I slowly stood to my feet and approached him.
A pain hit me in the chest, knowing I was right all along. My brother had drawn so much attention to himself, following behind Orlando, that he made himself a target. If it wasn’t this nigga that killed him, I knew someone else would have tried.
Hell had inadvertently put a hit out on himself. It was only a matter of time before one of those hating ass niggas took his life.
I dropped my head and looked down at my feet. My neck felt heavy from carrying this burden of guilt.
“I’m to blame, just as much as you are,” I said to the nigga with my eyes still settled at my feet, and then I lifted my head to finish my sentence. “But since you were the one who pulled the trigger, let me offer you the same shit.”
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
I sent four shots into his body. He shook with each bullet. I stood back and watched as he gasped for air, choking on his own blood until he finally stopped moving. I stood there, looking at the ground again, breathing hard.
Forgive me, Kelechi. I should have stood up for you.
By the time I made it home, I thought that I would feel better. A sense of relief. As if killing the person who killed my brother would make me feel lighter, but it didn’t. If anything, I felt worse because I knew that I could have prevented it. From the moment Kelechi and Orlando told me that bullshit idea of having that party, I knew to stop it, but I didn’t. Now, I was paying the ultimate price for it. My brother was gone, leaving me here all alone.
As I stepped out of my car, the quietness hit me. Normally, I welcomed it, but not this quietness because it felt empty.
I dragged my feet, which felt heavy like lead; I wanted nothing more than for the ground to open up and swallow me whole. That was just how heavy and burdened I felt.
Having Hell beside me every day was the reason why I woke up, so how did I move on without him? Nobody else gave me a sense of belonging like my brother did. I felt like I was thrown into an abyss, and I had no way of escaping.
“Havoc.”
I slowly turned around when I heard my father’s voice call out from behind me.
“What you doing here?” I asked.
Just like my mama, Orlando had been calling me nonstop, but I didn’t have shit to say to him.
He looked disheveled as he approached me. This was the first time I ever saw him looking like that.
“I’ve been looking for you for days,” he said.
“I’ve been busy, but you’ve seen me now, so you can leave,” I let him know. For whatever reason, he was looking for me, and now he’d seen me. End of story.
I turned to walk to the elevator, and he stopped me by pulling on my arm.
“I just want to talk to you,” he said, and I snatched away from him.
“When do we ever talk, Orlando?! We ain’t got shit to say to each other! You left me alone to deal with everything!”
When I say that Orlando completely shut down, it wasn’t an exaggeration. My whole brother’s funeral was planned by me alone, right down to picking out his casket. Orlando didn’t do shit, neither did he even try to find the nigga who did it, but now he wanted to talk. The nigga didn’t do shit but order a fucking autopsy as if that was going to motherfucking help!
“I’m hurting without my son!” Orlando yelled at me. I rushed in his face and pulled him toward me.
“What about me?! I’m nothing without my brother beside me! I told you not to bring attention to him, but you wouldn’t fucking listen to me!!”
“I know, and I’m sorry!” he wailed. I shoved him away from me.
“I don’t wanna hear that shit. Leave me the fuck alone.”
I left him standing there and went up to my condo.
THE NEXT NIGHT
The hours were starting to feel like a lifetime. Twenty-four hours felt like a year had gone by. I was still waiting for some sort of relief to come, but it hadn’t, and I knew that it never would. Although the person who killed my brother was gone, what he did left a lasting impression on me, and I didn’t know if I would ever be the same again.
