I’ve been in a cocoon of sorrow and this event broke it. My dazed indifference fractures and splinters like cheap glass. I stare at the purse clutched in my hand and wonder what’s wrong with me, but even more so, I can’t stop thinking about Bryan and how he came out of nowhere and nearly killed the man who tried to hurt me.
Stop thinking like that, I chide myself. Bryan acted like a lunatic. The image of Bryan stabbing the guy lights up behind my eyes again and makes my stomach churn.
Maggie’s been talking, but I haven’t said much. We’re in her old Ford Escort. The thing barely runs, but I can’t complain. I don’t even have a car, not anymore. Maggie glances over at me from behind the steering wheel while her hands grip it tightly. “Hallie, if you’re going to hurl, put down the window. It smells weird enough in here.” She’s right, the car has an unidentifiable odor that’s been there since she got it.
“I’m fine,” I say again, although it’s a lie. My arms are wrapped across my chest to hide how my hands tremble.
“Ah, Hallie, I know you don’t want to talk and that’s okay, but I don’t want to put you over the top when you see my new place.” I glance at her, not understanding what she means. Maggie gives me a sheepish smile and shrugs her shoulders into her ears as she drives. “Let’s just say that it’s not something you’d approve of.”
I don’t have the patience to deal with her riddles right now. Maggie’s life is harder than mine and I know that, but she hasn’t hidden things from me before. This time it’s clear that she has, and it worries me. The only things I disapprove of are the ones likely to get her killed. The girl has no sense. Sometimes I wonder about her, and how she chooses what she does. I smile lamely and look at the grungy carpet on the once-blue floor.
“What’s so funny?” Maggie looks indignant, as if I offended her.
“Nothing. Let’s just say that if you knew what I was doing tonight, you wouldn’t feel so defensive. I’m sure your place is fine.”
Maggie’s quiet. She sighs as she turns down a side street and we start to navigate our way through a dilapidated neighborhood. The houses are scarred and sun-bleached with dead lawns, but the cars are tricked out and costly. Even though it’s late, people mill about, doing nothing. I glance at my door, wanting to lock it, but I don’t move. As we roll past groups of people, their eyes turn and watch us pass, before they go back to whatever they were doing.
Maggie finally says, “It’s not much, but I think it’s worth it.”
“You don’t have to defend your apartment to me, Maggie. I’m freakin’ homeless.” I look over at her and tip my head back into the seat. My words don’t comfort her, so I add, “Besides, I’m not the poster-child for morality either. You wouldn’t believe what I did tonight, what I’m going to do.” My voice trails off and I shake my head, thinking about Bryan’s lips. I’m horrified that I react the way I do—even to the memory.
She laughs once, short. “Yeah, right. Hallie, you never do anything bad. Stupid, yes. Bad, no.”
I stare out the window and look at nothing. The houses have given way to apartments that stretch up into the night sky. Their brick façade has seen better days. Many look empty, as if no one has lived there for years. My chest constricts and I squirm in my seat. My god, she lives here? Why didn’t she tell me? There are burned out cars, overturned trash bins, and rubble strewn everywhere. It looks like the street was ransacked and forgotten—just like Maggie.
Spilt second decisions are the ones that change lives. I make mine and spit it out before I chicken out. “Bryan Ferro is blackmailing me. If I don’t sleep with him whenever he wants, he’s going to tell people that he’s the guy in the book and do whatever it takes to ruin me. He said he’d use everything he has against me and gave me an ultimatum.”
Maggie’s big eyes turn toward me with her jaw dangling wide open. “Holy shit! When did this happen? How are you going to stop him?” She blinks at me and turns her eyes back to the road, even though I know she doesn’t want to.
This is the part that makes me feel like crap. I’m not who she thinks I am. I don’t have a moral spine of steel. I can’t even look at her. “Tonight. I ended up doing the award show announcement with him, and then he found me at the banquet.” Say it. I try to make my mouth move to form the words, but they won’t come out.
“No fucking way.” She pulls into a parking lot that looks like it was used as an air force blast site and turns off her car. “Grab all your stuff and lock the door.” I do as she says and hurry behind her. “Keep your eyes to yourself and follow me up. Don’t talk to anyone.”
We enter the side of one of those old brick buildings and take a few flights of stairs up to the fourth floor. By the time we reach her landing, I want to throw my remaining shoe out the window. I could, there’s no glass in the pane. I follow her through the door and down a long, poorly lit hallway. We stop at front of her door. While she fumbles for the key, the door across from her opens. A pale man with bleach-blonde hair in a wife-beater shirt and boxer shorts stands there and looks us over. I can feel his eyes on my back. He leans against the doorjamb and folds his arms over his chest.
When he speaks, he sounds raspy, like he’s smoked a carton of cigarettes every day since he was two years old. “Brought me another one?”
“No,” Maggie says sternly. She doesn’t turn around to look at the guy. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was afraid of him. I can’t take more stress tonight. My brain feels like it’s going to break in two before it shrivels up and dies. Maggie gets the key to turn but the door sticks. She kicks it once with her foot and it budges slightly. “Damn door,” she mutters.
“What’s your name, sweet thing?” The guy is speaking to me. I turn and look over my shoulder, and our eyes meet. It sends a chill through me to see the way he’s leering at me. The guy is a rail, but he’s all muscle and right now he’s smiling at me, revealing a golden crown on his eyetooth.
“Hi,” I say shyly, and tuck my hair behind my ear, attempting to avoid his gaze while not answering his question.
