Chapter 14 Cayla #2
A horn blared. Tires screeched. And then I saw the impact that shattered my heart into a million pieces.
I heard his hurtful bark before I even saw his body tumbling and then hitting the asphalt.
He lay there too still, too quiet. I screamed so loud it tore something inside me. My knees gave out on the concrete.
“No, no, no!” Tears blurred my vision as the world tilted.
Behind me, the sound of the front door slamming open cut through the ringing in my ears.
Orion’s voice boomed my name, but I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe.
All I could see was Mello, the last piece of normal I had, broken in the street.
The box truck that hit him didn’t even stop; it kept going as if nothing had happened.
I was still on my knees in the street, shaking and sobbing so hard it felt like my chest would split open.
“Mello!” I cried.
My arms stretched out like I could will him back to me. Then Orion’s footsteps pounded up behind me. He didn’t drop down beside me, didn’t even reach out. He didn’t even go toward the street to check on Mello. Instead, he stood there, towering over me with his face set like stone.
“Cayla, get up,” he said flatly.
I whipped my head toward him with swollen red eyes and tears streaming down my cheeks.
“That was my baby! Do you understand that? He-he was—” My voice broke again.
Orion exhaled hard, rubbing his hand over his beard like I was overreacting.
“Cayla, it’s just a dog.” He looked toward the street and then grimaced a bit. “He’s gone. Ain’t no point in losing your mind out here.”
My mouth fell open. Just a dog. Just a dog. I shook my head, disbelief cutting deeper than the grief itself.
“Are you serious right now!”
“Yeah, I’m serious.” His tone was cool, almost dismissive. “You're pregnant. Stressing over this ain’t good for the baby. You need to calm down. Crying in the middle of the street ain’t gonna bring him back. You're out here with no fucking shoes on.”
My stomach twisted as a fresh ache stabbed through me.
I wiped at my face, and anger bubbled beneath the sorrow.
Mello wasn’t just a dog. He had been mine before Orion.
He was comfort, protection, and the only family outside of Zynea I had since my mother died.
And now he was gone because of OJ, and Orion couldn’t even see that shit.
I guess he had had enough of seeing me cry on the cool pavement.
He grabbed my arm, tugging me up onto shaky legs like this whole situation was nothing.
“Come on, let’s go in the house. We’ll figure it out later.”
I looked to the street and saw that Mello was torn to pieces.
There was no taking him to a vet, there was no getting him back.
I wanted his little body to be properly disposed of, but when an 18-wheeler rode over him, I just closed my eyes and let the tears fall down my cheeks.
I let Orion pull me back down the street, but inside, I was shattered.
Because in that moment, I realized the distance between us wasn’t just grief or stress.
It was something heavier. Something I wasn’t sure could be fixed.
Back inside the house, I collapsed onto the couch, clutching my stomach like I could hold all the broken pieces together.
My face was still wet, and I couldn’t get the sound of that truck hitting Mello out of my head.
OJ sat stiff at the edge of the recliner on the opposite side of the room.
He was swinging his little legs like nothing had happened.
His whole demeanor was just blank. From that moment, all the love I had for the little boy was dead.
He had eyes of a demon with the heart to match. I would never forgive him for this.
I stared at him, my heart pounding in my chest. The camera footage burned in my mind.
I couldn’t get him opening that back door and smirking when Mello ran out of my head.
He knew. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Quickly, I thought back to a time when he tried to walk Mello, and I remember telling him that he always needed a leash because he didn’t listen.
He can’t go out without his leash, was exactly what I told his ass.
“OJ,” I said sharply.
He looked up, wide-eyed but quiet.
“You let him out on purpose.” My voice cracked with rage and grief tangled together. “Why would you do that? Why would you hurt Mello like that?”
OJ shrugged. His tiny shoulders lifted like it was no big deal. “He was just a dog.”
This little nigga was just like his damn father. Insensitive and a piece of shit. I slapped my hand over my mouth before a scream ripped out of me.
