Bullets In A Cold Winter Breeze

Chapter Twenty-Two Being Man And Woman

**Dalyla POV** 09/10/2014 (Time Unknown)

I slurp my teeth as I take off the three-inch reasons my feet have been throbbing since the start of the funeral. It's gone vaguely unnoticed, but now that my adrenaline has calmed a tad, the pain is evident. "So you really became a killer just a few months after being away?" I challenge him for truth. Undecided if I'm going to give credit to any of Trenton's words.

"If I'm lying, I'm dying, and God ain't struck me down yet." He winks, sucking his right canine tooth as he readjusts in his seat to take in my full view. My stomach drops, and without delay, I'm filled with a million butterflies as I promptly experience the identical feelings I did when Trenton told me I was pretty. It's not from love, though. I'm pretty sure it's my baby making the case to kill him.

"All I heard you say is that you killed some niggas who didn't care about you and married a hoe." I snigger. His rolling eyes are his only response, and his lips don't move for a while as if he's manufacturing new information to lie to me about. We sit silently for what seems like ten minutes before his scratchy throat coughs out a new sentence.

"As much as you want to know why I didn't come after you, why didn't you ever try to reach out?"

Trenton's words aren't a simple inspection of the past. Instead, they're a sophisticatedly webbed speech that isn't meant to complicate. Anyhow, with all the holes that come from the question, without delay I'm caught up in the sticky entanglement of cobwebs. I take a long gulp of airless breath as my body, heart, and spirit probe my subconscious for an answer as well. "I mean, you keep demanding answers from me, but you can't even give me this one in return?" His voice rings out in anguish, and his glittering eyes author the same story. "Why didn't you ever try to figure out where I was?"

"I... I did... I searched for you on social media, but you've never had any of it. You knew my address, but you never wrote me yours. You knew my home number, yet you never called... You swore you'd come back for me, but you never did. It's not like I didn't try at all! You made and stuck with your decision to leave! That's why I hate you!" I swear, curbing the flow of tears that are bidding to come out and flood the leather seats.

"I love how you just pass your guilt over to me." He chuckles, quaking his head and mugging me until he's seizing the door handle to escape being in my vicinity. Immediately my identity is splintered by putrefaction as his words eat at my evidently rotten heart. Although my statements about searching for Trenton on social media are factual, I still can't steady the regret I have on not investigating him longer and more desperately.

"You can't flip this around on me!" I pout, pulling my feet up to the seat so I can cuddle myself as the tears I've been holding onto for years finally expose themselves. "You should have came back for me!" I scream, embracing myself as tightly as I can manage.

My subconscious governs the thoughts that tell me he's never loved me, and I can't do anything but accept them as accurate, even with me knowing it's false. This man risked his well-being, wife, and entire life over this day to tell me the truth. He could have waited a few months to let me calm down about Toc's death, then acted like he didn't know anything about my life's story. However, he didn't. He manned up and put it all at risk because he loves me.

"No! No! Trenton doesn't love!" I remind myself. "Toc loved me!"

Twenty minutes later, Trenton slides back into the car, acting as if nothing has happened. "I'll start back six-seven months after I killed those two."

**Trent POV** 07/03/2002 (Wednesday, 9:12 A.M, CTZ)

Though still considered a virgin to the actual game of drugs, the fact that I've been driving AJ around and monitoring how he conducts his businesses has put me in a completely different mental space. The world of drugs has no significant differences from the legal billion-dollar industries other than that they're legit, and people pay taxes. Everything in the world can be seen as a drug, so why not shut down all the things people get addicted to?