Page 128 of Deceit

I’m assuming he’s speaking about me, but I don’t acknowledge it.

However, I do recognize the empty pit in my stomach that’s slowly digesting my organs inside and the slowing beat of my heart.

We didn’t need to end like this. I wanted to give her everything, but it’s too late.

You weren’t good enough.

She needs more than you.

You’re too fucked up.

You have emotional issues over a fucking relationship that happened over a decade ago.

I guess I never fully got over it. I’m a bearer of things that I keep in my closet that I don’t want to collect but never throw out either. A hoarder of emotions and memories that I let run my life and shit.

The kid known as, Mad Dog scoffs, his cockiness breaking through my self-pity. “Fuck you, man. That’s not my business, and if you kill me, you’ll be dead within the next twenty-four hours.”

“By who?” Marty taunts. “Some of the street shitheads you hired to walk around with Glocks? No one is shaking over here.”

“Don’t underestimate me,” he retorts. “I’m not any normal gangsta who runs drugs and guns. I have a lot of power backing me.”

“Did this asshole say, gangsta?” Mills mutters at my side, a lit blunt showing up next in front of me. “Here.”

I pluck it from his fingers and inhale deeply, the smoke lodging in my throat, but I hold back on coughing.

Nah, if I die right now from lack of breathing, at least I won’t have to go one more week like this.

“Go do a round,” Kyson utters low to Mills. “Make sure we don’t have any extra company. Keep the police scanner on.”

He takes off, leaving me his joint as I help myself to another hit.

Then another.

Maybe if I hold it in long enough, my brain will shut down.

I’d like everything to shut down.

Thinking of Emmy with a growing belly, her skin bright and smile affectionate. She’ll be a perfect mother. She’ll love him or her with all she has in her.

With every molecule in her being, she will be there for her whole life and through each trial and tribulation. She’d never let them fall—not for long anyway. She’s mothered all of us on B723.

I just got to experience more.

More than I should’ve.

It was like catching a beautiful butterfly but not feeding it because you didn’t know how or what it needed.

I gave Emmy nothing but my dick, but I tried. I couldn’t make her stubborn ass budge with allowing me to openly announce who she was in my life.

Now I feel every scrape and bruise as I fall, over my head and slamming into the concrete of what is her patience running out.

“Wanna get some practice in?” I glance over at my best friend, holding my compound bow and arrow in his hand.

I don’t hesitant, taking it because it’s a weapon.Myweapon of choice when I have the time to use it.

Balancing the lit blunt between my lips, I position my arrow in its spot.

“What are you fucking Pocahontas?” Mad Dog storms, his weight making the basketball rim he’s bound to whine in protest.

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