I Will. (Urban)

29

Domonique

Pain makes you forget things. It messes with your memory. Maybe it's a way for the brain to cope with how terrible everything feels, or maybe people make the choice to forget. Either way, you lose something, or everything.

I can't tell what I've lost.

Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I still see Jordan's blood all over my face and neck. It stains my freckles and coats parts of my hair, as if I've bathed in it. Those are the days where I want to close my eyes and never open them again.

But other days, like this one, I go hours without remembering what happened. The pieces of it all are jumbled up, hidden in places where I can't find them. Was Jordan shot in the head or the chest? Did I watch it happen? What were his last words to me?

And now, I have to kill you.

"Nique," Rah's distant voice called out to me, snapping me out of whatever awful thoughts I was about to drown in.

"Mm?"

"You heard me?"

"Nah." At my response, he clenches his jaw in annoyance.

We haven't talked much in the days since. Not that I feel like talking. A much better and more accurate excuse is that I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about Raheem.

I can still hear Jordan's voice taunting me about Rah not telling me that he killed our mother. I refused to believe him, right up until the moment that Bennett shot and killed him. Right up until they nearly had to drag me out of the house, and the only way to get me to move my legs was to remind me that Sade had been shot and needed help.

Right up until Raheem told me himself.

I shouldn't be mad about it. Ma tried to kill me multiple times and only expressed her desire to have me dead so her problems could go away. She was sexually involved with our brother, and neither me nor Rah knew it. Neither of us could see what Jordan was going through alone, neither of us could stop it or protect him-- and it was her fault he needed protecting in the first place. We were better off if she were dead.

And that's the problem.

That's exactly what she thought of me, and it's what drove her to plot and almost successfully execute my murder. Yes, the circumstances are far different, but I'm no better than her if that's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of my dead mother being buried in some unmarked grave.

I'm no better than my own mother if the only thoughts in my mind at the mention of my mother's death are happy ones. I'll shed no tears for her; I won't let myself. But I feel a mixture of emotions knowing that she's really gone.

Some tiny, naïve part of me thought that maybe if we all sat down and talked, we could fix things. Not that it would happen overnight, but that we could at least start trying to heal from it all. Knowing that she's dead burnt that dream to a crisp, and it was Raheem who lit the flame.

When I asked him about it, he told the story as if it were as simple as taking a walk. It was self defense; she was going to kill him if he didn't respond fast enough. He gave her the opportunity to walk away, and greed made her choose to try and kill her own son rather than accept the offer.

It wasn't his fault. He had to do it, for us both. But I never ever wanted that for him; killing someone in your family changes you in ways that can't be undone. And it being necessary doesn't mean it hurts any less, it just hurts differently.

We both loved her at some point. There was a period of time when she was the most loving person in both of our lives. She could do no wrong, because she was our provider. Our Protector. Our Mother.