Just as the guy’s mouth opens, Maggie kicks in the door. It flies open, she grabs my arm, and tugs. I follow, flying along after her as she yells over her shoulder, “I’ll bring you someone tomorrow, I swear. Goodnight, Vic.” She slams the door shut with her foot and looks shaken.
Her apartment is about the same size as a short hallway. There’s a tiny window with a sheet stapled over it and no furniture. Some of Maggie’s clothes are thrown around the place, like she left in a hurry. If I lived here, I’d leave quickly, too. “Thanks for letting me stay with you.”
“Yeah, no problem. It sucks, as in this is the worst place I’ve ever lived, but it’s shelter. I sleep here and then get the hell out. The rent isn’t horrible.” She offers a crooked smile, but it’s weak.
I need her, and there’s a wall between us. She thinks that I’m perfect, but I’m not. I’ve done things that she doesn’t know about. The words are on my tongue and I roll them around in my mouth, trying to figure out how to say it as Maggie chatters, filling the air with her voice.
A couple is fighting nearby, and the sound is growing louder. And by fighting, I don’t mean arguing. There are things hitting walls and crashing. Plaster rains down on us like snowflakes when something else crashes overhead. Maggie looks horrified as she pulls her murphy bed down from the wall. It takes up nearly the entire room. “You can sleep here. I’ll take the floor.”
“No.”
She smiles. “Don’t be silly, you’re my guest.” Choice words ring out from above us as an angry man hollers. It’s promptly followed by a high pitched scream. Maggie bites her nails the way she did when we were kids and looks around, as if she wishes she could torch the place.
“I’m not making you sleep on the floor, but there’s something else that I need to tell you.” Maggie looks up at me from under her mass of red hair. I’m her only real friend, her only family—and she’s mine. God, what is she going to think of me when I tell her what I agreed to? I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it. My arms are still folded over my chest, with my hands nestled tightly into the crooks of my arms.
“Hallie, what’s wrong?” Maggie stops making the bed and sits. She pats the spot next to her and I sit down.
Staring straight ahead, I swallow hard and tell her. “I said yes.”
“You said yes to what? Hallie, you’re not making sense, what are you talking about?”
When I turn to look at her, I meet those big green eyes and feel afraid. My skin covers in goose bumps, but I can’t look away. “I told Bryan Ferro yes. I caved. He won and I lost.”
“What?” She’s livid, ready to fly out of her seat and defend me to the death.
I place my hand on her lap to still her. “I went to his hotel room to tell him to suck it, but I changed my mind when I heard his voice. I thought that something was wrong and this was his crappy way of telling me. I knew him once, at least I thought I did. Then, when I was waiting for you outside, I—” my voice is shaking and I can no longer hide my horror, “some guy tried to steal my purse. Long story short, he got me behind the building and was going to hurt me. Bryan showed up and he…” I can’t say it. My perfect Bryan did something that was so unlike him, so horribly savage that I don’t know what to think. He protected me, but it still feels wrong.
“Did he hurt you?” Maggie is furious, I can hear it in her voice. The way it’s too loud and her words are too staccato gives her away.
“No, he attacked the man, and stabbed him. If I didn’t tell Bryan to stop, I think he would have killed the guy.” I glance over at her, but I can no longer see. My eyes have the pre-tears sheen that makes the world go blurry.
Maggie lifts her arms and I fall into them. She’s always been like a sister to me. We’ve been there for each other, and I’m afraid this mess with Bryan will make her hate me and what I’ve become. My father would have been ashamed to call me his daughter, and I expect the same from Maggie. Instead, she sits there on the worn mattress and soothes me.
After one hard hug, she releases my shoulders and grabs my chin. “You and I have been through everything together. Don’t think that I’m bailing because of this. If anything, life just got more interesting, that’s all.”
I wipe the tears from my eyes and laugh, because she’s so wrong. “That’s the understatement of the year.”
“My point is, I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.” She bumps my shoulder with hers. “So, Bryan Ferro has a dark side behind all that flash and dazzle?”
“Apparently.”
“Was it fun or did he do weird stuff?”
I smile and wipe my eyes again. “No, not tonight anyway. He called me to his room, I went, and we kissed. Then, he threw me out.”
Maggie’s lip pull up a little. “He threw you out? What the hell?”
“I don’t know. It’s like he was mad and going to Hulk-out or something. He wouldn’t look at me. Things were hot and heavy until then.” Intuition keeps telling me that something was wrong, but I can’t put my finger on what.
Maggie grins, “He was better than Neil, right?”
I make a face and look at her like she’s nuts. “Uh, Bryan’s blackmailing me.”
“And he’s hotter than Neil. Go on, say it. I’m your friend, so I already know.”
I cast my eyes toward the floor and don’t say anything. I don’t have to, my expression says everything. Bryan is so much hotter than Neil that there is no comparison. The two men are night and day, and Bryan is the sexy night. Neil’s the rational voice that sounds like the FDA reminding me to do all things in moderation—but not all things—only the actions he approves of. Damn it. I bury my face in my hands and sigh.
Maggie pats my back once. “It’s okay. Every guy is hotter than Neil. Don’t feel guilty, but I wouldn’t exactly tell Mr. Perfectly Pressed Pants. He’ll freak out that someone else touched you.” Maggie is pulling off her clothes and tugging on a night shirt and sweat pants as she speaks.
“Actually, Neil knows.”
“What?” She’s hopping on one foot, trying to shove her foot into the hole and falls over. “How does he know? You said it just happened.”
“Neil knows because he’s the one who told me to do it.”