I'm the Last One That You'll Ever Remember
Chapter 144: Explain Yourself
“MASIKA!” Just in the nick of time, Mikey captured a faint Masika in his arms before she toppled to the floor. Rectifying back up onto their feet, he shepherded her over to the rumpled motel bed she’d most likely settled in for most of her stay there. “Here, let’s get you off of your feet. Your body still needs to heal after the procedure.”
Yielding to the fight, she allowed him to help prop her back on the pillows stacked against the headboard. Having to verify that she did indeed go through with the abortion of their baby took all the energy she had in her to physically stand on her own two feet anymore. As much as she welcomed Mikey’s rescue, she found it complicated to impart it when she was still pissed off at him. The cruel frenzy he exhibited the last time they saw each other and she had shared the announcement of their pregnancy rang true in her mind, and so communicating any form of gratitude was difficult, but she managed. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” Mikey scrapped her thanks, his eyes examining what little of her face that he could see past her long ebony curls. Cautiously placing his hands on her shoulders, he inquired tenderly. “Are you feeling alright, Masika?”
Was she feeling alright? That seemed like a preposterous query considering all that she’d just been through. She went through an abortion on a baby she wanted to carry, but didn’t want to be the reason she couldn’t be with Mikey anymore...and now that that life was extinguished she despised herself above all others. Shaking her head, Masika parted her lips to persuade both him and an attentive Gerard by the door that she was fine, only an outburst of a sob wailed out instead. Uncontrollable, she was lost to her emotions and became the heartbroken pitiful soul howling over the loss of her child.
Her reaction was startling to both of the Way brothers, but that didn’t restrict Mikey from reaching out and swathing his arms around her in solace. Wrestling back his own emotions threatening to reach the surface, he hid his face in her hair, taking in her scent and honoring the fact that he had at least found her again.
Gerard quietly studied the couple mourn the loss over their baby together, his throat becoming constricted at the mere illusion if this were HIS plight and Frank had lost their current baby instead. The emotions that blasted through him made his heart race with alarm and jeopardize his posture by causing his knees to tremble. Taking a deep breath, he shoved the vision right back out of his mind to recover himself again.
“W-Why, Masika?” Mikey agonized in the jungle of her frizzy curls, his arms tightening around her as he granted a few tears to drop from the corner of his eyes. He was pleading from his heart now, something he hadn’t done since he was child. “Why did you kill o-our baby? Why did you get an abortion?”
“Our baby...OUR BABY!?” Masika echoed in a voice that sounded disoriented and remote at first then hardened into fury. With a strength that shocked them both, she thrust Mikey off of her until they lost physical contact. Her brown orbs detonated into a volcanic inferno of violence as she glared at him. “As far as I’m concerned, after our last conversation that baby became MINE, and MINE ALONE!”
Wincing in reminiscence to their last unpleasant exchange, Mikey couldn’t gather up an ounce of bitterness to match hers. How could he? Despite the fact that he couldn’t remember the bulk of the contentious words he had swapped during his tirade, he was able to recall the urgency to verbally damage her for getting pregnant. It was childish, it was stupid, it was something he’d give anything to take back. Shaking his head in rejection of his ruthless words, Mikey vowed to make amends to her. “No, Masika, I swear to you that whatever I had said during that confrontation I didn’t mean a single word of it! Not a single fucking one!”
“And which part are you hinting at?” Masika challenged him, hatred in her eyes. “The part where you said the baby wouldn’t ever be yours? Or the part where you threatened to force me out the fucking window so you wouldn’t have to deal with our burden any longer and finally be done with it!?”
Gerard’s jaw dropped at that knowledge before he demanded answers from his baby brother. “YOU FUCKING SAID THAT!?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” Mikey hollered back at him over his shoulder, just as clueless as him for he had no remembrance of what he had said. “I DON’T FUCKING REMEMBER, I JUST SNAPPED!”
During the brothers' brief friction, Masika had squirmed away from Mikey’s side of the bed to sit on the opposite side. By the time he detected this she was far enough away from his reach. “Well, you have nothing to worry about any longer, Michael. As far as I’m concerned we’re both out of your life for good.”
Mikey recognized how her words applied to the status of their late baby, but didn’t see how it applied to her. Taken aback, he probed. “Wait, what is that supposed to mean?”
Glancing at him furiously over her shoulder, Masika snapped. “You know exactly what I fuck I mean! I’m fucking done with your ass, Michael Way! We’re finished, over and done with!”
“That's bullshit, Masika!” Mikey snapped back, waving his arm as if he could dissolve her claim just like that.
