Lighter Shade of Brown (Urban Fiction) BWHM

Chapter 22

Seven days. It had been seven days since they'd pulled a move on Vasquez. Seven days since the doctor broke Juan's mother heart by telling her he couldn't be revived. And seven days since he'd last spoken to, or saw his girl. In a course of a week life had fucked them all, and on top of all the bullshit, Maldonado and Vasquez had maintained their silence, while Reyes no doubt had slunk off to one of his corners, with his tail tucked tight between his legs, to hide. Nothing had gone to plan since they'd damn neared the trap house. Nothing. Everything was up in the fucking stratosphere. All he could do was look up like everyone else, and wonder when the hell it would come back down. His lack of control talked mad shit to his played out nerves.

With a heavy head and weighed down shoulders, C's watched as the priest finished his final prayer over Juan's body, before bringing the committal service to a close. After the last words of the Padre's pleas were uttered, the coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. Low defeated moans, transformed into frantic sobs, and desperate screams as Juan's mom tried to bargain her life for his, by throwing her body on the descending coffin.

A sharp intake of breath from his side, hinted at his own mom's state of mind. Tilted. It could've just as easily have been him in that box, instead of Juan. Hell, it could've been them all. But that still didn't lessen the pain he felt watching his boy being committed to the ground, and his mom's doing her best to be committed too. Whether it was to the ground or the crazy house in Chattahoochee, at that point C's didn't think it really mattered to her. Judging by the wild look in her eyes, the woman would never be completely right in the head again. But who could blame her? Her only child was now dead, and the cause surrounding his death remained a mystery. Yeah the doctor said he died from blunt force trauma to the lungs that caused some shit called a hemothorax. But in the grand scheme of the game, what the hell did that mean to her? To any of them, really? They knew what the lick was, hell they were there, and yet the understanding of Juan's death still alluded them, floating somewhere over there heads just out of all their reaches.

Slipping an arm around his mother's shoulder he guided her from the grave site back to the Chevy, which sat parked in a line of vehicles that wrapped around the outer parameters of the cemetery. Ant followed them, without saying anything. He too was, more than likely, trapped in his own mind, flipping the shit out of, the would've of's, should've of's, and could've of's of it all. But no matter how many times they thought about what they could've done differently, in the end it all remained the same. Juan dead, and their continued survival, dependent upon Maldonado's and Vasquez's ignorance. They were in the, 'ho seat,' and there was no way around that reality.

On the way back to the Circle, the silence in the car was louder than the knock in his trunk. No one had anything to say. There were no words, to justify losing someone as young as Juan. Trife life or not, vato still had two jits who would now have to grow up with a memory instead of an actual father, and that weight would buckle their shoulders for a lifetime. He knew that better than anyone, because his burden had only grown heavier over the years. His papa's shoes were big, and filling them had been an obsession of his ever since he'd watched him draw his last breath.

When C's turned into the Circle, he noticed people had begun to set up for the block party. The last thing he wanted to do was celebrate his niño's return to the ground, but that's how shit was done around his way. Block soldiers, always received one more party for the road, before the streets moved the fuck on to the next. So no matter how the hell he felt, he'd do whatever out of respect for his homeboy. This was his day. His last day.

Sliding out of the Chevy, he posted up against the driver's door of his ride as he loosened the tie around his neck. His mom's placed a hand on his forearm, pinning him with a sympathetic stare. He shook his head once. "Go look out for his mom's and girl. They need you more than me right now."