When I woke up, I thought that I was still staring into my sister's eyes. It shocked me when I realized that it was mama's eyes that I was looking into, and that she had her hands on my face. I jerked back.

Hurt like shit.

"You were crying," mama said quietly. "In your sleep." She wiped away a tear with her thumb.

I just stared at her. She seemed fully coherent. I mean, she was most of the time, but she had been slightly off ever since Angel...

"Ma..."

"Hi baby." She smiled at me and continued to wipe the tears from my face with her hands.

I looked over by the door and saw Jazz sitting quietly in the chair furthest from me. I wondered how long she had been there and how long I had been out. She had that haunted, terrified look that I hated, and her eyes were huge like she expected Rico to walk in any minute. But she was also giving me a steady gaze and looked less...high...than usual.

So at least that was something.

"Mama..."

I took her hand away from my face and held it. She was making me uncomfortable, stroking my face like that. She almost never touched me. Never. She hadn't since before Sammy died. Charity usually didn't either. I looked back over at Jazz. She looked real sober, actually. I wondered again how long I had been out. Jazz didn't ever really hug me, either, after that...weird shit went down. But I could tell sometimes she wanted to. She just didn't. She always rubbed my scar, though, which irked the shit out of me. But I knew when she got too nervous, that made her calm, so I just let her do it.

Thinking about how Jazz almost sold her soul to me for one rock, I got extremely uncomfortable and let go of mama's hand. Jazz may have known what I was thinking, because she quickly averted her eyes and wiped away a tear. Then she wiped away another one. When she couldn't hold them back anymore, she hid behind her hands and stayed there. Charity went over and stood next to her, but she didn't touch her. They weren't very affectionate with Jazz, either. Maybe Charity and mama thought me and Jazz had demons on us, and that they would jump off onto them if they touched us.

Watching Jazz break put my heart in a place that it hadn't been in a very long time. I'd had to harden up early in life, and I had to stop feeling bad about the things that we were doing a long time ago. I had to, or I wouldn't have made it. But suddenly my heart felt...too heavy. Too heavy. I couldn't take it. I felt like the rest of me was sinking down with it.

I couldn't breathe.

I was under water and I couldn't breathe.

I needed help.

"Mama..." I tried to hold back the tears. "Mama...I fucked up..."

I never cursed at mama. No one did. But I couldn't help it.

"What is it baby?" She started wiping at my tears again and tried to reach for my hands. I pulled them away.

"I have blood on my hands, mama."

Jazz looked up quickly and stared at me like don't you say another word. But I couldn't stop myself. It was just like in my dream when I was talking to Sammy. I had to tell her.

I had to get it out of me.

"I did so much dirt, mama." I started crying harder. What the hell was going on? I couldn't control myself. I tried, though. I didn't want mama to check out on me if I stressed her out too bad. I needed her to stay in the present right then. We all did.

"I'm...I don't deserve to live anymore, and I think...I was supposed to die. God made a mistake. I wasn't supposed to live. I should have died. I'm ready to go, mama. I'm ready..."

I said it like she could do something about it. Like she could talk to God for me and tell Him come get me. I wanted her to tell Him that He forgot to finish the job.

Mama didn't bat an eye. She was stronger than I had seen her in a long time.

"You do deserve to live, and you're not going to die. Kenney, you're not goin' anywhere." She leaned over the bedrail and kissed my forehead, just like Sammy used to do.

I broke.

"I did something terrible," I whispered, and didn't want to tell her, but I had to.

"What?" She pulled back and looked at me.

"I..."

My eyes drifted back over to Jazz and I thought about her kneeling down in front of me. How any one of those crackheads could have been Jazz if she didn't have me and Rico. Any one of them could have been her out there doing anything for rocks if she didn't have us. If she didn't have me. My heart was so heavy. It was a dam, and it was about to break.

"I...I...let them rape Tiana, mama."

Mama quickly pulled away from me, and the hate in her eyes...the way her eyes...wanted to set me on fire, tried to set me on fire...almost killed me. I almost gave up right there. I would have rather died than do anything that would make her look at me like that again. She raised me to be a man who protected women...her, Jazz, my sisters, all of my sisters' friends. Especially Tiana. Mama didn't raise me to be a man who would let a teenage girl, any girl, be...ripped apart...by a bunch of grown men right there in front of me.