“No, that’s where you got it wrong! The only lump of shit sitting in this here room is you, Michael!” Masika shot back. “I am NOT gonna spend another second in a man’s life that can’t stomach my love for him, or man up to father the child we’d created together! I will NOT murder another child out of fear of being alone ever again!”
“You won't have to because I CAN do that, Masika!” Mikey disputed, jerking off the bed and onto his feet. “I CAN be that fucking man for you!”
“Do you take me for a goddamn fool!?” Masika demanded, her hand pointing out Gerard who was standing aside as a spectator in their discord. “Since when the fuck does Michael Way care for anyone else, but himself and his psychotic older brother, huh?!”
“I have ALWAYS cared about you!” Michael revealed, but didn’t catch a break to go further into detail.
“I call BULLSHIT!” Masika protested, throwing her hands up to signal she was done with conversation. Fiction was the only language Mikey seemed to know anyway so why was she exhausting her time trying to talk this out with him. She needed the truth, not deceptions. She’s endured with that long enough already.
“It’s not fucking bullshit!” Mikey snapped, striding around to the end of the bed, his eyes locked on her. “I fell in love with you the second I saw you at the auction when you were nothing but a fucking prize free for the picking!”
Struck speechless, and unclear if she had been hallucinating as a reaction of her abortion, Masika turned her head to gape at him with wide eyes. “Say what?”
“I’m in love with you, Masika.” Mikey breathed, surprised to find it easily to say now that he’d blurted out his admission in defense of himself. “I have been since I first saw you.”
“B-But I…” Masika sputtered to speak, shaking her head to clarify it now that it ceased working. “But you’ve always insisted I was nothing to you, but a good ass lay every now and again.”
“Jesus Christ, Michael, did you say that too!?” Gerard demanded, baffled by his brother’s barbarity with the opposite sex. Is this how he talked to all his women or was Masika just ‘special’?
“Stay out of this, Gerard!” Mikey snarled at him, before refocusing on Masika again, his voice lessening. “That was nothing but a bullshit lie, baby. Every single thing I have ever said along those lines was a downright fucking lie.”
Masika didn’t know what to say. She looked like a fish with her mouth opening and closing, and so she clenched it down and tried to get a hold of the rapid switch of direction in their feud. He loved her and had been lying about it this whole time? It was everything she had ever fantasized of and more..and yet now it was suddenly feasible like some enchanted Disney movie with a perfect happy ending? No, there had to be more to this. This was too good to be true. Lifting her eyes back to him, she nominated to put him to the test. “Explain yourself.”
Yielding to the fight, she allowed him to help prop her back on the pillows stacked against the headboard. Having to verify that she did indeed go through with the abortion of their baby took all the energy she had in her to physically stand on her own two feet anymore. As much as she welcomed Mikey’s rescue, she found it complicated to impart it when she was still pissed off at him. The cruel frenzy he exhibited the last time they saw each other and she had shared the announcement of their pregnancy rang true in her mind, and so communicating any form of gratitude was difficult, but she managed. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” Mikey scrapped her thanks, his eyes examining what little of her face that he could see past her long ebony curls. Cautiously placing his hands on her shoulders, he inquired tenderly. “Are you feeling alright, Masika?”
Was she feeling alright? That seemed like a preposterous query considering all that she’d just been through. She went through an abortion on a baby she wanted to carry, but didn’t want to be the reason she couldn’t be with Mikey anymore...and now that that life was extinguished she despised herself above all others. Shaking her head, Masika parted her lips to persuade both him and an attentive Gerard by the door that she was fine, only an outburst of a sob wailed out instead. Uncontrollable, she was lost to her emotions and became the heartbroken pitiful soul howling over the loss of her child.
Her reaction was startling to both of the Way brothers, but that didn’t restrict Mikey from reaching out and swathing his arms around her in solace. Wrestling back his own emotions threatening to reach the surface, he hid his face in her hair, taking in her scent and honoring the fact that he had at least found her again.
Gerard quietly studied the couple mourn the loss over their baby together, his throat becoming constricted at the mere illusion if this were HIS plight and Frank had lost their current baby instead. The emotions that blasted through him made his heart race with alarm and jeopardize his posture by causing his knees to tremble. Taking a deep breath, he shoved the vision right back out of his mind to recover himself again.
“W-Why, Masika?” Mikey agonized in the jungle of her frizzy curls, his arms tightening around her as he granted a few tears to drop from the corner of his eyes. He was pleading from his heart now, something he hadn’t done since he was child. “Why did you kill o-our baby? Why did you get an abortion?”
