Oceans Submerged: Book Two, the Oceans Series (10 page)

My eyesight went fuzzy and I could feel blood fighting to rush back into my head. With one last punch to Ocean’s face, splitting both his top and bottom lip, I pulled my hands back and up in surrender.

My uncle slammed me back into the seat and grabbed me by the neck. “You listen to me Lawrence HAWTHORNE and you listen to me carefully! You and Ocean are not going to kill each other over this. I’ve lost too much in my life in such a short period of time to lose you two motherfuckers all in one days’ time. You got that, Rambo?! I am not losing my two sons!”

I tried to turn my head to face the window but he tightened his grip on my neck.

“You will be stronger than Ocean is and you will bring Livie back and keep your family together. Do you understand me son? Your mother can’t take another loss and I’m sure as hell not losing my sister because you two fucks can’t keep your emotions in check and your heads on straight!”

All the old man had to do was mention my mother suffering because of my actions and my walls came crashing down.

I gave him a nod as the tears broke free and I cried like a bitch in the back of the limo. He pulled me into a hug then released me to give me the space and time to cry alone, but not before he grabbed my head and slammed my jaw back in place. I think I blacked out from the pain because I saw and felt nothing but darkness.

Chapter Seventeen

Livie

The swooshing of air thrummed into my ears and I felt my heart beat in my throat. I wanted to open my eyes but they felt heavy, too heavy. I felt like I was free falling into nothingness.

“Mmm,” I moaned, trying to will myself to come back to life. I stilled even more at the sound of distant voices and things being moved around. I focused on opening my eyes.

When I was finally able to see, the room I was in was dark and felt cold. I did not recognize anything, just dark shadows moving within the room. My brain felt muddled with only empty space that didn’t make sense.

I tried to move my arm, pain shot up to my shoulder and I hissed under the intensity. I think the intensity of the pain was sending me into shock because my body temperature was changing from hot to cold faster than I could adjust.  

“Easy.” I heard a voice say in front of me.

“I’m going to turn on the lights and they’re pretty damn bright. So close your eyes, okay?”

The voice that was speaking to me was a female. There was a slight accent in the way she pronounced her words and it sounded familiar to me.

“You ready?” The smooth and honest voice asked me.

“Uh huh.” was the best I could get out.

I heard a click and the lights shined bright even from behind my eyelids. She wasn’t kidding, whoever she was.

“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere. When you’re ready to open your eyes and get up, I’ll help you. I’m your roommate, Dulce.”

The reality of my situation just became clear. The last seconds of being with Ocean leaked into my mind and my heart struggled to keep pumping blood through my veins. He’d flipped and needed me and I wasn’t able to get to him.

His behavior was all because of me. I was always the cause of someone’s heartache. Unfortunately for me, my actions always hurt the people I cared for and needed most in my miserable world of pain and suffering.

I was here and the people I loved the most were gone. I stitched the open wound that bled for Ocean and his family and sealed it with a kiss for now. I had to deal and if I didn’t, there would never be a better day to look forward to. There wouldn’t be a better me to give to Law and Ocean. I would need to start looking for pain in the healthier things in life, if that even existed, so I opened both eyes and let the bright fluorescent lights sting drawing tears from them.

I guess I had imagined a white, cold and empty room being my new home for the next couple of weeks but my room was not like that at all. The walls and ceiling were painted a soft lilac color with a cute trim of floral designs. The air circulating around me was cold and sterile, but not the same as a hospital. The smell of the air was clean with a homey smell.

“Well good morning, night, or whatever you want to call it. How are you feeling, Sunshine?”

My body jerked towards the soothing voice at the mention of my nickname.

“What, how do…” the dizziness kicked in as I tried to raise my head to get a better look at my roommate.

I let my head fall back onto the pillow beneath me.

“Easy chica. You’re in pretty rough shape and considering how it took me and two three hundred pound guards to bring you in, I would say you need to try and relax.”

With my head resting on my pillow, I turned my head to face the voice coming from the other side of the room. She was sitting on what looked like a futon bed. She could have been my sister before everything went wrong. That or she was in real close relation to me and I just didn’t know it.

We were like night and day. I was the darker version and she was the lighter version. If anything, she deserved the nickname Sunshine because that’s what she looked like to me.

Looking at her reminded of Shakira. I resembled Shakira when she first came out as an artist, the days when she had black hair and an earthier look to her.

Dulce, as she called herself, was the newer, refreshed version of Shakira people see today, the smiling blonde-haired artist and bombshell beauty.

“What? Do I have something in my nose?”

Oh she was going to be perfect for Law. I can’t wait for their epic show down. This woman was going to give him a run for his fortune and he was going to absolutely love the chase.

If I had the strength and energy, I would have laughed at her. Being around her and talking to her was as easy as it was with Law the first time we met. Considering all that’s happened around me since then, I couldn’t completely decide if this was a good thing or not.

“No, sorry. You’re just very pretty and very nice.”

She frowned then shrugged off the compliments quickly. “Aw, that’s because you don’t know me yet, Sunshine.” She said, looking down at her hands as they played with the frilly parts of her pillow.

“Why do you call me Sunshine, anyway? Who told you to call me that?”

The golden-haired Shakira look alike known as Dulce frowned again. “Uh no, I have this thing with nicknames. If it reminds you of something bad I’ll try and stop but I really can’t make any promises. Once I nickname someone it never goes away.”

A current of pain shot up my left arm and I hissed as it rocked my brain back and forth. I felt my body sink into the mattress underneath me as my body deflated from the extreme pain, both mental and physical. I felt the bed dip next to me and the smell of cinnamon swirled into my nostrils.

