All I Want... Is You (11 page)

I kept my gun drawn; I couldn’t let him get the drop on me, regardless of whether he was high or not.

It was killing me inside that this had reached this point, but the point of no return was reached

when he shot at me the first time.

There was no turning back, no matter how badly either one of us wanted to.

“I can at least take some comfort in the fact that before it was all said and done that I was able to take one thing from you, something that was important to you for a change. That makes doing this even sweeter.”

Omar’s eyes widened when he finally stopped scanning the room around us, staring directly at me, his body language reflecting the conflict inside of him.

“
Put the gun down, Omar! It doesn’t have to end this way!
” I yelled at him, placing my left hand under my right, trying to hold my gun steady, not sure what would happen next. The pain was intense, but I gritted my teeth through it.

I didn’t want to shoot him, but it was either going to be me or him, and it wasn’t going to be me.

“Yes it does, D.” Omar coldly stated, the gun shaking in his grip. “It’s over. I’m done.”

The gun went off before I had a chance to react.

~Cori~

Seeing Toni’s number
on my cell phone’s caller ID was an odd thing.

Especially at this time of night.

Something’s not right, I could feel it.

“Hello?” I answered the phone while half asleep.

“Cori, I’m sorry to call you at such a late hour, but something’s happened and Derrick’s been hurt.” Toni didn’t waste time. “I don’t know all the details, but one of the officers found his phone and they found my number in the ICE files.”

“Oh my God, no!” I screamed at the phone, not realizing that my concern for Derrick’s safety was more than I originally let on. “Where are you now, are you on the way there now?”

“Yeah, I’m heading to Omar’s condo now,” Toni was speaking extremely fast, which let me know that it was really serious. “I can come get you on the way. You’re in Dunwoody, right?”

“Yeah, outside of Perimeter Mall,” I told Toni, my hands shaking more by the minute. “I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.”

“
Thanks for picking me up, Toni.”

“No problem, I needed the company. My nerves are shot.” Toni replied, pulling off before I could shut the door completely. “The officer sounded so damn cryptic, I didn’t know what to think.”

God I hope he’s okay
, I kept saying to myself over and over.
He’s got to be okay
.

“Let’s just hope that the officer was just doing his job and not telling you anything over the phone. We’ll know more once we get there.” I tried to calm her.

We sped across I-285, heading toward Marietta, and I couldn’t help but wonder where we were going.

“You said we were heading to Omar’s condo?” I asked her, trying to get my bearings. “Who is Omar? I know Brian already.”

Toni breathed in deeply and exhaled as if she were preparing for a very long story in a very short amount of time. “Omar is the bad seed of the three of them, Cori,” she started, alternating her glances between me and the road. “He’s not an evil person, but he has done some really fucked up things in our collective past.”

I sat in the passenger seat, trying to get the gist of what she was driving at. I got the feeling that Omar was someone that I didn’t want to be in contact with.

“Omar is a weed head, not that there’s anything wrong with that because I can unwind a little from time to time with Mary Jane.” Toni kept going as we got off at the Vinings exit. “But he’s always tried to compete with Derrick, as if he always had to be better than him at everything.”

I read Toni’s body language, and I could feel that she was holding something back. “So, why haven’t I met him? If they are that tight, wouldn’t he have been at the party at your house?”

“That’s because he’s not welcome in my house, nor is he allowed within shouting distance of me,” Toni quipped. “The things he did to my best friend… fuck it, long story short, he forced my best friend into a miscarriage and nearly drew a wedge between me and Derrick.”

My eyes grew wide at that last comment, silently pleading to her that I needed to hear it all, and Toni decided to finish the story as quickly as she could.

“When everything went down, I lost it, told D that it was either Omar or me; he couldn’t have both of us in his life.” Toni recalled, trying to blink away the tears. “Derrick is a stubborn man, and loyal to a fault, so he said that he wouldn’t do it, that he would just keep Omar away from me instead. They’d been boys since middle school and he couldn’t abandon him because of a bad decision.”