“Our baby...OUR BABY!?” Masika echoed in a voice that sounded disoriented and remote at first then hardened into fury. With a strength that shocked them both, she thrust Mikey off of her until they lost physical contact. Her brown orbs detonated into a volcanic inferno of violence as she glared at him. “As far as I’m concerned, after our last conversation that baby became MINE, and MINE ALONE!”
Wincing in reminiscence to their last unpleasant exchange, Mikey couldn’t gather up an ounce of bitterness to match hers. How could he? Despite the fact that he couldn’t remember the bulk of the contentious words he had swapped during his tirade, he was able to recall the urgency to verbally damage her for getting pregnant. It was childish, it was stupid, it was something he’d give anything to take back. Shaking his head in rejection of his ruthless words, Mikey vowed to make amends to her. “No, Masika, I swear to you that whatever I had said during that confrontation I didn’t mean a single word of it! Not a single fucking one!”
“And which part are you hinting at?” Masika challenged him, hatred in her eyes. “The part where you said the baby wouldn’t ever be yours? Or the part where you threatened to force me out the fucking window so you wouldn’t have to deal with our burden any longer and finally be done with it!?”
Gerard’s jaw dropped at that knowledge before he demanded answers from his baby brother. “YOU FUCKING SAID THAT!?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” Mikey hollered back at him over his shoulder, just as clueless as him for he had no remembrance of what he had said. “I DON’T FUCKING REMEMBER, I JUST SNAPPED!”
During the brothers' brief friction, Masika had squirmed away from Mikey’s side of the bed to sit on the opposite side. By the time he detected this she was far enough away from his reach. “Well, you have nothing to worry about any longer, Michael. As far as I’m concerned we’re both out of your life for good.”
Mikey recognized how her words applied to the status of their late baby, but didn’t see how it applied to her. Taken aback, he probed. “Wait, what is that supposed to mean?”
Glancing at him furiously over her shoulder, Masika snapped. “You know exactly what I fuck I mean! I’m fucking done with your ass, Michael Way! We’re finished, over and done with!”
“That's bullshit, Masika!” Mikey snapped back, waving his arm as if he could dissolve her claim just like that.
“No, that’s where you got it wrong! The only lump of shit sitting in this here room is you, Michael!” Masika shot back. “I am NOT gonna spend another second in a man’s life that can’t stomach my love for him, or man up to father the child we’d created together! I will NOT murder another child out of fear of being alone ever again!”
“You won't have to because I CAN do that, Masika!” Mikey disputed, jerking off the bed and onto his feet. “I CAN be that fucking man for you!”
“Do you take me for a goddamn fool!?” Masika demanded, her hand pointing out Gerard who was standing aside as a spectator in their discord. “Since when the fuck does Michael Way care for anyone else, but himself and his psychotic older brother, huh?!”
“I have ALWAYS cared about you!” Michael revealed, but didn’t catch a break to go further into detail.
“I call BULLSHIT!” Masika protested, throwing her hands up to signal she was done with conversation. Fiction was the only language Mikey seemed to know anyway so why was she exhausting her time trying to talk this out with him. She needed the truth, not deceptions. She’s endured with that long enough already.
“It’s not fucking bullshit!” Mikey snapped, striding around to the end of the bed, his eyes locked on her. “I fell in love with you the second I saw you at the auction when you were nothing but a fucking prize free for the picking!”
Struck speechless, and unclear if she had been hallucinating as a reaction of her abortion, Masika turned her head to gape at him with wide eyes. “Say what?”
“I’m in love with you, Masika.” Mikey breathed, surprised to find it easily to say now that he’d blurted out his admission in defense of himself. “I have been since I first saw you.”
“B-But I…” Masika sputtered to speak, shaking her head to clarify it now that it ceased working. “But you’ve always insisted I was nothing to you, but a good ass lay every now and again.”
“Jesus Christ, Michael, did you say that too!?” Gerard demanded, baffled by his brother’s barbarity with the opposite sex. Is this how he talked to all his women or was Masika just ‘special’?
“Stay out of this, Gerard!” Mikey snarled at him, before refocusing on Masika again, his voice lessening. “That was nothing but a bullshit lie, baby. Every single thing I have ever said along those lines was a downright fucking lie.”
Masika didn’t know what to say. She looked like a fish with her mouth opening and closing, and so she clenched it down and tried to get a hold of the rapid switch of direction in their feud. He loved her and had been lying about it this whole time? It was everything she had ever fantasized of and more..and yet now it was suddenly feasible like some enchanted Disney movie with a perfect happy ending? No, there had to be more to this. This was too good to be true. Lifting her eyes back to him, she nominated to put him to the test. “Explain yourself.”