Page 13 of Quasim: King Inferno

Blaze froze when he saw me on the floor in front of the tub with the gun to my head. Tears poured down my face as I looked up at him. He stood there, unsure on how to move, but the emotion entered his eyes as quickly as he saw me with the gun to my head.

“Blaze, take care of her for me… I left everything on the bed with her doctors. Gams knows everything, too.” I instructed him on the letter, and binder full of Harley’s medical documents. “Remind her that I loved her so fucking much.”

He blinked back tears as he walked into the bathroom. “Qua, what the fuck? No… this ain’t the way you do this shit… don’t do this shit. I…I need you. Harley needs you.” He stammered, as I pushed the gun against my temple more.

“I can’t do this again… eighteen months to live, Blaze. She’s going to leave me, so I want to leave so I’ll be waiting for her.”

The doctor pulled me into the hallway today to tell me that Harley had eighteen months. The chemo, trials and everything I had been doing wasn’t going to work. Who the fuck was I kidding, when he told me the kind of cancer she had, he saidit was a rare that children lived. I did my own research and discovered the same thing.

Knowing the odds were stacked against us, I was determined to be that miracle case in medical history. I couldn’t look at my baby and tell her that she was going to go somewhere that I couldn’t go.

My heart wouldn’t allow me to do it.

He looked down at his boots, and then up at me. “Please don’t do this… you gonna fuck me up. I ain’t never gonna be the same. She will never be?—”

“Uncle Meer?” I heard my baby girl’s sleepy voice.

He peeked his head out the door and looked back at me, wiping his tears. “Harley bear, stay in your room for me… okay?” His voice was shaky as he looked down the hall at his niece, knowing her father was in this bathroom about to splatter his brains all over the tiles.

“Okay, Uncle Meer. Can I have some juice?”

“Pedialyte,” I told him. “In the fridge in the back because she loves it super cold.” I replied, as I continued to hold the gun to my head.

“See, I wouldn’t know that shit… you can’t do this shit. We need you, Pop.” Meer never called me by the nickname that my father called me.

Tears fell down his face as he wiped them away. “Okay, Harley. Your daddy is going to get it for you.”

“Don’t lie to her.”

“No, I’m not fucking lying to her… you not going out this way.” He looked me in the eyes. “You fucking King Inferno… head of the Inferno Gods, Pop. That fucking nigga… and I’m not letting you go out like that. Shit is hard, I know it… I’m not saying that it’s not going to get harder, but I’m here… I’m never leaving your side,” he sniffled, as he walked and lowered himself in front of me.

“It fucking hurts all the time, Blaze. Feel like I can’t fucking breathe… can’t even see straight because my heart hurts all the time.”

He looked down at his hands, and then back into my eyes. “The way you move me, the way you soothe me…. youuuuu,” Meer sang as he stared into my eyes.

He knew this was my favorite song. I would make him sing this shit to me because he always knew how to hit the right note.

“Come on, Pop, how the fuck you gonna hear me sing this at your wedding if you end yourself… put the gun down for me, please…” he pleaded. “Every morning you rise and open your eyes,” he continued to sing, then he started to harmonize while tears fell down his face as he stared into my eyes.

My vision was blurred from the amount of tears that fell down my face as I watched how broken my little brother looked. He looked at me like he would go right with me if I pulled this trigger.

“King Inferno goes to you, Blaze.”

He swallowed a large lump in his throat. “I don’t want that shit if that comes with me losing you. If I gotta go through life without you by my side, I don’t want none of this shit. I’m here for you… we fucking Infernos, we go through the fire and walk out unscathed.” I allowed him to reach for the gun and released my grip on it as he quickly snatched it, pulled the clip out and slid it across the bathroom.

I broke down crying as he scooted across the floor and pulled me into his arms. “I can’t lose her, Blaze… I cannot lose her.” I sobbed into my brother’s chest.

His heart was beating a mile a minute as he held me, kissing the top of my head and rocking with me in his arms. “Life seems so bleak right now, Sim… I know it does. There’s going to come a time when the pain isn’t as strong, and the sun will come out, and you’ll actually smile. I know it seems far and unattainableright now, but I know that God has a plan for all of us… I know he does.”

He remained quiet as I cried, and then he started singing lowly as he rocked me in his arms, like I was a child. A nigga needed that because I had been strong.

I’ve had to be strong since I was born.

The first Inferno boy born to the infamous Papa Inferno, I had no other choice but to hold that shit on my back, never complain and handle what came my way. With Blaze, I never had to be that. He saw me as his big brother, strong, but he gave me room to be a human.

A man.

Blair

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