Last chapter besides the epilogue.
NOVA.
I was in denial. No liquor I consumed was easing the pain. First-hand I knew what it was like to feel misunderstood and no reason to continue on with life but every time I grew closer and closer to the edge of giving up. I didn't. Not knowing what it was keeping me from just ending it all, maybe I was too coward to take enough pills to never wake up or push the razor blade deep enough when I'd slit my wrists. The guilt built up, never subsiding the rotting grief. What ifs flooded my conscious while I kept my dead glare on the linoleum floors of the church basement.
"Nova...Nova..?" Snapping from my thoughts to meet the face of an elderly woman with a face like a withered apple, a sincere smile and silver strings of hair.
"Yes ma'am?" I trembled out, swiping the tip of my tongue over my lips and clearing my throat.
"You the beautiful girl, Jahani couldn't get enough of?" The woman lowered herself into a seat beside me. I didn't know the woman and Jahani didn't talk much about extended family...at least not positively. Neither one of his parents made a cameo and Ducky only came to the viewing two days ago--my heart broke for him as he sobbed over his older brothers' body. The room was full of his boys and people who he'd been acquainted with; everyone from Slim, who was hardly holding on, to Vaughn who's face didn't budge not once.
I smiled politely while she continued,"It's such a shame to see a precious life wasted...it only felt like a matter of time, I mean, look at who his mother is," She scoffed. "Just a shame, did you hear about how they found him?" My jaw clenched as I narrowed my eyes at the audacity of the woman across from me.
The woman caught draft of my glare and tightened her lips shut,"Who's you?" I slurred, the liquor chasing up to my tongue and getting heavy in my stagger as I bolted up from the metal seat. Before too much could fall from my lips I felt the grasp of secure arms along with the deadly mixture of Swisher and Polo cologne pooling my nose. Reminding me way too much of Jahani except he kept Cocoa Butter Vaseline and Gucci Cologne he snatched from Macy's on him. Stank creeping from his clothes due to whatever recreation he'd been doing before.
A weak smile casted over my lips, temporarily, before tears jerked from my brown eyes and streamed faster than somebody could ask,"You okay?" Who's really okay anymore? I sure as hell wasn't. Slim mouthed something that didn't register causing me to furrow my eyebrows and mouth inaudibly. My face contorted completely allowing me to completely lose it since the night I found out. Slim silently watched with his lips apart as if he wanted to speak on my current situation but what words would help?
I coughed out only making my voice brasher on top of the heavy sobs which only made my chest heave up and down. Sniffling to grasp myself together but it didn't help because tears continued to stain the mask I kept on my face, bolting from the crowd of people into the down pour of the rain. Electric currents of the sticky raindrops collecting over my exposed skin. I wish I could care about problems like being drenched in rain in the midst of November, or maybe how it'd be hell to brush out my hair. The physical discomfort of now. But I couldn't be because I was too in pain of shit I wasn't capable of changing. Feeling more pessimistic than before, I didn't know when shit would get better. I'll probably end up feeling the same when nobody else is thinking about him because he's just another dead boy. Another unheard dead black boy. People's lives would continue but what about me? What was I going to do?
Would I eventually settle down? I needed him in my life. In a year I lost two people who made gloomy days worth living and now I was sitting alone ready to murk somebody if it meant subsiding my own pain. The past few days all I've craved was numbness. My mind racking of what could've prevented his suicide. But kids like us from places and homes like ours nobody was validating our feelings, nobody was taking our pain into consideration, that we were really fucked up and fought shit everyday that never slipped our tongues because nobody was there to hear us out. It's fucking scary to know that Jahani had nobody to go to, release the negativity polluting his conscious. I couldn't help but to think of where he'd been if somebody showed him a little hope.
Caio wasn't much different if he didn't spend half of his life trying to prove something to somebody he'd never been a corner boy, or would've held pride in his sexuality. The predicaments he faced he wouldn't have. There wouldn't be a need to go out to get involved with the wrong crowd because he wouldn't have felt misunderstood, lost or vulnerable. Nobody's listening to our cries though.
