I'm the Last One That You'll Ever Remember

Chapter 142: Afraid to Love

In the adjacent town over, Gerard and Michael found themselves voyaging deep into the night in the downtown area. They had the windows rolled down to let the refreshing air in as their eyes scoured as much of the streets as they could for Masika. They’d managed to track her down to an abortion clinic within the area only to discover out that she had set up an appointment there. Feeling strained, Gerard recalled just how they infiltrated the establishment. Michael had flown from the car like there was a ticking bomb in it and exploded through the front doors demanding anyone relating to an employee for Masika. If Gerard hadn’t interfered and explained his little brother’s contentious presence with a made up sob tale, the employees would have phoned the police straight away. Steadying Michael before hearing the news, they were both heartbroken to a stupefied state that caused them both to simultaneously topple into the plastic chairs behind them.

Masika had aborted the baby. Michael’s first child, and Gerard’s first niece or nephew.

It took them ages to recoup. They were in such depressing shape from the news that the doctors were considering calling the ambulance for them both. Michael threatening them had swiftly set them straight, and so they urged the brothers to both leave. Gerard had no idea how he found the power because he felt as hollow of weight like a feather when he snagged his brother’s arm over his shoulder and steered them out of the building. Now driving the car in mutual silence, Gerard was perplexed by how profoundly disturbed as he was considering the child wasn’t his. Monitoring on his little brother for the 50th time since he started the car, Michael showed to be lost in a fortified state of shock. His face was pale, his form so still you’d think he was asleep if not for the desolation in his open eyes where they bore into the dashboard of his car. He hadn’t replied to any of Gerard’s inquiries to his wellbeing, but that didn’t stop Gerard from trying. “Mikey...how are you doing over there?”

Michael didn’t respond, nor shifted to reassure him that he was still conscious within his own body. Anyone would think he was brain dead, or something pertaining to that dreadful outcome. To Gerard, his little brother was resembling to be just that, his little brother. again He wasn’t the intrepid leader who had everything under control and always had a plan B. No, he looked like his little Mikey Way again, a vision Gerard hadn’t seen since he was a child. Warily pulling over due to the nausea in his stomach worsening, Gerard parked the car in the lot of a closed down pool. Cutting off the ignition, the brothers sat in complete quiet, still trying to wrap their minds around the calamitous news they’d obtained. Hours passed into the night before Michael finally spoke, not moving an inch. “You were right.”

Stilling, Gerard kept his eyes on the expanse of the blue pool behind the padlocked chain link fence. He was too sensitive to look him in the eye, especially since this was his fault. “What do you mean?”

“I scared her. I scared her so she got rid of the baby.” Michael confided, his voice heavy with shame though his eyes remained flat and barren. The emotions he was hurting through internally were on such a sharp extraordinary degree he hadn’t felt before. Losing his parents didn’t kill him this much. Nowhere near it. “I hadn’t meant to scare her the way I did. I just…”

Gerard finally turned his head to stare at his brother across the console between them. “You just what?”

Fighting to go on because he had to get it out of him or else he’d shatter, Michael’s eyes filled with tears, but he managed to keep them from flowing over. His eyes remained trained on the dashboard. “Being a Killjoy...we can’t have any weakness.”

“I know.” Gerard nodded in understanding. Weakness could either get you slaughtered or the members of your team.

“I never meant to ever acquire feelings for Masika. Not when she was a trophy to do with as I pleased, or when she became one of us. But I did. As time went on, my feelings flourished to the point where she was more on mind than our own missions themselves. I thought all I had to do was keep rejecting those feelings and soon enough they’d drown out. But months turned into years and my feelings hadn’t eased, they only began to taint my bloodstream and my mind until there was nothing left of me that wasn’t hers.” Michael whispered then turned his head to stare weakly at his big brother. Never in a million years did he think he’d be sitting here having a heart to heart chat with him. Never in a million years did he think he’d ever become the weaker of the two ever again. “I fell in love with Masika the very second the bag was extracted from her face when she was put on auction. I would have butchered every single one of you to secure her for myself. Since then my feelings have only festered to consume all of me.”

“I know that too.” Gerard inspired him, though he had no idea it was a love with an energy that could easily match his own for his Frankie. “And now that you’ve finally come to terms with it, you can embrace it. You don’t have to keep fighting it because it’s not going to go anywhere, trust me.”

Michael shook his head to eliminate that idea. “But I don’t know how! How do I embrace this asphyxiating feeling!?”

“Start by not being afraid to love, Mikey.” Gerard answered, determined to make sure his brother finds joy in the newfound love he’d always refused Masika.

“How do you do it? I mean, really.” Michael grilled him with a scowl. “Doesn’t the thought of someday losing Black Opal terrify the shit out of you? Doesn't it make you not want to oblige him to get too close to you?"

“That won’t ever happen.” Gerard blurted without thought. It was an existence he hadn’t yet built up the audacity nor power to ever consider. He was certain his heart would give out if he ever tried.

“But what if it happens!” Michael stipulated, needing to have an answer.

“It won’t!” Gerard snapped, his temper blazing in return to his unrelenting demands. “So quit asking!”

“Do you feel that? The unshakable denial in your heart? That’s exactly the same way I felt when I was revoking my feelings for Masika. Now, look at me. I lost my only baby and the woman I love because of it.” Michael ached, the tears tumbling from his eyes and down his cheek.

Gerard firmly shook his head, rebuffing to believe that this was the end. “No, you may have lost the baby, but not Masika. She has got to be around here somewhere! She would've gotten far even in a car.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea where to begin.” Michael added as he wiped his tears. Not one single inkling surged in his mind as to where Masika had gone and it was disheartening him that he may never see her stunning face ever again.

“She just had an abortion so her body is going to need to rest as soon as possible.” Gerard chanted what a nurse had told him before they were kicked out for Michael’s ghastly threats.

“So, she’s gonna head to a hotel.” Michael calculated, glimpsing around through their windows along with his brother for such an establishment nearby. The pool they were parked in front of was a part of six crowded hotels on a dead end road. Gerard puzzled on why there would be six hotels on a dead end road just as Michael withdrew the car to get a better view at their surroundings. He opted to join him and withdrew from the vehicle. Deciding to branch out and interrogate nearby customers, the brothers strode up and down the two laned dead end road, quizzing every person they passed as well as the employees in every lobby. The more rejection they got to the whereabouts of Masika, the quicker Michael strode until he was full blown sprinting all over the place. At the very last hotel, he kicked over a trash can on his way out and cursed. “FUCK!”

They had checked every single hotel and no one had heard of or identified Masika. Pacing in place, Gerard sought to think of another option. “She’s not here, man.”

“No, she is here! I know it!” Michael hollered, before he too began to march around, running his hands through his hair in grievance.

“We can try the hotel to the right of the clinic instead of the left.” Gerard proposed.

Not bothering to deal with the car, Michael took his advice, but did so on foot. He took off sprinting with Gerard behind him. There were five motels on the other side of the clinic, making Michael curse. “Goddamnit, why does there got to be so fucking many motels here!?”

Gerard opened his mouth to agree when they heard a man cat whistle nearby and whoop out. “Swing that ass my way, baby, and let me watch it bounce!”

Following that indecent man’s survey upwards to one of the higher floors of a motel, they identified the familiar outline of Masika’s shapely body in a purple track suit with the hood up to cloak her face, but not her long dark curls snooping out. She aimlessly flipped off the man hailing out to her before entering her motel room toting an ice bucket. Both brothers yelled. “MASIKA!” But it was too late, she’d already shut the door.