I didn’t know what to think at that point.

I didn’t want to share Toni’s disdain for what happened because I wasn’t there, and I didn’t want to come off like I was taking Derrick’s side because I understood where he was coming from.

Still, if it happened to Kyra or Candace or Tracie, I probably would have cut Omar, too.

“It took us years to build back to where we are now, and the fact that something’s happened at Omar’s house and Derrick might be hurt because of something that that jackass has done—“ Toni’s voice trailed off as we approached the chaotic scene that surrounded Omar’s condo.

There were police cars all over the place, and an ambulance was parked across the front lawn. The neighbors were out trying to figure out what was going on, which took me by surprise considering it was almost two in the morning.

One of the officers saw us getting out of the car and walked toward us to stop us from heading toward the house. “I’m sorry, ladies, this is a police restricted area. There’s been an incident.”

“We know; we were called regarding the incident.” Toni explained to the officer. “This is Derrick Morrow’s girlfriend, and I’m the ICE contact who was called, officer.”

I knew I wasn’t his girlfriend, at least not yet anyway, but it was the only way that the officers would let me in to see Derrick.

The officer spoke into his radio to let someone inside the house know that we were there. After a few seconds, the voice on the radio told him to escort us to where he was.

“Follow me, ladies.” he ordered.

We walked toward the house, noticing the front door had blood streaks on it. I looked over at Toni, and she had the same worried expression on her face as we continued to follow the officer to the stairs.

The place was a mess. It looked like someone really did a number and completely wrecked it. I’ve seen scenes like this on crime shows, and usually the actual crime scene itself was not something that a regular person would want to see in person.

I almost wanted to back out as we made it up the stairs toward the bedroom.

“Are you okay, Cori?” Toni could sense my hesitation. “I’m scared, too, these officers haven’t said much of anything, and it’s got me on edge. I’m here with you, okay?”

I exhaled. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Walking into the bedroom and seeing that Derrick was in one piece, I didn’t know whether to scream or cry. Toni quickly sat down on one side of where he was being attended to by the EMTs, while I found space on the other side of him.

The medic was wrapping his forearm, near his wrist. While we were doting on Derrick, I spotted a gurney being wheeled across the doorway, and I got a quick glance at a dark-skinned man laying on it. I only saw his arm, but from the skin complexion, I assumed that it was Omar, but I’d never seen him before, so I didn’t want to guess wrong.

I re-focused my attention back on him, and while he could hear us, he looked at us as if we weren’t really there.

“Did you call Toni and Cori, officer?” he asked, a blank look crossing his face. He looked really tired. “I know they would be here by now.”

“Baby, we’re here, both of us.” Toni took hold of his shoulder, trying to get him to snap out of the fog he was in. “Cori’s sitting right next to you, D.”

He turned his head toward me, looking right through me, it seemed. “God, am I glad to see you two? I tried to stop him, I promise I did, but he—“

“He what, Derrick?” I asked him gently, trying to pull him out of wherever his mind was.

“Maybe he might open up with you here, this is the most that he’s spoken outside of asking for you two.” the detective expressed to us. “He’s been through a lot, and he’s probably still in shock from being shot, but we need to get a statement from him before we leave.”

“Derrick, baby, do you think you can tell the officers what happened?” I tried to coax him by whispering in his ear. “Go ahead and tell them so we can get you home, okay?”

That seemed to do the trick, because Derrick all of a sudden straightened up, closed his eyes, and began to recount how he got to where we were right then.

At that moment, Brian showed up with another officer and saw us there with Derrick. Toni motioned for him to not say a word until Derrick finished making his statement.

“I left Brian’s studio to head up this way after he told me that Omar had been popping cocaine lines and that he might have graduated to doing that. I wanted to find out from Omar and maybe try to get him some help.” Derrick just sort of talked to the air around him; he wasn’t looking around at anyone. “I got here and headed for the door. When I went to reach for the doorbell, I noticed the door was unlocked and cracked open.”

