“It wouldn’t have happened if you had been honest with me. Instead of giving me some vague warning about it being dangerous, you should’ve said that there was specifically someone you didn’t want me to see!”
“I want to keep you away from that. Have you ever thought of that? That I was doing it for your own good?”
“How hard is it for you to give an explanation? That’s all I needed.”
“Oh really.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “If I’d told you that a gang leader was in town that liked to fuck virgins, you’d have just stayed away?”
“Yes, I would have.” At least, I’d like to think I had enough smarts to stay home instead of following Leka around. I have a momentary pang of doubt, which Leka sees.
“You’d have followed anyway.” He’s lost his anger and replaced it with that damned blank mask that he wears when he’s with everyone but me.
“No.” I shake my head because I can see him shutting me out, shutting his feelings down. “No.” I have to stop him. “No. Stop assuming the worst. I made a mistake and so did you. We learn from this. We—”
“We go our separate ways. This…” He waves his hand between us. “Whatever this was, it’s over now. It’s too dangerous.”
Feeling helpless, I lash out. “You think everything in your life is dangerous!”
“Because it is! That’s why I sent you away. That’s why I don’t want you here now!”
I stumble back as if he struck me. Those words are cruel and he knows it. “That was low,” I say through the hurt clogging my throat.
He stares impassively at me as if he doesn’t care.
“Take it back.”
He folds his arms across his chest and says nothing.
I fought before because I thought I could win, but if he can say those words with sincerity, then I don’t believe I want to win. Not this fight. Not this war.
“Why did you save me if you won’t let me live?”
34
Leka
I don’t know how long I stand in the kitchen after she leaves. Her last words ring in my ears.
Going into the bedroom is a huge mistake, I discover minutes later. No. Scratch that. Renting an apartment with only one bath is where I went wrong. She’s so close. Her stifled cries are easy to hear even over the running water.
I lean my arm against the wall separating us and rest my head in the crook of my elbow. I try to remember all the reasons I shouldn’t be in that bathroom on my knees worshiping her, but my mind draws a blank.
A moan whispers between the walls. My hands fist. This is torture, more painful, more excruciating than any punishment Beefer or I could’ve ever thought up.
“I can hear you breathing,” she says. “I know you’re there.”
When did these walls become so thin?
“I want you, Leka. I want you so bad that my hands are shaking. I’m having a hard time eating and sleeping. I’ve tried everything that I know of to tear down that wall you have built up. I’ve tried everything but begging, but I’ll do that. I’ll do that if that’s what it will take.”
Her voice cracks at the end, and the iron will I’ve been trying to exercise melts in an instant. Shame and self-loathing make my gut churn.
The cruel, untrue words I bashed in her face careen around in my head like a bowling ball tossed by the Hulk. I’ve been successful in this stupid, wrong life of mine mostly because when I make a decision, I don’t waver. That certainty has made me reliable. Beefer knows that when he orders something to be done, it’s done and done correctly. The men in the crew I work with can depend on me to have thought out the contingencies and eventualities so that they’re safe when they execute the tasks they’ve been given.
The decisions I made with Bitsy—to keep her and then send her away—kept her safe. All I need to do is to stay away from her until I can find her a new home.
Where she will be all alone again.
Where there is no one to dry her tears.
Where she will be with no one to love her.
I think of her tiny and afraid. I think of her sick. I think of the time seven-year old her beat up a boy older and bigger than her. I think of her mischievous smile after she smashed a bag of rotten eggs and fish to the punk-ass kid at the bus stop who’d been harassing her. I think of her awkward pre-teen years when I begged Mrs. M to help me out with the woman stuff that I barely understood myself and would’ve rather poked daggers in my eyes than talk to Bitsy about them.
I think of her fifteen-year old self coming out of the dressing room in that blue dress looking like a goddess had floated down from heaven to grace us mortals with her presence.