Her voice raises at the end, but her tone is so casual it’s unnerving, like talking to one of the boys. Detached and resigned to the horrors of the streets.
“My brother tried to cover my eyes, but it was too late. My dad just hopped back in the car, wiped down the gun, turned in his seat and handed it to my brother, telling him to get rid of it. Then they dropped me at the front of the party and left. I don’t really remember the party.”
What a sick scumbag. After something like that, leaving her alone, traumatised. The anger isn’t simmering, it’s boiling. So, I don’t move an inch, a muscle or my face.
“But obviously my brother was rattled, or something, because a week later, the cops found the gun, and they pulled his prints from it. And there you have it. His life was over, because sure as fuck, my dad wasn’t going to give his own to save him. Then he was gone, and I begged him to tell the truth. To run away with me. To anything. Just to not leave me alone. So eventually he took me off the visitors list, not wanting to hear it anymore. Apparently, there’re eyes and ears in jail, and he did what he thought was best for me and left me to fend for myself.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she hasn’t finished. In fact, she’s found her voice again and isn’t afraid one bit to use it.
“And here we are again. This time it’s you thinking you’re doing what’s best to protect me no matter what I tell you I need, how to help? You know better. Just like him. But you can’t promise you will always be here. That tomorrow, next week, a year, that the cops won’t be coming to the door taking you away, for whatever crimes you’ve done. Or you’re out doing your business, and a bullet takes you out. You can’t promise these things, not to me. I’m not gullible, or blind. There’re no guarantees in this life, and you trying to make believe there is, makes me trust you less.”
Her point is clear, and hard to argue with. She’s right, but wrong at the same time.
“I’m not your brother, Lilly.” I keep my voice low, my jaw so tight my teeth grind together. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for my family. You’re right, I can’t guarantee those things. That’s the life, you know just as well as me. There’s a risk, yeah. But I’m good at what I do, and I will do everything in my power for those things not to happen. I’ve had a lot of time to get here, a lot.”
I see the doubt still in her eyes, and it’s that doubt that keeps me going into a topic not even my best friend knows, only me and my father.
“I was fifteen when my dad put a gun in my hands. He put the man that killed my mother in front of me. My father already had taken care of the one who gave the order years before. But when he found the hitman, he said it was my right to end him. That he didn’t want to take that away from me. What I wasn’t ready for was how easy it would be. I didn’t hesitate, I ended him. And felt nothing. Not relief, not sadness. Nothing.”
Her face falls, and she steps closer towards me. “You were so young.”
I nod, but don’t show a thing. It’s who I am now.
“That day changed everything. You’re not scared of me, because I don’t want you to be. But that means you think I’m weak and unable to do what’s needed to protect you. But there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my family. Nothing.”
“I don’t think that you’re weak, Ren.” Her voice is soft, the edge gone. “I saw you at the meet. I saw you change right in front of my eyes. One moment you’re bringing me back from breaking down. The next, you wouldn’t even look at me. That’s why I thought it was all over for me. I believed you were just like them. And in some ways, you are, but in others…”
She looks down, and something passes over her face that ends with a hint of a smile. “You’re so different to anything I’ve ever known.”
And if I’m not mistaken, there’s longing in her voice.
“Then why are you fighting this?” I stand and walk around the counter, towards her, but her face crumbles with anguish. “I think I can make you happy.”
She sighs and steps away, before I get a chance to comfort her. “I think you could too.”
I inhale the words, taking it in.
“But that’s why you’re hurting me.”
My body freezes in place. How can she say that? I’d do anything to keep her from getting hurt.
“I can’t stay here, Ren. It’s not a debate for me. Even if by some miracle, he lets this go. He’s here. He’s close. He knows where I am. I can feel him watching me. Outside waiting at a store. His men standing in the shadows. Soon he’ll start showing up. Pop up at a coffee shop, in my life, whenever he wants, just to fuck with me.”
“If you’ve seen him Lilly you need to tell me. I won’t let him fuck with you.”
“What are you going to do? You can’t stop him from parking on the street. You can’t stop him from entering a public space. Even if he never approaches me, talks to me, just knowing he’s there is too much. I can’t breathe here. I know you see me smiling, getting along with your family, making the most out of life, and think I’m okay. That I can handle it. But that is just me, it’s how I’ve managed my entire life. But inside…”
She takes a long deep breath and looks up with me with such strength and resilience, and a look that’s disarming.
“If it were just him hitting me when he loses his temper it might be different. I’d be able to manage as best I could.”
She swallows hard, and I don’t know if I want to hear the rest. I don’t know if I can, but she is giving it to me, and I have to take it.
“It’s the punishments. The room he used to take me to. The chains he used to restrain me with. It’s the not being able to move, or scream as he did whatever the hell he wanted to me.”
Sickness settles inside, my heart pounds through my chest. My fists are balled so tight, my nails piercing the skin. I can feel it, but I dig harder, restraining myself. All I can do is stare at her, watching her as she lays it out, and exposing the truth of her past. Worse than I ever could have imagined.
“That’s why I can’t breathe. It’s why being so close to him will slowly kill me from the inside.” Her eyes water, and my heart breaks just that bit more. “I’ve worked so hard. So hard to leave that girl behind. The one that let that happen. That gave him every piece of me, just so I can have ten minutes in a back alley to make a call, every day getting that bit closer to escaping. And I did. I did It. And I worked my ass off to not let it change me, to want happy in my life. To not let him win. But the reality is, there is no happily ever after here, it’s impossible, a fantasy. And I’ve accepted that a long time ago. I gave up everything, I walked away from the most important person in my life, and it hurt like hell. And now, you’re trying to get inside, to make me feel. All that is doing is making it when that day comes and I leave, that much more painful. Why can’t you see that?”