Chapter 11 Orion #2
That broke something in me. All the anger I’d been swallowing, all the grief I’d been masking under silence, came rushing out like floodwater.
“Want me?” My voice cracked, and before I knew it, I was snatching the lamp off the table and hurling it against the wall. Glass shattered, and pieces rained to the floor. “You think this is about what you want? You want me, and you know who the fuck I want… my mother.”
Lucia gasped but didn’t back away. I grabbed the chair next, flinging it against the dresser until the wood split. The impact caused the drawers to rattle. My chest heaved, and sweat rolled down my temples as I kept destroying everything within reach.
Every smash felt like a scream I couldn’t let out; every crack of breaking furniture echoed my mother’s death in my head. Lucia reached for me again. This time, she was sobbing uncontrollably.
“Omari, please—”
“Get out!” I yelled as veins bulged in my neck.
My vision blurred with tears, but I couldn’t stop now. I let the space closest to me have it. My fists became raw and bloody from the blows I’d landed on the wall. She shook her head, and mascara streaked down her cheeks.
“I have nowhere to go… you know that. I can’t—”
I turned on her, fury and sorrow colliding inside me.
“Go back home! Go back to Fresh’s house. Since you loved playing both sides. He’s gone, but that’s still your damn home. Don’t stand here acting like I’m your savior when all this shit started because of us.”
Her lips quivered as cries escaped her mouth. But I didn’t give a fuck. For the first time since Fresh’s death, I saw real fear in her eyes. I dropped my head into my hands, tears burning my palms as I muttered the truth I never wanted to admit.
“I thought I wanted this. I wanted to ride off into the sunset with you, like we could start fresh, like none of this would matter. Not like this.”
The silence afterward was suffocating. Lucia stood frozen, her sobs echoing softly in the wreckage of the room, while I sank to the edge of the bed, broken and hollow, just wishing I could turn back time.
I would have left her ass right where I found her in misery and in an unhappy marriage at Fresh’s house.
Lucia desperately reached for me again, this time with her hands shaking.
“Omari, please… don’t do this. You need me right now. We need each other.”
That was the last straw. I stood so fast that the bed frame groaned under me. My chest was still heaving, my eyes bloodshot, and every muscle in me burned with rage. I grabbed her wrist with all my strength and yanked her ass toward the door.
“Stop!” she cried, stumbling as I dragged her across the wrecked room. “Omari, listen to me—”
“No!” I roared as I shoved the door open so hard it smacked against the wall. “You don’t get to stay here. You don’t get to be with me. You’re the reason this shit spiraled. You and me… we set fire to everything, and now Ma’s gone because of it.”
Deep down inside, I knew all of this was my fault, but the guilt in me blamed her as well.
Tears streamed down her face, but I didn’t let go.
I marched her through the hallway, ignoring her begging and her clinging to my arm.
Her crazy ass smacked down picture frames on my wall as I dragged her ass up out of my spot.
When I noticed that a picture of Ma had hit the floor, causing the black frame it was in to shatter.
My grip only tightened as I pulled her straight to the front door. She twisted against me, sobbing.
“I don’t have anywhere to go, Omari! Please!”
I yanked the door open and shoved her out onto the porch; her body stumbled into the night air. She caught herself against the railing, staring back at me with wide, tearful eyes.
“You got somewhere,” I growled, my voice low, lethal. “Go back to Fresh’s house. Sleep in that big-ass bed y’all shared. You think I care? Just don’t bring your ass back here. I’m dead ass. If I catch you around here, I’m gonna show your ass how I can be my daddy’s son.”
She knew the domestic history between my mother and father, and she also knew that I was a man of my word.
She just shook her head in disbelief, clutching her chest like I’d ripped it open.
I slammed the door in her face before I could second-guess myself, before my weakness for her could drag me back into her arms. Then I leaned against the door, sliding down until I was sitting on the floor.
Letting this bitch go hurt, but it had to be done.
I wish I had done it sooner, before we had even gotten caught.
Before my world had gotten turned upside down.
For a moment, I swore I could still hear her crying outside, but I didn’t open the door. Not this time.
After pulling myself together, I picked myself off the floor and then headed back into the room I had just destroyed.
I picked up the broken frame that had my mother’s picture in it.
It was a picture of her from Mother’s Day a few years back.
In the emptiness of my house, I cried. Cried like a little boy because, despite being a grown ass man, I missed my mom.