A pained whimper escaped me as I slowly slid down the wall in my apartment, so full of regret that it was proving hard to breathe.
“Shit,” Eddie hissed. “Hey, I promised my man that you’d be good with me. I didn’t mean to… start shit. Don’t, no, man, don’t do the crying thing,” he pleaded as I brought both my good and my casted hands to my face, pressing into my eyes.
“I fucked up,” I admitted.
“Yeah, but, that’s life, yeah? I fuck up all the time.”
“Can I ask you something?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“Do you think he hates me?” I asked.
“From what I hear, it was you who hated him,” Eddie said, brows drawing low.
“Yeah, I know. But… but does he hate me?”
“Think if he hated you, babe, he wouldn’t have rushed to you when you got hurt,” Eddie said, shrugging. “And he wouldn’t stay here to help out. He wouldn’t have made sure you wouldn’t be alone when he had to be away for a few hours. Don’t see any of that shit seeming like something a man does when he hates you. Might seem more the opposite to me.”
“He’s just a good guy,” I insisted.
“Not that good,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “Look, I don’t know what went on with the two of you, but I figure… you’re both here now, right? Maybe shit can be talked out. Spent enough time pretending there isn’t unresolved shit going on, right?” he asked.
He was right.
We weren’t eighteen years old anymore.
Maybe it was finally time to lay it all out on the table. No matter what the outcome would be, at least there wouldn’t be assumptions and conclusions based on each of our own limited viewpoints.
“Right,” I agreed, decision made, even if my stomach was still twisted in painful knots.
“Come on, let’s have some dessert. Chocolate always helps,” he said, holding a hand down to me.
And, well, I couldn’t argue with that.
So I let him help me off the floor.
Then we both stuffed our faces with dessert as he told me about how he’d met a guy from the club named Che and his eventual woman, Saskia. As well as a guy named Donovan, all of whom were involved with the illegal street racing scene back in the day.
“And you don’t want to be a biker?” I asked.
“I don’t want to fuck with my citizenship,” Eddie said. “And I haven’t decided. What I do know is they are good guys and I like being around them. So I am.”
“It’s that easy?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because they’re… criminals,” I said.
“You think that a dozen or more criminals don’t visit your clinic each day?” Eddie asked.
“That’s different. Everyone deserves medical care.”
“And maybe everyone deserves the chance to prove that they are more than their job,” Eddie said, shrugging. “I know a guy from this neighborhood,” he went on, waving out. “Higher up guy in a gang that dabbles in drugs and prostitution. You know what he spends most of his money on, though?”
“What?”
“Funding the community center to keep other kids off the street. Sometimes people make the best decisions they can to improve their situation. And maybe they aren’t the choices we would make, but that doesn’t mean we get to judge them. Especially if they do good with some of their money.”