Another Lifetime

Chapter Eleven:

Cesar's POV:
I go to the bathroom and see my stitches for the first time. Ruby's grandma always takes care of us but this time she didn't think it was a good idea. I got lucky this time but I know gunshots are the one thing she hates helping us with. I touch my shoulder and it feels like hell. I know what I have to do but killing Latrelle is just gonna hurt Monse. I take a minute and then I go to my room. "Hey." She smiles at me from a beanbag chair in the corner of my room. "How you feeling?" She gets up and walks to me. "Good... at least as good as I can be after your boyfriend shot me." I know I have a girlfriend but I hate that she has a boyfriend. "If you knew it was him, why didn't you kill him?" She asks and I shrug. "I wasn't thinking." I tell her. "Yeah 'cause after fighting with someone for five years and then swearing you're gonna kill him, it just slipped your mind." She says, sarcastically. "I pulled my gun on him, he put his hands up, and then he told me some shit." I feel a pit in my stomach.
**** Earlier ****
"Don't shoot man!" He screams. "Man, you been trying to kill me since we were 14! Nothing's changed." I remind him. "My girl, she just lost her mom and she's in a bad place right now. I'm just out looking for her! I wanna make sure she's safe." Latrelle says. "Monse?" I ask him. I wish he wouldn't have brought her up. All I can think of is how if I shoot Latrelle, I'm taking him from her. "You know her?" He asks and I nod. "Kind of. What's wrong with her?" I ask. "She's been slipping, man. All she wants to be a Prophet but I can't let her do that shit. You know her, she's smart as hell and I'm not gonna be the reason she goes down." He swear. "Run. You got a second to get outta my face." I keep my gun pointed at him. I walk away and a minute later he shots at me but he misses. I run and try opening every car door when I finally open one. I swing it open and throw myself in. A girl's pointing a gun at me and I point mine at her. It takes me a second but I realize it Monse.
**** Present ****
"He swore he was just looking for you and some shit about how he thought you were in trouble." I explain and Monse nods. "Thank you. I know if shit was the other way around he wouldn't-" I stop her. "If I knew he was gonna shoot me, I wouldn't have let him live." I admit. "Right." She nods. "So, should I sleep on the couch or something?" Monse asks and I furrow my brows. "Why would you do that?" I smirk. "You gotta rest, and heal, and... stuff. You need your room, lil Spoo-" she stops herself. "Cesar." Monse smiles. "No, right now the only thing that's gonna make me feel better is having you here." I run my thumb over her knuckles. "I'll be here, just in another room." She tells me. "But then I'll just be up all night worried about you. There's always some sketchy shit going down around here." I kiss her. "Monse, it's just one night." I say and she nods. "Fine. But no more kissing and nothing is happening tonight." She raises her brows and I nod. "I'm never gonna make you do anything you're not comfortable with." I promise. "I know." Monse nods. "You wanna borrow some clothes?" I ask her and she looks confused. "Right, I'm covered in blood. Yeah, I need some clothes." She says. I hand her an oversized sweatshirt and Monse gives me a weird look. "Pants, Cesar. I need shorts or something." She laughs. "Right, I swear I wasn't trying to be a creep." I say. I grab a pair of shorts Odessa left at my place so she had something to wear when she spends the night. "Umm I'm not wearing some random girls clothes." She barely touches them. "They're Odessa's and they're clean." I laugh. "Fine, turn around." She says. "Why?" I smirk. "I'm not changing in front of someone with a girlfriend." She says and I nod. I turn around. "Speaking of Odessa. There's something I was trying to tell you before she got here." Monse says while I face the wall. "What's up?" I ask. "After I left your house the other day she gave me a ride home and... Odessa's my half sister." She says and I turn around without thinking. "What?!" I ask. "Turn around!" She yells. I spin back to the wall but not before I saw in just a pair of shorts and a bra. Focus. "How do you know?" I ask. "We have the same mom, my dad even confirmed it. We spent all day getting to know each other. You forgot her birthday by the way." She says and I sigh. "I didn't forget." I admit. "You can turn around." She says when she sits on my bed. "What do you mean you didn't forget?" She asks. "I was at my brothers welcome home party." I tell her. "This isn't even about that right now. What do you wanna do now?" I ask her. "We can't keep doing this kinda stuff. It was weird before but now that I know she's my family... I can't do this to her." She explains and I nod. "I get that." I nod. "So I'll breakup with her." I say it like it's no big deal. "No, you can't just leave her like that. She loves you, she wants to be with you." Monse says. "What about what I want?" I sit with her. "What do you want?" She asks. "You know." I put my hand on her thigh. "We can't be selfish." Monse looks down at my hand and I pull it away. "I wanna be selfish right now." My heart starts beating faster. "I do too." We don't say anything for a while and Monse just lays down. "When I got shot, I didn't even care what happened to me. I prayed you'd just drive away and leave me. I care about you like I never cared about anybody else. I know you feel it too. I get that this is hard on you but I'm always gonna regret it if we don't at least try this." I tell her. I turn off my lights and lay down, facing the other way. Monse turns to me so I turn too. "I feel it too." She says. Nothing else happens, we just go to sleep, but hearing those words gives me hope.