The detective was furiously scribbling away on his notepad, obviously unprepared for the words to come so quickly and in such large bunches. “Continue, Mr. Morrow.”

“I went back to get my gun before heading into the house, and I saw that the inside of the house was trashed.” he managed. “I shouted for Omar to let me know he was in the house, and when I didn’t hear him, I headed upstairs to continue to look for him. I heard a shot when I got up here and grabbed my arm when I realized I was hit. I turned around to see what happened with my gun pointed and saw Omar standing there with his gun pointed at me.”

I saw the tears well up in his eyes as he tried to blink them away. I continued to massage his shoulders to try and keep him calm, and Toni kept a grip of his hand.

“He kept blaming me for all the shit that’s happened in his life, and no matter what I said, it didn’t sway him,” he stated further, his voice cracked while he spoke. “I told him that he was being unreasonable, that I didn’t do anything but be there for him, even when it was hot for me. Then he said it was over and turned the gun on himself.”

“Oh shit, he committed suicide?!?!” Brian couldn’t hold the outburst in. “I didn’t think he would take it that far.”

“I tried to stop the bleeding while I had 911 on the speakerphone of my cell,” he barely uttered. “I thought I had it stopped, but he fought me to let him go.”

The officer that escorted me and Toni walked in to whisper something to the detective before he walked back out. The detective dropped his head for a moment and then repeated what he’d just been told. “I’m sorry, Mr. Morrow, but your friend died before they could get him to the hospital.”

Brian shook his head when he heard that statement. “Damn, D, I’m sorry about O—“

“
You should be sorry!
” Derrick yelled, breaking free from us and getting in Brian’s face before anyone could react. “
I could have done something before this shit got to this point! That sonofabitch could have killed me tonight!
”

The detective whipped Derrick away from where Brian stood, trying to get him to calm down. “Sir, I understand you’re frustration, but don’t complicate matters.”

Toni got in his face soon after. “Derrick, listen to me, there was nothing anyone could have done about Omar. He did what he wanted to do.”

“
He would have listened to me, Toni, and you know it!
” he tore into Toni, this time the tears were flowing freely. “
You’re probably glad he punked out and took his life anyway!
”

I’d never seen Derrick this irate before, and I probably would have been scared to move into his line of sight after what he said to Toni, but someone had to stop him before he got too far out of control.

“D, look at me… I mean it, look at me.” I focused his eyes to lock with mine. He was still huffing and I could feel the anger on him, but I didn’t shy away from him. “You’re hurting, I know it hurts like hell right now, but we’re here to help you get through it, do you understand me?”

To everyone’s surprise, Derrick softened up, and he closed his eyes when I caressed his cheek. “Cori, I… I just want to go home and go to sleep.”

He looked over at Toni, his body slumped as if he’d just been completely beaten down. “Toni, baby… I didn’t mean… I mean, that’s not what I wanted to say.”

Toni walked toward us, grabbing his hand again. “You don’t scare me; you never did, baby. Let’s get you home.”

“But I have to call his parents. They need to know what—“

“Shhh, baby, listen, we can take care of that in the morning.” I told him as I calmed him before he got hyper again. “Right now, we need to get you home.”

~Cori~

He was asleep before I got to I-75.

He was so peaceful compared to the raging storm that I witnessed just fifteen minutes ago.

It was almost adorable.

As I steered the truck onto the expressway, I found a lane where I could just ride down to Derrick’s exit without changing lanes too much and hit the cruise control so I could be alone with my thoughts.

And there was a lot to think about.

For starters, the fact that I was even driving his truck was a moment for pause in and of itself. The way that Toni explained before I got in the driver’s seat, no one, not even Toni, had ever driven his truck.

Considering the control freak that I thought Derrick was already, it made sense that everyone was in shock.

Then again, this was no ordinary night.

I felt needed when the officers said that he had been calling for me.

It felt nice… really nice to be needed like that.