“I know you don’t know from me Jose or Julio from the barrio, but I’d like to help you if you let me.”

I thought about it for a minute. There really was nothing to think about because even if she hadn’t offered, I couldn’t even sit up straight without help.

“Okay. Thanks.”

She turned her head and then looked back down at me. “Look Sunshine, it’s two in the morning and you’ve been sleeping since they brought you in around two yesterday afternoon. What do say we get you showered, groomed, clothed, dressed, and fed before we go back to sleep?”

I hesitated at the thought of letting a complete stranger give me a shower. I guess she saw the panic on my face because she laughed.

“Don’t worry. Even with my traumatic history, I still love men. If you can manage it, I will just hold you steady while you clean your lady parts with your good hand. Deal?”

It was hard not to feel comfortable with her so I let all of my already crumbling walls down.

No more walls.
 

“Deal.”

Chapter Eighteen

Lawrence

I punched my headboard out of frustration and anger for the millionth time since I got home. I had to help carry Ocean’s bitch ass out of the limo and up to his room. I should have left his stupid ass on the side of the curb or near the dumpsters for trash pick-up.

I haven’t been this mad at him in years and it felt wrong. It went against how I truly felt for my cousin since he was more of a bother to me than anything else. I rolled over to take a peek at the time and it was ten minutes to five.

I looked around my empty room and again anger flushed through my veins. My palms were itching to grab my cell phone and call a girl to come over. Not just any girl though, I needed to call a girl that would let me fuck my frustrations into her.

A girl who would not crumble when I wanted to take her from the back, on top, underneath me, on the floor, and whatever other position I wanted to take her in. I needed that right now. I needed to bury my pain in a tight pussy. More than one tight pussy was preferable considering all the pent up anger I had inside.

When one girl got too tired, I’d move on to the next. Seemed simple…right? Even though my anger and ego were talking a good game, my heart wasn’t.

My heart needed one thing and one thing only. It needed someone to love hard. It needed to find that perfectly imperfect girl that would shatter my heart on sight, then leave me scrambling to pick up the bloody pieces.

I looked around the room again, wishing Sunshine would barge through the door like she did at my studio the first time we met. Maybe this time I would let my dick lead and take her for myself.

I ran my sweaty and clammy hands over my face, rubbing at my eyes. My body was jumpy, my nerves where shot, and my god damn jaw was killing me! Courtesy of ram-fucking-bo!

I sat up in bed, contemplating on whether or not I should walk into his bedroom and fuck his face up just for the hell of it. It had been years since I had my jaw knocked off the hinges. The first and last person to do it was none other than Ocean.

I let my head fall into my hands as I thought about what Sunshine would do if she were here and saw me like this.

I stood up from my bed, pulled on my running kicks, grabbing my iPhone and ear buds. Push-ups, sit ups, and pull-ups just were not cutting it anymore.

It didn’t matter if I did five hundred of each lately so I did the next best thing, run. I would run until my lungs burned and collapsed on themselves or until I found a bridge high enough to jump off of.

I tied the string to my gym shorts tight. I didn’t bother putting on a shirt. Hell, who knew, maybe I would run into a fine ass girl and she’d fuck me proper just because I had the most perfect eight-pack she’d ever seen in her life.

Then I wouldn’t feel so bad fucking her pussy loose.

****

Ocean

I woke up with a splitting headache. It felt like I was having brain surgery without any anesthesia as my skull was being sawed open.

My eyelids felt too heavy to even bother opening so I laid still, trying not to do anything but breathe. I didn’t want to think because I’d think about my Liv.

I didn’t want to breathe in too deep because I’d smell her vanilla scent consuming me in her absence. I also didn’t want to feel because I would start craving the sensation of Liv’s naked body sleeping next to mine. And lastly, because I just went down that fucking list in my throbbing head and did everything I didn’t want to do.

I pushed the big red button that was labeled do not push!

I laid in bed and let my mind slip back into nothing into a place where my heart couldn’t feel or hurt, not bothering to get up or care if it was night or day. Not giving two shits if I’d been sleeping only for a couple hours or days, even weeks.

Chapter Nineteen

Livie

Running. I was running as fast as I could towards him. Only it was so dark I couldn’t see, think, or hear. All I knew was that I was running and I had to get to Ocean before it was too late. My lungs stung, my nostrils and throat burned as I tried to pull as much air into my body to keep my tired and heavy legs moving. Finally a light. The light was stationed on the outside of our condo. Running full speed up the stairs, I reached the top and ran right through the door. What I saw on the inside of my home stopped my run, breath, and heart all at once.  On the floor with a knife in his hand, Ocean was slicing open his arm as I’d done in the efforts to stop the pain, giving in to my demons, and ultimately removing myself from everyone’s life I’d ruin. I couldn’t move, breathe, or speak because my heart was literally shredding into pieces. I could feel each fiber that made up the rhythmic muscles of my heart being pealed back and ripped off forcefully. Ocean’s face turned ghost white as he looked up at me. With one last smile, Ocean slumped to the side as his arm bled like a flowing waterfall. A never-ending flow of blood pooled around him inching its way towards me. NO! NN-O-O! NO! OCEAN NO!

“Whoa. Whoa Sunshine. It’s okay, wake up.”

The smooth voice crept into my nightmare and brought me back to the other side. The side where I could open my eyes and not see the man I loved and needed right now more than anything bleeding to death the same way he’d found me.

When I looked up to see Dulce watching me, I broke down in tears.

She sighed heavily before crawling into bed with me. “Hey, don’t do that. Please, I have a reputation to upkeep. With you shedding tears like that… well then I’m going to have to join you, and trust me beja (beautiful) we don’t need that, okay.”