A Thug's Burden

Chp. 22: The Calm Storm

ERIK POV

Looking out onto the Hudson River as I sat at the pier feeling the light breeze brush against my skin. It is now August, An entire week into August and so much has happened that I still have yet to process. My brain just won't better yet can't seem to take on the rationale of my mother's death and my body feeling so numb of emotions. One part of me feels as if I am reliving my sister's death, the way I just couldn't phantom why it had to be her. The numbness of my emotions as there were no more tears left to cry and feeling like everything around me was just an out-of-body experience or as if I could be in the worst nightmare of my life.

That is where I am now. Feeling as if I was in another nightmare. A nightmare that I can not wake up from. A nightmare that has turned into a reality. A reality that I am forced to live. The other part of me feels as though I should be raging, some may say I should still be reacting to my mother's death but it is almost as if I am being restrained. My body isn't reacting to the thoughts that are going through my head as I constantly have been trying to wrap my head around her death.

There's so much for me to say but I can't. I don't know where to start nor how it would affect those around me if I allow myself to feel all of these emotions that I could be feeling, that I should be feeling but I feel as though I am having an out-of-body experience. Feeling like none of this is real but also know that this is real.

It really happened. My motha is dead. My only other parent. The woman that was an amazing mother to not only me but Emerald as well. The woman that didn't deserve to experience the loss of a child the way she did and how it affected her afterward. I watched her go through so much following the loss of my little sister and she has come a long way and was doing so well.

My goal was for us to move forward from it and she be able to see her oldest and only son be a senior and also tackle becoming a father and making her a grandmother. Wanting her to be able to see me graduate from high school and also experience the next generation of our family. Being able to meet her grandchild and regardless of gender, being able to bond with her grandchild and have new memories.

I wanted her to be able to be there with me to celebrate me turning eighteen but there was no celebration. There wasn't anything I felt the need to celebrate. My mother was gone. My mother is gone. The only parent I had left is gone. It's just me and her sisters. What I would classify as the immediate family. It has always been me and my mom, then there was Emerald and now it has resulted in just being me.

August was supposed to be a new month, my month as it is also my birthday month, however, All of that has passed and through these days I have been helping my auntie arrange my mother's funeral. I have helped my aunties through every part of my mother's arrangement and through the process, my aunties have cried their way through it, and at one point I felt as though I should be crying as well but there are no more tears left to cry. I am sad but I also can't quite feel the emotion of sadness.

I know I have a responsibility. The responsibility to keep going, keep pushing, be the man of the family, and do what I need to do to make sure that my mother will be sent off and her life be celebrated correctly.

I don't have time to cry. I don't have time to fully process everything that I am feeling and even me being here. Sitting at the pier, in the middle of the day, I have no words to speak, no tears left to cry, no one emotion to feel. It is the day before the funeral and it still hasn't hit me that tomorrow is the day we will be laying my mother to rest next to my little sister.
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JAMIE POV

I laid against May's shoulder as we laid in my bed watching Euphoria but I could not for the life of me pay attention. My mind constantly drifts back to Erik. Knowing that he is in pain and this is the absolute worst way to start the school year off for him and there's nothing I can do to make it better. I don't know how it feels or what he is personally going through losing a parent. All I want to do is try to ease the pain but it is so hard to do when this entire time, he has been on autopilot. Since everything that transpired at the hospital, it's like he's just going with the motion.