Chapter Ten

Yubi

One year later

I’m rocking Chanel gently in my arms, humming the same soft lullaby I have been singing since the day she was born, when my phone lights up on the bedside table. The vibration is low, barely a buzz, but something inside me tightens. A familiar tension rolls down my spine.

Nobody calls me at this hour, it's almost midnight. 

I take a look at the caller ID, and the name is one I have dreaded for months. Trey

The name flashes on my screen, I have not spoken to him for a year now, since I left home. 

For a second, everything in my tiny apartment feels too small, the walls, the air in my chest.

He is the last person I expected to ever call me, especially this late. 

Chanel lets out a tiny coo, her little fingers tightening around the chain of my necklace, grounding me just enough to move.

“Hello?” My voice cracks. So much for sounding normal.

There is a shaky exhale from the other end before he finally speaks“Yubi?”

His voice hits me harder than I imagined it would. Deeper, rougher, familiar in a way that feels dangerous. Something in it sounds tired. Hurt. Like he hasn’t slept in days. It made me angry that I could still tell by just his tone if something was wrong. 

“Hey, what's up?” I whisper.

There is a pause. Not awkward, not even tense just heavy. Like we are both suspended over the memory of everything that happened that night and what happened after.

Trey finally speaks. “Can you come home for Thanksgiving? it's important”

Home, I almost laugh at that.

It’s been a year since I left without a word. A year since that night by the pool where he told me he had a girlfriend, and whatever happened between us could never happen again. A year since he unknowingly broke something in me that took months to gather back together.

A year since I found out I was pregnant with his child.

A year since I left home, to protect them. 

“Why? What’s going on?” I ask carefully, rocking Chanel again when she wiggles.

He hesitates. Trey never hesitates.

Even angry, even cold, he always knew what to say, but now? He was dead quiet.

Something definitely happened.

“Just come home Yubi” He clears his throat. “I need you to come home, alright? Things are complicated. Just be here, please.”

Trey doesn't say please, ever. 

“Is everything okay?” I whisper. “My mom, your dad?”

“They are fine.” A beat passes. “I just I need you here then we can talk more. Can you come?”

“I don’t know, Trey.” My hand trembles as I adjust Chanel. “It’s been a long time am di have to look at my schedule.”

“Yubi” He whispers my name in a way that breaks through every wall I have built over the months, “I said please Yubi, Come home.”

I stare at the baby in my arms, her cheeks soft and warmth, her tiny lips parted in sleep, her existence the reason I became stronger than I ever thought possible.

Returning means facing everything I left behind, it means facing him. 

I always managed to dodge my mom's questions about me coming home, always coming up. With different excuses, and she always let me stay, but this was different. 

Trey needed me and desire everything I had to go back home, no matter the cost. 

“Okay Trey, I will come home for Thanksgiving,” I say then breathe out, surprising even myself.

He exhales sharply. “Thank you.”

I swallow hard. “Trey, what's going on?”

“We will talk when you get here.” he says and hangs up before I can say another word. 

Of course. He’s still him. Still closed off, still controlling the conversation, still deciding what I should and shouldn’t know.

Only difference is, I’m not the same girl who used to follow him around begging for scraps of attention.

I’m a mother now. I have someone to protect.

I stare at my screen as the call ends. My reflection looks back at me tired, older, stronger, but shaken in a way I haven’t been in months.

“What am I doing?” I whisper into the dim room.

Chanel wiggles again, her lashes fluttering as she wakes. When her eyes land on me, big and warm and trusting, something softens inside me.

“Hey, baby,” I murmur, kissing her forehead. “We are going to see Grandma.”

She smiles, the kind of innocent, perfect smile that makes my heart melt every time and I feel tears sting my eyes.

For the last three months, it has been just us two, no family no friends. She deserves to know her family, she has a grand mother and a grand father. She also deserves to know her father. 

I just don’t know if I’m ready for the truth to come out.

I lay her down gently in her crib and sink onto the edge of the bed. The room suddenly feels too quiet, too filled with thoughts I have spent a year burying.

Seeing Trey again, breathing the same air as him.

What if he realizes Chanel is his daughter just by looking at her? 

“You can do this, Yubi,” I whisper into my palms. “You have to face them eventually, it might as well be now.”

Chanel makes a soft babble sound, like she is agreeing with me. 

I let out a shaky laugh. “At least one of us is brave.”

The rest of the night passes in a blur, me packing a small suitcase, double checking her bottles, grabbing her little pink blanket. Every so often, my mind drifts back to Trey’s voice.

When I finally crawl into bed beside Chanel’s crib, sleep refuses to come. All I can think about is how much going back home terrifies me, but facing Trey terrifies me more. 

But what’s worse, is the small, fragile part of me that still wonders what it will feel like to see him again.