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Not right now.
“I was…processing,” he answered. “You don’t understand what happened in there.”
“And whose fault would that be?” I asked. “You’ve barely been around, and when you have been, you’ve given us bare minimum. And I know you already know this, but I was knocked out. If you want me to know what went down,tell me what went down.”
“He tried to make mekill you!” Onyx revealed, struggling a little over the words as he moved in closer to me. “I pointed a gun at you, because part of my brain was telling me Ihad to, and I… couldn’t make the other part overcome that.”
I blinked.
Hard.
“…what?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Remember what I told you, about that control mechanism?” he explained. “It’s… still there. Still…active.”
“But… I’m not dead,” I said, gesturing at where I was quite clearly living. “So you must have overcome it.”
“Not really,” he countered. “I used every bit of control I had left, to turn it on myself instead.”
“You were going to shootyourself?!”
“I didn’t have another option that I could live with!” he insisted and I shook my head.
“But you’rehere,” I countered. “We’re bothhere.”
“Yeah,” he scoffed. “Only because Margeaux saved our asses. And I haven’t even gotten into the fact thatyoushouldn’t have been there in the first place!”
“Was I supposed to justnotshow up?”
“Yes!” he insisted. “Blue didn’t. Alicia didn’t. Because they knew to respect what I had to do, knew not to create a distraction—”
“Man,fuck you,” I interrupted, snatching out of his grasp. “Excuse the hell out of me for not wanting you to die. Excuse me for giving a fuck about you, forloving your stupid ass!” I said, jabbing a finger in his direction. “If you don’t want anybody worrying about you,stop doing worry-about-a-niggakinda shit! You ran your ass in there with no planon your own, so don’t act like anything that happened in there is onme.”
“It’s not aboutthat!” he roared right back, matching my energy. “I’m notblamingshit on you, but I’m not backing off what I said. You should’ve stayed your ass away, like I asked! Tati, you don’t understand what it’s like having to…fuck.How am I supposed to look you in the face now like nothing happened, knowing I had a fucking gun pointed at you, that my finger was on the trigger?!”
“Just like this!” I insisted, grabbing his face with both hands, staring him right in the eyes. “I get it, it’s fucked up! But what part of thishasn’t been?”
He scoffed. “None.”
“Exactly!None of it. But the difference is this time, you’renot alone,” I swore. “You don’t have to be alone. You don’t have to process, and cope, and whatever else,by yourself,” I told him, gripping his face harder when he tried to look away. “You’ve got me. You’ve got Brandon. You’ve got Alicia, and Isaiah, and all the others. You’ve gotfamily. So stop the bullshit, and let us be that for you.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”
“But itcouldbe. It’sgoing to be,” I asserted, letting go just long enough to slip my fingers between his to lock hands. “Forget everything else, that’s the past.”
“Tati, I—”
“Please.Please?” I implored. “Can you justtry? Before you decide it’s impossible, can we justtry?”
He blew out a sigh, running his free hand over his head.
I couldfeelthe struggle radiating from him, knew without him saying so that every part of him wanted to just… run.
But after a moment, he met my gaze again and nodded.
I squeezed his hands. “Then…come on, and let’s put our people to rest.”
