Page 18 of Vega

“Ella.”

“And he asked how many children I want.”

My sister screamed loud enough for me to pull the phone away from my ear. “This man is talking about marriage, houses, and babies, and you are complaining because he stepped out for an hour?”

I cringed, feeling embarrassed. “I know I sound silly.”

But lately, Kash had been distracted. His phone stayed close to him. Calls pulled him from rooms more often, and sometimes I caught him staring into space as if he were working through a problem he couldn’t tell me about.

He still kissed me before leaving. He still came home every night. He still discussed our future as if he could already see it. I simply wasn’t certain what stood between us and that future.

“Kash has always kept the street part of his life away from me,” I said. “I used to think that was enough.”

“And now?”

“Now I wonder if keeping it separate means there is a part of him I will never really know.”

Nia sighed. “Do you think he is doing something to hurt you?”

“No.”

That answer came easily. Kash might have kept secrets, but I had never believed another woman was one of them. Kash and I had been together for two years, and he had treated me differently from every man before him from the first day. At twenty-five, I had already wasted enough time in messy, toxic relationships. Kash had never brought any of that into my life. He came correct from the beginning. He was respectful, loyal, consistent, and never made me question where I stood with him. That was why I had been waiting for the day he finally proposed. I wanted nothing more than to become that man’s wife, build a home with him, and have his babies.

“Then let that man handle what he needs to handle,” my sister scolded. “He has been taking care of you and planning a future with you. Relax.”

I sighed heavily into the phone. “You’re right.”

I took Nia’s advice to heart. She was older than me, but she had also been like a mother to me. Our father used to beat the shit out of us, and our mother was so weak that she let him. We never witnessed him taking his anger out on her the way he would do us. As Nia and I got older, we realized that she let him get away with it because it kept him from treating her the same way. Once we were older and out of that house, we disassociated from them both. Now, I rarely spoke to my mother, and my father would be in a casket before I spoke to or saw him again.

Just then, my text notification dinged. I pulled the phone from my ear and saw the notification was from Kash. I opened it and read, as Nia continued to remind me to chill out before I pushed my man away.

I realized after I pulled off that I didn’t tell you I love you. I do, Ella. More than I probably say enough. Thank you for being such a good woman to me, for loving me the way you do, and for making home feel like somewhere I actually want to be. I look forward to spending the rest of my life with you, building with you, growing with you, and giving you every reason to never regret choosing me. I love you, baby.

My eyes glazed over as I stared at the message. I was closer than I had ever been to the stable life I wanted. I only wished the man promising it to me would stop leaving with secrets.

My phone ringing snatched me out of my sleep. My eyes snapped open, confused by the bright lights filling the living room. The television was still on. Rain still tapped against the windows, softer now than it had been earlier, and my neck hurt from sleeping crooked against the arm of the couch.

For a few seconds, I didn’t understand why I was there. Then I saw the Patrón bottle on the floor beside an empty cup. Then I remembered that Kash had left, promising he would be back within an hour. One hour had turned into two. Then three.

I had called him so many times that I had stopped counting. Every call went unanswered. That was what had scared me. Kash always answered my calls. It didn’t matter where he was, who he was with, or what kind of business he was handling. If I called, he picked up. If he couldn’t talk, he sent a text telling me he was okay.

That night, there had been nothing.

I had poured one drink to calm down. Then another because the first one didn’t work. At some point, I must have brought the entire bottle into the living room and drank myself to sleep.

I groaned, cringing as the ringing phone made the pain in my head worse.

I snatched up the phone from the coffee table without checking the screen. “Kash?”

There was a brief pause.

“No, ma’am.”

The unfamiliar male voice made me sit up. “Who is this?”

“I’m calling from Northwestern Memorial Hospital.”

My mind struggled to catch up.