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Suddenly, I feel weightless.
In the span of ten seconds, my heart has been crushed to a pulp inside my chest.
I open my mouth to respond, but words fail me. There’s nothing more that Yan can tell me, and there’s nothing in the entire world that will make this right. I’ve lost my brother, and the universe is still going to keep moving for the rest of eternity.
Death changes nothing for the world, but it changes everything for me.
“You don’t need to say anything. I’ll stay here with you as long as you need me to,” Yan says quietly, employing a gentler tone of voice than I’ve ever heard from him.
I don’t even know what to do next. The shock is still rippling through me to the point that I’ve been stunned silent. I grasp desperately for something to say – a word, a question, anything. But it never comes.
“We don’t know who did this yet. We’re not even sure why he was out at the time that he was. He could have just been out to buy cigarettes,” Yan continues.
The suggestion is almost hysterical. My brother has been involved in more gun fights than anyone else I’ve ever met. He’s easily the most capable man in my fleet.
Was.
Hewasthe most capable.
The irony of his death being caused by a random drive-by at a gas station is almost insulting to me on his behalf. My brother deserved to go out with a bang the way he always talked about. He wasn’t afraid of death, but that doesn’t make his passing any easier.
Having sustained four gunshot wounds to the abdomen, he likely suffered greatly. Blood loss from a gunshot is one of the most uncomfortable experiences I’ve ever endured, and I was only shot once. I can’t imagine the scorching sensation of dread in his stomach when he realized what was going on, even if he never felt the burning of the bullets inside him.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” I ask as my frantic thoughts finally become manifested into desperate words.
“We wait, and you grieve however you need to. What we’renotgoing to do is attempt to find the person who did this and bring them to justice, not while the police are still on high alert.”
A wave of disgust rolls over me before I’m able to stop it. “What the fuck are you talking about? You think we’re going to let the local police department handle this? You know they’re not going to do shit. They probably haven’t even looked through the camera footage.”
Yan sighs heavily, bracing himself for an inevitable confrontation. He knows me well enough to talk me down, but as the years go by, I can tell that he’s grown weary of my outbursts.
“It isn’t because I trust the police. It’s the exact opposite. I know you’ll end up going after this motherfucker whether I like it or not, but you need to be smart about it. The police presence in this area has been extremely dense. You have a much higher probability of being caught and imprisoned. It’s basic math.”
Everything in me wants to scream in his face, to hurl insults and accusations at him, but I can’t deny the fact that he’s right.
I’ve almost gotten caught by police doing much more benign shit than exacting revenge on a murderer. Even in those instances, I only barely managed to squirm out of their grasp. With my impaired judgment in the way, the execution of revenge would be messy at the very least.
This is dangerous for me, but I barely even care.
I ball my fists, tempted to swing one at Yan. “How the fuck can you talk about this like it’s a bad business deal? You’re speaking so casually about my fucking brother getting gunned down in a parking!” I shout. “How can I even believe that you’re being honest with me when you’re so unbothered about all this?”
“Ruslan, I know this is the worst possible news you could ever be receiving, and I’m going to do everything I can do to alleviate your pain. But I would never joke about something like this, nor would I tell a lie to get a reaction out of you,” he replies, sipping his coffee once more.
I think that his methodical coffee-drinking is more of an effort to calm his own nerves. Seeing Yan under this kind of stress and grief strikes a fear in me that I thought I’d never encounter as an adult.
The man who taught me everything I know about life is struggling not to fall apart in front of me.
There’s a storm of anger, resentment, bitterness, and sadness swirling around his head. There’s nobody to look up to for support or guidance this time. We’re all on our own, subjected to mental prisons of our own making.
“Do you need to go out for a smoke?” Yan asks, lifting his head a bit more and drawing his eyes back up to mine once more.
I don’t know what I need. If I did, I’d be doing it already.
“I don’t know,” I reply flatly.
“I’m going to leave you here alone for a moment. I’ll be back in a few minutes, but come out to the front porch if you decide to join me,” he replies, getting up slowly out of his chair as he gathers his jacket and cigarettes.
I nod solemnly, feeling the deep well of loneliness and despair growing deeper as the moments go on.
