Chapter 30
Four days later, the smell of sex and strong liquor filled the penthouse.
Juelz and some girl he only kept around whenever he needed to wake his dick up were laid across the sectional.
The same place he’d been for a couple of days, his eyes red and glossed over, a half-blunt hanging off his bottom lip, which was almost burned out.
The ashtray on the glass table looked like a cemetery, overflowing with ash and broken expectations.
Empty bottles were scattered across the floor like landmines, mixed in with leftover takeout containers that had started to turn.
A knock hit the front door, but they didn’t flinch.
Then came voices, familiar ones. “Police! Open up. We know you in there!”
A louder, heavier knock rattled the frame again.
“We can smell you from out here, nigga. Open the door before we kick this bitch in.”
Juelz didn’t move. His body felt like lead, and his mind was a tangled mess of Tasha’s voice and the chemical hum in his ears. The knob twisted. A click. Then, the door swung open.
Sintonio stormed in first, followed by Mar and Kane, who was already fanning the air with a look of pure disgust.
“Goddamn, Jue. When the last time you washed ya ass, boy? It smells like ass in here, nigga.”
Mar came in after, frowning. “Who the fuck is this?”
Juelz didn’t respond. He just sat there, staring up at the ceiling, blinking in slow, agonizing intervals. Sintonio’s eyes scanned the room, landing on the table. He saw all the open food containers, empty bottles, and he didn’t miss the rolled-up twenty sitting next to a residue of white powder.
The air in the room shifted. Sintonio got pissed immediately at the sight. He smacked the half-naked girl across the arm. “Aye! Wake up. You gotta bounce. Get the fuck out.”
She exhaled but got up to get dressed. Once she was done, she escorted herself out the door without looking back. Kane didn’t waste any time taking a glance at her ass once she passed by. “That ass is fat tho, damn.”
Once she was on the other side of the door, Sintonio stomped towards Juelz and snatched him up off the chair.
“Jue! You putting that shit up your nose now?” Sintonio roared, violently shaking him. “Huh, nigga? This what the fuck we doin’? You a dopehead, now?” He looked at Kane and Mar, “Y’all niggas knew about this?”
Mar stepped in quickly, putting his hands on Sintonio’s chest. “Nawl man. C’mon, Sintonio. Let him go.”
Sintonio let out a snarl, releasing the hold on Juelz’s shirt and shoving him back down. The force of the impact hit Juelz’s stomach just right. His face went pale, his jaw worked for a second, and then he doubled over.
The sound of him vomiting hit the silence like a wet slap.
He coughed, bile stinging his throat, as he collapsed against the edge of the sectional, trembling.
He’d been drinking, snorting his life away, and fucking different women all over the penthouse for days, and now that shit was finally catching up to him.
Kane stepped back, grimacing. “Look at this nigga.”
Juelz wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his head spinning. “Shut up,” he rasped, his voice sounding like broken glass. “Just…shut the fuck up.”
“Nah! I ain’t shuttin’ up,” Sintonio stepped closer, looming over him. “Get up, getcha shit together, and get outcha fuckin’ feelins—”
Mar cut in before he could finish, pointing at Juelz. “He don’t feel shit cause he coked up all the muthafuckin’ time, it’s yo boy get rid of him!”
Kane hollered, laughing. “C’mon man, that’s yo friend.”
Mar kept going, laying it on thick. “He ain’t shit to me, he don’t mean nothing to me.”
Kane jumped back in. “What he gon’ do? Go back home?”
Mar waved him off. “I don’t give a damn what he does. Send his ass home—”
Sintonio's voice cracked loud like thunder, silencing the room. “Aye! Dumb-N-Dumber. Cut that shit out!”
The room froze. The laughter died instantly. Mar and Kane went still, the humor evaporating from their faces.
“This ain’t the time to be quoting no fuckin’ Denzel.
This shit ain’t no joke.” Sintonio hissed, his chest heaving as he glared at Kane and Mar.
“This muthafucka in here snortin’ powda, fuckin’ random bitches, and y’all joking.
” He looked at each of them. “This shit is real. Do y’all hear me? It’s real, my nigga.”
Juelz let out a slow, broken laugh from the sectional. “Y’all talkin’ bout me like I ain’t here,” he said hoarsely. “Like I’m invisible or some shit.”
He used the side of the sectional to haul himself up, his movements uncoordinated and jerky. He wiped the spit off his chin with the back of his hand. “Tasha moved on. She done with me, nigga.”
