17. Kai

Chapter seventeen

Kai

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

I sit on the edge of the couch, ready to tackle her if she reaches a point where she might hurt herself or someone else.

My mom paces her small trailer, the floor covered in trash, and her hands tremble as she speaks aimlessly.

“Mom,” I say, keeping my voice steady as I try to propel all the confidence that I’m definitely not feeling into the word.

She spins to face me, her wide eyes locking on mine for a split second before she shakes her head, her eyes darting around the room, and the rambling continues.

“Mom, you’ve got to take your pill. I promise it’s okay. I’ll take one too,” I tell her, hoping I can at least get a single dose in her.

Her long, matted ash brown hair hangs down her back, bouncing with each step she takes. “Pill? I will take a pill,” she says, not looking at me.

Unlike when I was a kid, there’s no hope that gets lodged in my throat, just waiting for her to crush me again when she doesn’t follow through. No, now I know better.

She starts rambling, the clang associations starting from the top. “Pill, I will take a pill, but I can’t sit still because if I sit still, my name might be Jill, and if I’m Jill, then who would kill Will?”

She’s not going to kill anyone, but unfortunately, for whoever this “Will” fucker is, both his name and kill rhyme with pill.

Christ. I blow out a defeated lungful of air through my nose before plucking my phone from my back pocket.

I check my bank account, happy to see that things are going well with our “viewers.” After last Friday’s show, Lea and I made three times what we had the first time I joined her.

I was hoping to use the money to give myself a little financial cushion and repay some of that loan, but I think this is the last straw for me. She needs to be somewhere with trained professionals who can keep her safe, make sure she’s taking her medication, and provide the mental health services she desperately needs.

Watching my mother pace this disgusting home, unconsolable and unaware of who I am or where she’s at, has acid settling in the pit of my stomach.

My muscles cramp, and I’m having difficulty swallowing my saliva as the smell of rotten food wafts up my nose. Or maybe that’s just her.

Bile rises up my throat, but I push it down, focusing on the task ahead of me.

My thumbs work quickly on my phone screen, searching for the best way to get her help.

It looks like I have two options: I could call the police and have them admit her against her will. Calling the police doesn’t feel like a real option, though, not for me.

Or I can bring her to the emergency room and have them admit her.

My hand cups the back of my neck, squeezing as I focus on taking regular breaths.

I look up at my mom, her pale, wrinkled face pinched in distress, and dread fills my chest.

No matter how we do this, it has to happen.

I barely register the sound of the front door opening as I sit here, unmoving, and staring slack-jawed at the wall.

I don’t know when I finally made it home after seeing my mom, but I haven’t been able to form a coherent thought since.

Nausea roils through me, unrelenting.

“Kai?” A voice wiggles its way through the periphery of my walls, drawn up tightly around me.

“Kai, are you okay?”

There’s shuffling around me, the couch dips beside me, and when something warm and tight wraps around my upper body, I flinch, everything falling back into place suddenly.

My wide eyes meet Lea’s as she looks up at me with a startled expression.

“Kai, is everything alright?” she asks, keeping her voice quiet as if she doesn’t want to spook me further.

I shake my head slowly. “I don’t think so,” I say, blowing a breath slowly past my lips.

She runs a soothing palm up and down my spine, stopping at the base to rub circles there. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, her voice gentle, quiet.

I’m not sure anyone besides Liam has ever asked me that.

My words get lodged in my throat as I fight to hold back the tears welling in my eyes. Do I want to talk about it?

“It’s okay if you don’t. I just want you to know I’m here…” she says, her voice trailing off.

We sit in silence for a few long moments as my raging pulse finally begins to slow in her presence.

My mouth feels dry when I finally open it to speak. “It’s my mom.” That’s all I manage at first, dipping my toes in and testing the water to see how it feels to open up to someone besides her brother. A pang of guilt hits me when I think of Liam. God, he’d be pissed about what we’ve been doing together.

“Is she okay?”

I shake my head. “Not really,” I croak out and feel like an asshole for not giving her more details yet. I don’t want her to worry. It’s just so hard to talk about this.

“It’s okay,” she says, resting her head on my shoulder. “Take your time, Kai.”

I nod slowly, dragging in a few deep breaths and willing the ache in my chest to relent. “Things have gotten worse since I’d last seen her—” I gulp more air. “Since I picked her up from jail.”

She sucks in an audible breath. “Jail?”

I clench my eyes shut and feel the moisture coat my lashes, making it difficult to see when I open my eyes again.

“She had done something that got her arrested, and I had to bail her out. That’s why I agreed to join you. I needed to take out a loan to pay it because my savings from the league have all been spent on rent, copays for my medication so I don’t wind up like her, and bailing her out of jail and keeping a roof over her head.” The admission feels sour on my tongue, but I’m glad it’s out there. It sucks having to keep this heavy shit bottled up.

Lea places a hand on my cheek, drawing my eyes to hers. They’re filled with sympathy. “I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all of this alone,” she says, her voice impossibly small.

“Liam used to help, but he’s not here anymore, and I know he’d want me to tell him, but I don’t want anything distracting him. He’s finally living out our dream, and one day, I’ll be there to join him.” I huff out another breath that had been caught in my lungs. “I’ve just got to make it through this shit first.”

Lea’s thumb strokes my cheekbone softly, and she gives me a small, reassuring smile.

“If that was a few weeks ago, what happened today?” she asks.

My hand lands on her wrist, squeezing it gently as she cradles my cheek in her palm. I rub small circles along her pulse, allowing the strong, steady beat to soothe me.

A tight band of pain feels like it’s wrapped around my forehead, and there’s a pounding in my temples.

“I hadn’t heard from her in a couple of days, so I went to check in on her and found her in her trailer. It was filled with trash and rotting food. She looked and smelled like she hadn’t showered in weeks and couldn’t form coherent sentences.”

Lea nods, not saying anything as she allows me time to find my words.

“She was past the point of my help, so I had to have her admitted to an inpatient psychiatric hospital. She didn’t go willingly, so the doctor who saw her in the ER had to petition for a fifty-one fifty, which is an involuntary psychiatric hold for up to one hundred and twenty hours. It means that she can’t just check herself out of the hospital because she’s considered a danger to herself or others right now.”

Lea trails her hand down the side of my neck, resting it in my lap and giving my thigh a squeeze. “I’m so sorry, Kai,” she says, her voice cracking on a watery sound. “I can’t possibly imagine how difficult that must’ve been for you to see her like that. You did the right thing for her, but sometimes that’s so hard,” she says, grasping my hand and bringing it to her mouth to press a gentle kiss to my palm.

My heart cracks wide open.

“It’s really fucking hard,” I say, and the admission has tears freely flowing.

As a Black man in America, especially playing a predominantly white sport, I usually feel like I have to bottle things up. I don’t feel safe expressing a full range of emotions for fear of judgment or worse, so sitting here with Lea, feeling completely safe to do so—it has a lot of things stirring in my chest. Many of which I'm unfamiliar with.