“Just a fucking dog!”
“Cayla,” Orion’s voice boomed from across the room. It was laced with warning. He moved quickly, planting himself between me and his son.
“Don’t talk to him like that. He’s a kid. He doesn’t know any better.”
I shot to my feet, tears streaming all over again.
“No, Orion! He knew exactly what he was doing! I saw it on the cameras. You saw it on the cameras. You don’t get to sit here and act like he’s innocent when he let Mello out on purpose!”
Orion’s jaw tightened with his eyes narrowing at me. “You're accusing my son of being some kind of monster? He’s just a little boy.”
I jabbed a finger toward OJ, who was now sulking behind his father like a shadow.
“That little boy just killed something I loved! And you wanna brush it off like it’s nothing? Like I’m overreacting!”
He didn’t even offer me a response. He turned to his bitch of a son and wiped his eyes before telling him to go upstairs.
He just stared at me for a bit before grabbing his keys off the table in the foyer and then leaving the house.
The loud thud caused one of the frames on the wall to hit the floor.
When I was by myself, only then did I let myself fall apart.
The only sound was my sobs echoing against the walls.
I realized it wasn’t just Mello I had lost. It was the trust. The balance.
The love I had for this man and even for his son.
The piece of my heart that Orion and I had built together was gone, and I wasn’t sure if it was ever coming back.
Orion
It had been months, and I tried my best to get Cayla out of the funk of losing Mello.
I spoke to Omari about it, and he said I was dead wrong.
Ever since Ma died, it’s like there was a disconnect with me and mad shit emotionally.
I tried making it up to her by offering to get her another dog, but she declined.
I even had her comfortable driving behind the wheel again.
Those small things, I thought that she would appreciate considering what had happened, but she didn’t.
Not to mention, whenever OJ came around, she kept her distance.
And I mean, really kept her distance. If he came into a room she was in, she walked out.
When he spoke to her, she didn’t even respond, or if she did open her mouth to him, it was to tell him to come to me.
That pissed me off because he was just a kid, and what he did was an accident.
You couldn’t tell her that, though. She thought my son deliberately let her dog out to purposely hurt her.
As the months went by and her belly grew, so did the pounds she put on, and between her body and her attitude, I was starting to get disgusted by her.
Talking to T’asia at the club was easier than discussing shit with her.
Hell, even Shenell and I had gotten on good talking terms over the months.
Our coparenting was top-notch, and she even became a listening ear when I wanted to vent.
I was trying with Cayla, and I mean really trying.
The additional spare bedroom in the house went to our daughter, Oriana.
It was decorated in shades of pink that were so fitting for a princess.
We were just waiting for her arrival. I even tried to make decorating her room a family thing, but once OJ came in the room with his paintbrush, she snapped and yelled for him to go finish playing in his room, which caused me to defend his ass.
I get being mad, but yelling at my kid was out.
I let the whole block hear my anger when I stepped in front of him to scold her ass.
It had been quiet around this muthafucka since then.
When OJ’s birthday came around, she didn’t say shit, so when it was time for her, I didn’t say shit either.
My old ways were on the horizon, and in that moment, I could have slapped the taste out of her fucking mouth.
Lately, she had been picking at my growth.
I was still a work in progress, and I was proud that I was able to keep my hands to myself.
We walked past each other and didn’t speak sometimes, and honestly, I liked it that way.
She would go out and have dinner with Zy from time to time, leaving me alone in the house.
We stopped going out together. I was doing my thing while she was doing hers.
A dog dying caused us to fall off track this much, but honestly, I wasn’t trying to fix things.
On this night in particular, we had gotten into it before she even walked out the door to have dinner with Zy.
Just thinking about how she was telling me that my son was evil-spirited like me had me ready to choke the fuck out of her.
How could she ever speak about a child like that?
She thought we were evil-spirited, and I was gonna show her exactly how evil a nigga could get.
She had no idea the kind of demon that lay dormant in me, but her ass was about to find out.