the center. Kind of a like a marshmallow.