Zoya #2
Goon walked into the villa, while I crossed the beach to where my brother was sitting. I stood back a bit and watched as he looked out at the ocean. His hands were clasped together, and I knew he had been rubbing them. He sat close enough, but not so close where the tide would touch him.
His sneakers were lined up perfectly and sitting beside him, but his socks remained on. Both his phones rested on top of his shoes instead of on the sand. Menace would die if even a piece of sand got inside of his shoes or in his phone.
Tough luck.
Even with him sitting on the beach, surrounded by all this sand, he needed to have some order. It was the one thing that he had always had control over. When life had gotten hard for us, he had been able to hold onto the small things.
The toothpaste tube.
His favorite foods.
Shit that was stupid to everyone else held importance to him.
Those were things that he could control and predict, even when life had become so unpredictable for us.
I watched as his forearms rested across his knees while he stared out at the water.
His thumb dragged across the side of his index finger. The small movements soothed him.
I looked down at my hand, and I was doing the same exact thing as he was.
The reason I knew it soothed him was because it soothed me.
small things like sticking my hand inside of my pockets or staring at someone’s nose to give the illusion I was staring into their eyes were small things that also soothed me as well.
“You trying to line me up while I’m defenseless, Bean?”
I smiled, as I walked closer and sat down next to him. “Menace Caselli is never defenseless.”
“Hmph.”
Both of us fell into silence as we looked out at the view. It was hard to be ungrateful when you were afforded the luxury of witnessing sunsets like this one. Every time I complained, I needed to remember that this existed.
“This exists because of you.” I looked at him, as he continued to look straight ahead. He would never look me in the eyes, because that was him.
You took what he gave and learned to live with it. I remember I used to want hugs from him after our parents died. I could feel his body tense up every time I asked for one before bed.
Despite how uncomfortable it made him; he never denied me. I eventually learned what personal space and boundaries were and stopped requesting them.
“Not God, Bean.”
“You may not be God, but none of this would exist without you. Menace, you could have given up. Look at this… your wife has her own island. We each have our villas on this island.”
“I could die happy.”
“Maverick, don’t piss me off.”
He snickered to himself. “Don’t tell me Zoya has feelings?”
“Your auntie has always had feelings.”
The minute auntie left my mouth his expression turned serious. “Why do you want me to die?”
“Huh?”
“I’ve always loved you, Bean.”
“Menace, what the fuc—”
He turned and looked me dead in the eyes. “You are my sister. My baby sister to be specific. I don’t claim that other shit, but Constance Caselli raised you like her own. I raised you like my own and that’s because you are.”
Fucking emotions were getting the best of me. “What happened to them?”
I had never known what happened to my parents other than they had died.
It wasn’t until we were older that we learned they were murdered.
Our lives changed, and Menace had to grow up overnight.
He went from a high school student to being in charge of three siblings and making sure we stayed together.
It couldn’t have been easy having your childhood ripped away from you. Going from being responsible for yourself to three other kids. He didn’t have a prom, graduation, or experience all of the things that we did while we were in high school.
My uncle used to pop in and out, but eventually that stopped. Even as a kid, I could tell when someone had given you their ass to kiss. We weren’t his priority, and he didn’t care what happened with us.
Menace did.
Angie did.
He took a deep breath and looked over at me. “Nash had them killed because of Case House. He wanted something that wasn’t his, and he got it.”
“Is that why you changed our last names?”
“Exact reason.” He spit onto the sand. “I’d fucking kill myself before I ever have that name tied to us. He fucking took our life from us, Zoya. The life that was promised to us for greed… his own fucking brother.”
My stomach turned as I rubbed my hands and looked over him. He wasn’t rubbing his hands together because this was anger. He was as upset as he probably was when he found out.
The anger never left him because how could it? It wasn’t like we got a second chance to do this shit over again. We couldn’t rewind the tape and have our parents with us again.
“Fuck, Maverick.” My stomach was in knots hearing what really happened to my parents.
My heart hurt that they were casualties of greed. Neither of them deserved that, because they were good people. Daddy just wanted to work and make a living. I remember him always traveling for work and coming home with treats for us.
I was old enough to know that relationships and marriage weren’t perfect.
As a kid, I witnessed my version of perfection.
I witnessed the love that they had for each other, the love that they had for us.
My mother was always so jumpy, and we lived to scare her.
She’d hold her chest and let out a nervous laugh because she was so scary.
My hands flew to my mouth as I sobbed, thinking about how scared she probably was. How she thought about us all the way to the end. Before thinking or pleading for her life, she probably prayed for her children’s lives before hers was taken.
When I looked over at Menace’s face, his was no longer dry. Tears fell down his face like they did mine. I broke protocol and put my hand into his.
He didn’t jerk his hand away, instead, he closed his hand on mine as we both silently cried for the lives of our parents. Lives that were taken so senselessly. They didn’t deserve to die.
“A lot of shit I hide because I never want y’all to hurt like this.
They’ve been gone a very long time, but I feel that shit like it happened yesterday.
Some nights I see their bodies in that morgue and wake up in a cold sweat.
Being your brother means being your protector.
Physically and mentally, and you struggled so much in your teens, Bean. ”
I thought back to my attempt at ending my own life and then at him. “Is that why you slept in my room for two months after that happened?”
For months after I had been released, Menace slept in my room on the floor.
He refused to let me out of his view, always making sure to check in on me.
Even when I went off to college, I remember him always showing up and pretending like he needed something.
As I thought back, I was almost certain that he did that because he wanted to check in on me.
“Say what it is… stop using filler words. After you tried to kill yourself.” Don came and sat beside me.
Me and Menace still held hands, and he grabbed my hand. “Yeah, that.”
“Say it, Bean.”
I swallowed hard as I looked between the both of them, ashamed to admit it out loud. It had been years but admitting that I tried to kill myself was something that I kept close to the chest. I was embarrassed that I had gotten that low that it led me to wanting to check out.
Back then, I remember waking up and being in so much pain. The emotional and mental pain was so heavy that it nearly felt physical. Grief had a way of latching onto you and sucking the life out of you.
No matter how much you tried to push it off and move on with your life, it was there. As a teen, it was so crippling because I wanted my mother there for everything. I needed her more than I knew and knowing that she was gone hurt me even more as more time passed.
It was easier when she first passed. As life went on and the other, I became, I realized I needed my mommy more than I thought. I would need her when I met the love of my life and then had children. She was supposed to be here to help me through motherhood.
Some mornings I would wake up and could smell her signature scent in the air.
It almost felt like I was being mind fucked, because I hadn’t smelled it in years.
Then I was expected to get dressed and go to work.
How could I stare at my laptop and focus on work when my world was falling apart around me?
Then you had people who couldn’t understand what grief did to people. People so selfish and worried about their own wants and needs that they never saw the person. Never understood the pain that a person could go through losing the person that was responsible for giving you life.
I squeezed my brother’s hand tighter because he had to go through this alone. He didn’t have anyone to lean on, and then he still had to help his three other siblings with their grief.
“I’m sorry, Maverick.” I sobbed into his hand. “I’m such a fucking brat… I’m sorry for putting you through everything and never stopping to think about your pain. Never took into consideration that you were barely surviving.”