Jurisdiction • Nasnika

XXI.

Nicki in multimedia

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Nicki,

A couple of hours earlier...

I closed the front behind me and walked into the living room where I was met with nothing, but silence and darkness. The house was never this quiet except for when O'sane wasn't here and now he would never come back through that door again.

In the backseat of my uber ride back home, the only thing I kept thinking was why me? Why O'sane? He never hurted anyone and was always sweet and playful like any other teenage boy. Yeah he had his moments where he said not so nice shit, but not once did he mean any bit of it.

None of this would have even happened if it wasn't for Jaydon... or me? If I hadn't started dating him in the first place we would have never fallen out and he wouldn't have gone after my brother to hurt me. He did all of this shit and took his elaborate scheme to new heights when he pulled the trigger and killed my brother. Now that I think about it, why hasn't God handled him yet? Why do bad things happen to the good people?

I tossed my purse onto the couch and my made my way towards the kitchen. Out of all the ways, people chose to cope and calm their nerves, my coping was always to just cry it out when I could and then forget it ever happened. That mechanism became habitual as I gotten older, I learned that in order for everything to be okay I had to convince myself that everything would be fine. Tonight though, my coping consisted of another mechanism used to num pain: alcohol.

The fifty year old vodka that Jungle stole from one of Nasir's co workers house years ago resided in my kitchen cabinet. It had never been open because I wasn't much of a drinker and plus I preferred wine or something with a fruity flavor.

Tonight was different though. Fruity liquor only got me buzzed and right now I wanted the full feeling of intoxication. I needed for my body to separate its self from the world for a little while and this vodka was the only way.

I poured myself a glass of the clear substance and threw it back like it was water. The taste was unusual and the toxins burned my throat, but it actually tasted good. I poured another glass and another and another until I felt the warmth of my body temperature start to increase. I felt a buzz coming which meant I was almost at my peak of complete drunkness.

With lazy energy, I picked up the bottle and stumbled out of the kitchen and down the hallway. Still taking swigs of the liquor as I walked and tried to keep my balance in these six inch heels that managed to survive the struggle I put them through today. Just before I made it past O'sane's room or what used to be his room, I stopped myself and backtracked in front of his door.

Without putting effort into it I nudged the door open. My eyes took in the scene of every little thing this space contained that O'sane found valuable. I sauntered in and roamed around the room, all the things O'sane owned made me tear up. It wasn't the things that made me sentimental though, it was more of because in the back of my mind I still to remember that he would never get to come back to these things. A picture of him smiling that resided on his dresser caught my attention, seeing his face in an image other than the ones that keep replaying in my head from tonight of him on his death bed, was soothing. It was comforting, staring at him smile without a care in the world made me feel like he was smiling at me.

It felt like O'sane was embracing me in his arms like he always did whenever I would be sad about something. Feeling like he was in this room with me made the tears finally burst from my eyes like an erupting dam and roll down my cheek.