Quill
“Why do you always do this to yourself?” Melissa asked me as we closed up the café. I knew she was talking about my flirting with Black. I loved Melissa to pieces and knew she wasn’t being cruel in thinking I was wasting my time, she was just worried about me.
“I’m totally going to wear that man down, you’ll see. You’ll all see,” I shouted comically with my fists raised to the sky. Her laugh lightened the moment and I gave her a sideways hug as we walked toward her car.
“I get a bad vibe from the guy, is all.” She clicked the fob on her keys and I slipped into the passenger side. Melissa was a worrier and yes, she had every reason to worry about me. I had bad taste in men and bad luck.
“Just because he’s as big as Thor and richer than God doesn’t mean he’s Satan.” I chuckled at all those comparisons. Thor, God, and Satan… hmm, maybe he was a combination.
“That is not why I am saying that.” She started the car and blasted the heat. It was the beginning of December and freaking freezing. Normally, I’d walk the five blocks to the bus and take it back to my fabulously shitty apartment. But, Melissa always argued, so now I just let her drop me off.
“Mel, he’s hot. He’s every wet dream I’ve had since I realized my dick pointed to other dicks. He rejects me every time anyway, so don’t worry about him hurting me. He’d have to actually touch me to hurt me.” And wasn’t that a sobering thought? I wasn’t used to soft touches unless it was Mel hugging me or taking care of me after my many mistakes.
“I dunno, Quill.” She didn’t say any more about Black, and for that, I was glad. I knew he’d reject me each time, but playing this game was always fun. It took me out of my depressing headspace and onto a whole different plane of existence.
When she pulled in front of my place, she wouldn’t unlock the door. I followed her gaze and saw the dark Mustang sitting in the unused driveway beside the complex.
“What’s he doing here?” she asked, still not unlocking the doors. “Why don’t you stay at my place tonight? My brother isn’t home, you can take his room or the couch.” She was frantic to get me to go home with her, but as soon as the driver’s side door of the Mustang opened, I knew it was too late.
“I’ll be fine, Mel.” I leaned across the middle and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Quickly, I reached over and hit the unlock button, and before she could lock me in, I opened my door.
“Call me in one hour,” she shouted out her open window. “You hear me? One hour or I call the cops.”
I just shook my head and waved her away as I made my way up the steps to the entrance of the building. It wasn’t a huge apartment complex. Three floors and, of course, I was on the top and the elevator didn’t work. But three floors were no big deal.
I had just opened the front door of the building when I heard his steps speed up behind me.
“Why would she want you to call her and why is she threatening to call the cops?” he asked as he pushed the door open farther so I couldn’t close it on him.
Mel’s car was gone, and I was glad she wasn’t here. I knew this conversation wasn’t going to go well. I’d been avoiding him, and it was only a matter of time before he caught up with me.
“What do you want, Ronnie?” I knew what he wanted, and he knew I knew. A part of me wanted to turn on my heels and march up the stairs to my apartment, but I really didn’t want him in there with me.
“Let’s go upstairs and talk.” He loomed over me. I wasn’t big, not even average. My mother drank and smoked while she was pregnant with me and I was born premature and in bad shape. I was always the tiny kid in school. Fortunately, never sickly, but I was only five foot four. I didn’t have muscles like Black. Melissa called me lithe, but that was her being nice.
Ronnie, on the other hand, was big, tall, and by the look in his dark eyes, angry. When I had first met him, I was naturally attracted to the dark interest he showed me. He was always so clean and sharp. At first, he was even charming. Then, like most of my relationships, he showed his true colors.
“I left you a message, Ronnie. I don’t think we should see each other anymore.” I was proud of myself for not stuttering and keeping eye contact.
“Is that right?” He gripped my arm and a ripple of pain shot all the way up to my shoulder. “I think we need to go upstairs and talk about this properly.” He pressed his lips against mine painfully, never releasing my arm. He bit down hard and I could taste the blood… my blood.
“Ron… Ronnie.” Now, I did stutter and when he smirked, I knew he was loving how afraid he was making me.
