Crawl

Twenty-Nine\\

Jason\\

There was blood. A lot of it. I don't remember quite what happened, but I remember that I was furious, and Diana was hurt. And I didn't mean to hurt her the way I had, and I didn't mean to be so angry with her, but yet here I was. Angry at what was probably very insignificant to me, and she was going to remain with a permanent scar of the one time she got Jason McCann mad and he hit her.

She lay still on the bed with her nose bloody and her eye swollen. I couldn't even remember what we were fighting over, but I remember coming to her house this morning to talk about Cassie and Slim. Maybe that's what it was. Slim.

I tried hard to avoid beating Diana the way I had Slim, but I had no control over my actions when I was mad. Unfortunately, Diana learned that the hard way—as did Slim.

"You...You monster!" Diana cried out as I stood across the room and frowned. I didn't mean it. It was an accident. An honest accident. I lost my temper, I couldn't help it.

"Diana, I—I'm sorry." I gulped. She sniffled as she dabbed at her bloody nose with a rag and stared horrifically at the instantly reddened cloth. She looked back at me and widened her swollen eyes. "Jason, how could you?"

I groaned in anger and pulled at my hair. Then, with all the anger I had stored up in me, I punched the door beside me and pushed my fist all the way through to the point in which my body was in the bedroom, but my hand was in the hallway.

Diana screamed in fear and backed away from me, as if she was terrified of me and what I could do, which she had a right to be. And then, I calmed down, because her screams and whimpers reminded me too much of Slim's whenever I got frustrated and took it out on her. And I hated myself for making both of them feel that way.

It was silent in the room, and the only noise heard was from the dogs outside barking and random cars passing. And I stared at Diana. And she, breathing unevenly and loudly, with the same astonished glare on her face, said in the softest voice she could surface, "I think you should go." And that's what I did. Because had I stayed any longer, one of us would be dead.

~

"I'm not suicidal, but if Death came knocking at my doorstep, I probably wouldn't object to letting him in." said Slim as I quietly walked into the living room after I awoken from my nap. She was talking to Justin and Jamal.

"What sense does that make?" Jamal asked.

"It makes perfect sense." Slim said as she began her explanation. "If I was in the street and a truck was coming at me high speed, I probably wouldn't move without hesitation, but I wouldn't throw myself in its path. If someone had held a gun to my head and threatened to kill me, I'd probably laugh and tell them to pull the trigger, but I don't really think I could find the courage in me to pull the trigger on my own if I had a gun in my hand."

She must've forgotten at her apartment when she attempted to pull the trigger, not knowing the safety was on.

"I want to die. Undoubtably, I do. But I don't want to be the reason I'm dead. So much has happened to me, I'm beginning to feel as if it's just meant for me to die. But I know that my time to go will not be on my own terms. If that right there makes sense." Slim continued.

I took a seat across from her, which caused her to silence herself. Justin and Jamal stood from their seats and left the room, pounding me on their way out. I looked at Slim and she looked at the ground.

"I saw Diana today." I started talking. "We fucked and shit," I sighed.

"If you're going to rub in my face how happy you are with her, I don't want to hear it. I don't even want to be here, the only thing making me stay is the fact that my daughter is here." She interjected.

"That's not what I was trying to do." I shushed. "We had a fight. And I lost my temper. And I hit her."

"So she's your new punching bag?" asked Slim. I shook my head.

"I couldn't stay. Because I realized that both of you had the same face when I first hit you. And I hate myself. And I'm sorry."

Slim was quiet after that, and it scared me. She just didn't talk, but she looked at the ground without really looking at the ground. Like she was in another realm. And then I waved my hand in front of her face, very calmly, to bring her from her trance. And although I did it calmly, not in any way to harm her, she jumped back and stared at me with wide eyes, as if she was terrified of my touch. And that...That is what broke me.

"I-I'm sorry." I said to her, "I didn't mean..."

"I...I have to use the bathroom." Slim stuttered. She walked away from me quickly and I heard her closing the bathroom door and locking it shut.

She was in there for a while after that. I didn't dare to bother her to let her come out the bathroom, because if she was in there for so long then there was something wrong with me that scared her to the point in which she didn't want to come back.

"Yeah, thanks." I turned to the door of the room that led to the rest of the house and saw Justin hanging up the phone. He walked into the room I was in and looked at the conjoined bathroom door. "Slim?" He mouthed. I nodded and sighed, running my hands through my hair.

He gestured for me to leave the room so he could try to talk to her. I sighed and left.

Slim\\

A softer and gentle knock was heard on the bathroom door. I was sitting with my knees to my chest in the bathroom on the floor adjacent to the bathtub. I was just so overwhelmed with emotions that I didn't want to see Jason's face. He was telling me how he hit Diana that one time, and she was hurt, and he didn't want to do it again. But those times he beat me, he'd just tell me how much he loved me and thought it made everything better.

I felt like Jason didn't understand that no matter how often you tell your girl how pretty and beautiful she is, and how often you tell her you love her, all that can and will be overshadowed by the amount of times you hurt her physically and mentally. He didn't know that when it came to me and how I felt, but once Diana's crying and looking at him with "the same look I gave him," he wanted to stop at there and be the best boyfriend he could be. And although I knew I didn't want to be with Jason anymore, and I just wanted to be with Ant even though I wasn't even being allowed out the house, I was jealous of how Jason was treating Diana.

The knock came again, and I slowly stood from the floor. It wasn't Jason, I could tell by the knock pattern. Jason had a rougher, more aggressive knock, whilst the person knocking, who was obviously Justin, had a softer knock. I slowly opened the door and peeked my head out to be sure Jason wasn't around before I let his cousin in the bathroom. I stepped aside and he walked in.

"What happened this time?" Justin asked.

"I'm just not happy anymore." I simply said. "I want to be happy for Jason and move on, but I can't when he's always bringing that girl up and I want to leave so badly but the only reason I don't is because Kate's here and I don't want to leave her when I'm just now being allowed to see her again."

"Diana? What did he do?" Justin asked, trying it to get to the bottom of things.

"I've seen the way he looks at her. The way he reacts when he hurts her. And it's nothing at all the way he was when he was with me. It's like she makes him happier than I ever did. And it makes me wonder if he was ever that happy, that in love, with me, or if it was all just pretend until he could find someone to make him happier." I sighed and bit my lip.

"Jason loved you so much Slim. You just couldn't see that because you were always crying over the fights y'all had and the drama from his gang life. We all saw it, y'all have had a long and wonderful history together. We were just talking about it with you, Slim. He's killed people over you. And if anything ever happened to you, he'd kill everybody until he got to the person who hurt you." Justin explained. He brought his hands out and grabbed onto me. He brought me in for a hug and sighed as I cried into his chest.

"Slim, he loves you. I'm absolutely positive about that."