“Jue, sit down, man,” Mar said, stepping forward, trying to help him. “You high nigga, you not yourself right now.”
“You right! I ain't myself?” Juelz roared, his body snapping like a high-tension wire.
He lunged toward the coffee table, kicking it with all his might.
The glass shattered everywhere. A deafening crack rippled through the penthouse, the shards catching the expensive lighting like falling diamonds before hitting the floor in a cold, jagged mess.
“I’m the coked-up muthafucka. Right?” He shouted, spinning in a frantic, disjointed circle.
His eyes were blown wide, searching for an enemy that was already inside him.
“Right, Kane? Nah! I’m the nigga that protected her ass!
And for what? So she can be all in another nigga face. Like what I did for her didn’t matta.”
He began to pace, his breathing coming in ragged, shallow gasps. He looked like a caged animal looking for a way out. Any way out.
“If I can’t have that girl back?” Juelz shook his head, his eyes wide with tears. “I—I might as well just end it right here. Fuck it!”
He sprinted. Colliding with the sliding doors, fumbling with the lock, then sliding them open. The cold air rushed into the stale room, but Juelz didn’t care. His adrenaline was too high. He ran straight for the railing.
“Jue, wha-wha what you doin’?” Sintonio stuttered, his voice losing its edge, replaced by a sudden, sharp fear. Juelz didn’t answer.
“Juelz! NO!” Mar screamed.
By the time they reached the doorway and out on the balcony, Juelz was already up. He had one leg over the metal railing, twenty stories above the cold pavement of the city. He was leaning out, his shirt billowing in the wind, looking down at the tiny lights below like they were calling his name.
“Whoa… whoa! Wait, Jue! Wait!” Kane yelled, his hands shaking. “C’mon nigga, get down! Get the fuck down! We was just bullshitting.”
“I’m done! Sheon want me no more.” Juelz screamed into the wind, his voice raw with a pain that made the boys freeze. He was sobbing now, but his face was twisted into a manic grin. “Tell Tasha she made me do this shit. You tell her I ain’t cheat with that bitch like that!”
He shifted his weight, his other foot leaving the ground.
He hung there, suspended in that thin, cold air where gravity waits for a soul to give up.
He wasn’t thinking clearly. The drugs were clouding his brain.
All he wanted was for the ache to let up just a little.
Just enough to breathe without her name pressing down on his ribs like a ton of bricks.
He wanted the hole Tasha left behind to close, just for a second. But it never did.
See, here’s the thing. When shit is going good, we call it love.
But let it start to fade away, and suddenly it ain’t just a feeling no more.
We realize that it was a crucial organ needed to live.
Losing Tasha felt like someone reached inside his body and ripped out the parts that made him human, then told him to keep on breathing as if nothing happened.
But how can you breathe when your oxygen is standing on the other side of a closed door?
Or across the table, eating brunch with another man.
Juelz was looking for a way out of the pain, but the only way out… was down.
“Juelz, look at me, Gawddamnit!” Sintonio stepped closer to him, his voice trembling, breaking at the edges.
“Lo-lo look man. This ain't about her. Don't let that white shit make this choice for you.” Sintonio stepped even closer, his hand outstretched. “Listen, Jue. If you go over that ledge, nigga? That’s it. Ain’t no comin’ back from that. C’mon, Jue… get down.”
Juelz stopped, his body swaying over the drop, the city lights below blurring into the distance. He turned his head slowly, his face was soaked with sweat and tears.
He looked like a man who had already seen the bottom.
“I’m already dead, man,” Juelz told him. His words shocked Sintonio. The raw honesty in them hit him like a physical blow. “I’ve been dead since the day her ass left me standin’ on that sidewalk.”
“Aye! Don’t do that! Don’t talk like that!” Sintonio moved fast, sweat trickled down his spine.
“She gone,” Juelz whispered, his voice disappearing into the thin air. “And—and I don’t know who the fuck I am without that girl. I’m lost, man. I’m fucked up.”
Juelz’s eyes went blank for a moment. The reality of the height, the cold, and the terrified look on the men's faces finally pierced through the haze.
He glanced down and saw how far that drop really was and immediately came to his senses.
He shifted on his feet, trying to come back over the railing, but then the wind blew.
A sudden, gust hit him in his chest, catching his shirt like a sail. The center of gravity shifted. Sintonio lunged, his fingers clawing at the air, his voice tearing out of his lungs in a final, jagged scream.
Sintonio lunged. “JUE—”