“Now, Quill.” He pushed me and I slammed into the metal trash can in the lobby, sparks of pain bursting through my back. When I fell onto my other arm, the hurt was vicious, and Ronnie laughed.
“Get the fuck up, you clumsy shit.” He reached down and wrenched me up by my shirt. This time when he pushed me, it was toward the stairs.
Each step made me crawl deeper inside of myself. There was a place I hid where no one could get to me. Not the Ronnies, my shitty family, nor all the bullies I had dealt with in school growing up. It was so dark there. It muffled the words spewed at me; it softened the blows. It numbed everything.
When we got inside my apartment, it didn’t take Ronnie long to remind me why I wanted nothing to do with him anymore. He grabbed my head and like a ball, slammed it against the wall. Bright lights flashed in front of my closed lids and tendrils of agony danced around my brain.
“You don’t leave me, Quill.” When I slid to the floor, I wrapped my arm around myself to try to block his kick, but all I managed to do was make him angrier. He clutched my hair to bring my face inches from his. “You’re mine, get it? Or do you need more reminding?”
I shook my head as best I could in his grip. “I got it.”
“Now get your ass in the bedroom and I’ll help you to not forget what you are.”
I didn’t cry anymore. I think the last time I cried, I was eleven and my father had been killed by some neighborhood gang because he wouldn’t change the colors of his bakery. It was something ridiculous. I had cried that night. But never again.
That didn’t mean I didn’t want to, I just didn’t see the point in it and had convinced myself it was unnecessary.
When I was somewhat steady on my feet, I started shuffling toward the bedroom when someone banged on the door, freezing me in the moment.
“Quill Almeida, this is the Haven Hart Police. We received a call about a domestic dispute. Please open up.”
Ronnie looked at me with a rage that had me cowering. “That fucking bitch really did call the cops?”
Knowing Mel, she had.
“Mr. Almeida, open the door.”
Ronnie stalked over to the door and opened it a crack so they wouldn’t see me.
“Good evening, officers,” Ronnie said in a respectful tone.
“Are you Quill Almeida?” I heard an officer ask.
“No, I’m Ronald Sterling, his boyfriend.” Hearing that last name, I was sure the officers would leave. The Sterling family was a growing power in Haven Hart. They were always in the news for giving to needy charities. Ronnie’s father, Bartholomew Sterling, was the ambassador of generosity and the Sterling family was well loved in this city.
“I see,” the officer said. “Is Quill Almeida here? We received a call from someone saying there was a fight. They said they saw someone harming Mr. Almeida.”
“Hmm.” All I could see was Ronnie’s profile, and he was pretending to think. “No, he isn’t here. Maybe they thought they saw something. I can tell you, I was just moving the couch and knocked over a lamp. Perhaps that’s what they heard?”
What so much of Haven Hart didn’t know about the Sterlings was how they were master manipulators, abusers, and royal pieces of shit. I knew if those cops left, not even my safe, dark place was going to stop Ronnie from taking a chunk out of me. I knew what I was about to do would only buy me some time, but I did it anyway.
“Help!” I shouted. Ronnie’s head turned toward me, a half-shocked look on his face.
“Move out of the way, Mr. Sterling,” the cop ordered, much angrier at this point, and pushed the door open. “Shit.” He raced over to me while the other cop stood by Ronnie.
“Mr. Almeida, I’m Officer Drakes. I’m calling an ambulance.” He looked over to his partner. “Take him downstairs.”
I listened as Officer Drake’s partner read Ronnie his rights and breathed painfully when he was gone. As the adrenaline left my body, the crushing pain weighed down on me.
I closed my eyes as the officer asked me questions. I zoned out as the paramedics poked and prodded me, and then drifted to my dark place where even after all of this, I still didn’t cry.
I used to wish to be saved. When I was younger and lay in my bed starving because there was no money for food since my mom or brother had pissed it away, or when I had been between apartments after being evicted because I couldn’t pay rent, I had wished for a prince to sweep me up and take me far, far away. He never came, so I gave up on that dream.
As I was wheeled into the emergency room of Hart’s Hope Hospital, I found myself wishing for it one more time. Maybe this time, my prince would come.