I just watched them do it.

I just left her there.

"Oh...God...mama...help me..."

I didn't know which one of them to call on right then, so I called them both.

"What?" Mama spit the word out at me like she wanted to spit at me. "Who?" I thought she was about to slap me.

"All of them...All of them..." I involuntarily glanced over at Charity. She looked sick, and was glaring at me the same way that mama was. "...most of them..." I lowered my eyes. "They rape her a lot, I think. But only once while I was there..."

"You were there?" She did slap me then. Hard. She stood up and pulled her hand all the way back and slapped me. I just took it because I deserved it. "What were you doing to let that happen to her? What were you doing while they were doing that?"

"I..." The tears were crashing through my chest and shooting themselves out of my eyes. I had no control over them. At all. I was crying harder than when Angel died. All I could think about was those eyes staring up at me. Tiana's eyes. I didn't even recognize them. I didn't even recognize her.

I couldn't even remember if I even looked at her face when she was talking to me.

She was just another crackhead. When I had her down on my shit, I didn't give any kind of fuck about her. I didn't give a damn when she started choking, or when she started screaming. She was just another crackhead. Disposable. If we broke her, I could just get another one. We could just get another one. Tiana had been right about me all along. Every time she acted like she was afraid of me, like I could just switch up on her at any given moment, it was because she knew in her heart what I really was. I was just like the rest of them.

I just didn't know it.

I never understood why she would feel that way about me because I wasn't like that to her. I thought about how I had been like that, treating crack fiends like that, since the first time Remmey showed me what I could get...what I could make them do for me...and I just broke.

I couldn't tell mama what I was doing to let that happen to her, because Tiana came back there for me. What happened to her was all my fault. I opened her up to that. And when she needed my help, when she screamed out my name, I just...walked away.

My Tiana.

I just walked. away.

I broke.

All the way open.

My whole body shook, and my tears were so loud they were even hurting my own ears.

"You...you have to get her out of there mama...she needs help. I can't help her. You have to help her! Please help her!"

Mama walked closer to the bed and put her hand over my mouth.

"Charity, close the door." She didn't want anyone to see me like that. This was a real family moment.

I looked up when Charity walked to the door, and then looked over at Jazz, whose eyes got wide when she realized that I was thinking about all of the things that I had let happen to her, too. Then they narrowed and she pierced her eyes into mine like don't you say another. fucking. word.

I wasn't going to. I had promised a long time ago that I would never tell what was happening to her, what Rico was doing to her, and even if I wasn't able to keep any of my promises to Tiana, I planned to keep every one of my promises to Jazz.

Until the day I died.

Mama held out her hand to Jazz, who stood up and walked over to us. Then mama clasped my hand with her other hand, and Jazz her held her hand out to Charity. Charity also walked over and grabbed Jazz's hand and mine.

I knew what they were about to do, so I bowed my head and closed my eyes. Then the three of them also closed their eyes, and mama started to pray. She prayed for a long time. It crushed my heart for these three women, who I loved so much, to stand there and try to intercede on behalf of my wild, uncontrollable ass and I just kept thinking about Tiana over and over again. I had so much blood on my hands.

God would never forgive me.

Eventually, Wallace walked in with Faith and Melissa. When they saw us, he immediately closed the door and stood behind mama, putting his hands on her shoulders, also bowing his head and closing his eyes. My baby sisters crowded around Jazz for some reason, and then I closed my eyes again.

Mama prayed for so long, I think I fell back asleep. I woke up again when I felt them let go of my hands, and all go to different parts of the room. Mama was the only one who stayed by me, and she was the only one who spoke.

"God will forgive you, baby. And when you get better, you get down on your knees yourself and you thank Him for that. You thank Him with everything you have." I nodded and she looked over at Jazz. "Angels run with us." Then she looked back at me. "Don't ever forget that, son. Don't you ever forget who you are and whose you are again, Kenney." She looked straight into my eyes and meant every single word. "Don't make me say that to you twice."