Suds - Season 1, Episode 27

… a mini soap opera that bubbles with Love & Drama

[Last time on Suds… Let’s start at the very beginning, shall we? Shantel is stunning, neurotic, conniving and needy. She barely talks to her roommate, Leilah – who could care less about Shantel because she’s busy working two jobs to help take care of her six younger siblings. Leilah also has a mother who is an on again-off again drug addict, and a grandmother with dementia. Can we see why Leilah doesn’t think twice about Shantel’s superior air?

Well, Shantel started caring about Leilah when her man, Terrance, gave the weary roommate a much closer look. And Shantel literally flipped out when she witnessed her ex-boyfriend slash her heart's true desire, Darien, kissing Leilah. Dum, dum, dum.

That’s not all folks, Leilah’s best friend, Mira, is like the walking dead because she may or may not have contracted HIV from her special friend, Sylus. And in the midst of her crisis, her presence was required at a mandatory sorority meeting where Shantel lead her sisters to believe that Leilah clobbered her with a two by four.

But we know better than to believe this tall tale because Leilah was actually headed to Chicago with Darien for the weekend, and not playing Babe Ruth with Shantel’s forehead.

Wow, 29 episodes, recapped in four paragraphs. Keep up because there are only four more episodes left.]

Darien’s fingers smoothed over her palm, tracing over the lines like brail before locking firmly between her fingers. He gripped her hand tight.
“I missed you,” he said.
“I missed you too,” she answered.

Leilah rested her head on his shoulder.

~~

Sylus cradled Mira’s body against his own as he walked her to her apartment, and although she willed her legs to support her weight, they wouldn’t.

At her front door, he guided the keys in her shaking hands into the key hole, and locked the door behind them when they stepped inside the apartment.

Mira sank onto the sofa, burying her face into her hands. Breathe, just breathe, she coached herself silently.

Sylus stood beside the sofa and looked down the hallway to her bedroom. The bed was bare, stripped of all coverings. He hung his head and sat next to Mira.

“I got tested,” he said.
Breath, Mira, just breathe.
“Negative.”
She didn’t move. Breathe, Mira.
“They told me to come back in three months. Supposedly it’s still a chance I could be infected.”
Breathe.
“I wasn’t gon tell you at first, but you should know.” Sylus massaged his temples. “This is nerve-wrecking.” He looked over at Mira. She hadn’t moved. He could only hear her inhale and exhale, deeply. “You need me to get you something?”

She shook her head.

“Alright then, I’ll catch you later.”
“No,” she gasped, grabbing his arm. Her big eyes pooled with tears. Mira wanted to feel relieved, but the looming possibility had her at the edge of sanity. Please don’t leave me, she thought. She opened her mouth to speak, and closed it again. She released his arm and hid her face in her hands.

She heard his boots walking toward the door. Dishes clanked. Water rushed. The faucet squeezed shut, and the boots clunked across the aged hardwood floors again. The couch groaned under his weight.

“Here,” he said and handed her a glass of water.

Mira’s shaking hands reached for the glass. Sylus helped guide the glass to her lips, and then rested it on the wooden coffee table.

She leaned back on the couch, waiting for him to leave.
Sylus bent over, untied his laces, and slid his feet out of his boots. He moved them to the side, and sat back next to Mira.

“I’ll stay as long as you need me to,” he said.

Grateful tears tricked down her cheeks.
~~

“I can’t believe you invited me to church, and you won’t even sit with me.”
“Come upstairs, you can watch me in action with the teens,” Darien said.
“Why, so I can have a group of lil girls rolling their eyes at me because I’m with their crush?” Leilah teased.
“It ain’t even like that,” Darien laughed.
“Maybe next time.”
Darien wrapped Leilah into a tight hug. “I’ll meet you right here after church.”

The stained glass windows and confessionals in the sanctuary were reminiscent of a Catholic church. She searched the large room with her eyes until she saw Lalique waving at her from a pew exactly in the middle of the room. Aunt Lisa sat one pew ahead with TuTu and the twin boys sitting next to her, while Xeniyah sat all the way at the end of their row.

“Why is she sitting over there,” Leilah asked Lalique as the choir sang.
Lalique flipped through the bulletin. “She wanted some space.”
“We should have made her go upstairs with the other teenagers. She’s sixteen, she should be around other teens, and Jacky is up there too. She might like it.”
Lalique shrugged, and clapped along with the singing choir.

~~

Leilah paid close attention to Lalique during the service. She took notes, laughed and nodded along with the pastor a several times. Then Leilah glanced over at Xeniyah. The lethargic expression on her little sister’s face overpowered all signs of life.

“Zen looks sickly.” Leilah whispered to Lalique when the collection plate passed them. “She might need to go to the doctor.”
Lalique slid her tongue across her bottom lip. “I already took her.”
“Is it some kind of virus?” Leilah asked wrinkling her nose at the thought of feverish chills trickling through the house.

“Not quite.” Lalique scratched her head, shifting uncomfortably in her seat, and hooked her right leg over the left. She fixed her eyes on the announcements scrolling on the plasma screen. Lalique gathered a deep breath, and said, “She’s pregnant.”

“What?” Leilah’s scream echoed. Every pair of eyes in the sanctuary scrutinized her bewildered expression. Her own eyes bounced from and embarrassed Lalique to a shamed Xeniyah, and back to the altar.

[Stay tuned: I’m speechless. SO, if you have any thoughts feel free to post them.]