Ecstasy

Epilogue (4)

"Let's just let it go

Let me let you go."

- Excerpt from when the party's over by Billie Eillish

LORENZO ANTONOV

I sit in the hospital waiting room.

Just 30 minutes ago, Natalie went into labor. Both our mamas are in the room with her for support.

Mama insisted for me to go inside with her but I refused and I don't care about the "punishment" I might get for defying her.

I outright told her that I don't care for the woman. Mama is going to scold me later but who gives a fuck if that's not how a new father should act.

I'm confident that I'm not the father at all.

I continue waiting, bored because I can't smoke within a hospital, then I hear Dariya storm into the room.

Dariya shouts profanities loudly in Russian, startling Cai who wakes up from laying on my shoulder.

"What's wrong?" he asks, rubbing his tired eyes.

I want to ignore her but she's upset. I don't know why she entered the room to begin with but something inside upsets her.

Does it look like my child even though we both, she believes me, know that it's not?

"I-" she begins but then grumbles underneath her breath.

"I fucking hate that bitch," she insults and I stand up, beginning to walk to the room.

"Lorenzo," she says, grabbing my wrist, "It's not worth it."

I shake her loose grip off of me, "No," I tell her, "Now I need to know what's going on."

I walk inside the room and I see the baby Natalie is cradling in her arms.

Seeing the baby infuriates the hell out of me. You know why?

The baby was mixed, brown-skinned specifically. I have no black ancestors and Natalie doesn't have any recent black ancestors.

There is no way in hell that Natalie pops out a brown-skinned child from the both of us and it proves my point.

The baby isn't mine.

I clench my fist tightly, biting my tongue to refrain from the amount of curse words that would be coming out and the only reason I'm doing that is because Mama is in the room with us.

When Natalie sees me, her eyes go wide.

Full honesty, the baby girl is adorable even in its wrinkled state.

However, I'm not forgetting the fact that this baby is proof that I'm not the father.

Natalie cheated on me.

Natalie immediately knows what's going to happen right in front of her. I don't care if she's tired and not in the mood to deal with me.

This shouldn't have happened to begin with.

I give her a face, the face I give an enemy when I know that they haven't told me the utmost truth that I've been expecting from them.

"Natalie," I say. All my anger is flowing towards my balled fist so that I don't fucking break something.

I don't care about the people in the room right now because just like how I'm not stupid, everyone else isn't stupid. Mama knows the baby isn't mine and her Mama thinks the same as well.