I nodded even though I knew damn well I wasn’t. I swallowed hard and took another long drink from the bottle because the liquor was the only thing that turned down the volume in my mind for a little while. I didn’t even care if it made me feel worse later, because later didn’t matter when right now felt like hell.
People thought grief made you weak, but it didn’t. The shit made you mean as fuck. It made you cold, and look at everybodyliving and smiling and wonder why life picked your family to destroy. It made you sit there watching strangers breathe like they deserved it and your brothers didn’t. It made you wanna punish somebody for the fact that the world kept spinning like nothing happened. And the world was spinning alright.
I kept seeing the internet treating the Mensahs like they were some celebrity family instead of the psychopaths they really were. People posted Pressure like he was some king. They posted Abeni like she was a queen and posted Kay’Lo like he was misunderstood and posted Toni like she was some saint for “standing beside her man” through it all.
Every time I saw Toni post him on Instagram with some corny ass caption about loving her man and supporting him through anything, I wanted to break my phone. Folks called them goals like Kay’Lo wasn’t the same nigga who murdered my brothers right in front of me. They talked about Toni like she was strong and blessed and perfect because she was having his baby, and they talked about her glow like it was proof God was on their side.
Nobody on that side talked about Rioh and Jaqwon unless they were making assumptions or actin’ like my brothers deserved it. Nobody talked about how my family had been ripped apart or how my mama stopped hummin’ in the kitchen. They didn’t speak on how my daddy stopped laughing at the TV and how the whole house moved like it had a funeral song playing in every room.
Nobody talked about how the guilt sat on me every day like a weight, because it was me who got them caught up in my bullshit with Kay’Lo.
I took another drink, feeling the burn slide down my throat, and Dream and Mia started talking about what went down at the hearing, and I didn’t wanna hear that shit. I’d seen the video already. Everybody had. Kay’Lo’s people knocked my brotherA’Mii out in the hallway like he was disposable, and the internet ate it up. They turned it into memes and jokes, and people laughed while my family was dying inside.
I blinked hard because my eyes were stinging again. I hated crying, and I hated the way sadness always turned into anger inside me. I could feel it bubbling up again, that tight hot feeling that made me wanna break something, or say something that couldn’t be taken back, or do something that would make everybody finally understand that my pain wasn’t polite.
Mia took a hit from the blunt and leaned back. “Echo, you want this?”
I shook my head without looking at her. I’d smoked earlier, but it didn’t help. Weed made me think more, and I was already thinking too much. My mind didn’t need space. My mind needed a muzzle.
Dream sat down beside me and gently touched my arm. “You gone again,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
Everything…
That was the truth. Everything was wrong, but I didn’t say that. I’d gotten real good at acting like I was fine.
“I’m just tired,” I muttered.
Dream watched me like she didn’t believe it, but she didn’t push. Dream always did that, like she wanted to save me but didn’t wanna get burned.
The truth was I felt like the world left me behind. My family didn’t say it out loud, but I saw the change in their eyes. They didn’t look at me the same way anymore, and they didn’t trust me with the same energy. They didn’t ask where I was going or who I was with. They didn’t try to comfort me the way they used to. They moved through the house quietly, trying to cope in their own ways, and I could feel the way my presence made the air tense.
I felt like a stain nobody could scrub out, and Toni didn’t help.
Every time I saw her face, the rage hit me fresh. She looked happy, and comfortable. She looked loved, like she was living in a world Kay’Lo built for her while my world burned down to ash. She had the nerve to smile in her pictures like she didn’t know what her man did. She had the nerve to post her pregnancy like it was the only thing that mattered, like my brothers weren’t still cold in the ground.
And the crazy part was, my hate for Toni wasn’t even logical. That was what made it worse, because I knew I knew I needed to let go and I still couldn’t stop it.
Sometimes somebody left a stain on you. Sometimes a feeling got planted in you so early that even when the situation changed, the feeling didn’t. Kay’Lo had planted it, and Toni was the one who got to live with the results.
Now that jealousy had teeth, it wasn’t just about a man. It was about everything Toni represented. She represented getting chosen, being protected and having somebody fight for you and still being able to laugh the next day. She represented safety, and I couldn’t stand that she got to have it while my family was shattered.
The thought of her baby made something ugly rise up inside me. I didn’t wanna admit it, but I felt it anyway. I kept thinking about how unfair it was, how Toni got to glow and laugh and rub her belly like she was carrying something precious when everything precious had been taken from me.
Sometimes the jealousy hit me so hard I couldn’t even sit still. I hated that she was having Kay’Lo’s baby. I hated that the world celebrated them, and that she got to tie herself to him forever while my brothers got cut off from life like it was nothing. I hated that my mama had to learn how to breathewithout two of her kids, while Toni was sitting somewhere actin’ like pregnancy was the hardest thing she ever had to endure.
And in the darkest corners of my mind, I thought things I wouldn’t say out loud, not even to Dream.
I wanted them to feel loss too…
I wanted Toni to stop smiling and glowing. I wanted her to wake up one day and feel the same panic my mama felt, the same emptiness my daddy carried and the same ache that made you question why God kept letting you live when the people you loved didn’t get to.
Dream nudged me again because I was drifting. “You okay for real?” she asked.
I nodded, but my heart was beating like something was takin’ shape inside me. The more I thought about Toni and Kay’Lo and that baby, the more the hatred grew. It felt like fire building in my chest, and it made my thoughts sharp.
I hated Toni’s face. I hated her voice when she spoke on camera like she was some innocent little wife caught in a storm. I hated the way she acted like she won. And I hated Kay’Lo for breathing.
The liquor kept me warm, but it didn’t comfort me. The weed smell filled the apartment and made my head feel heavier. I leaned back on the couch and stared at the ceiling while Dream and Mia talked around me, and all I could think about was how none of this was fair. None of it made sense, and none of it felt survivable.
