Holland

“I didn’t want you to know about my business. I didn’t want you to think I was that kind of man.” His voice catches as I push my hands against his chest and see the misery in his glassy eyes.

“But you are that kind of man. You sell illegal drugs to people and they ruin their lives with them. You kill people, and God knows what else.”

“It was my father’s empire. He died and left me to deal with it. I had no choice, you have to believe that. I would give it all up for you. I want you. I want to prove to you that I’m not who you think I am.”

“I can’t.” It kills me to say those two simple words, but I have to. I have to let him go.

His chin drops, and I feel his soft hair feathering against the damp skin on my chest as he begins to rock our joined bodies back and forth. There isn’t a thing I can say to fix this—a gesture, a word, a thought—nothing. It is what it is, and it’s terrible.

A knock on the bathroom door jolts me back to reality. King and I are in Savannah’s bathroom, where our mama’s could easily find us. I can’t add my parent’s devastation to the mounding list of heartache that this two-day-old relationship has caused. I may never find a man like him again, but my age and his ‘career’ won’t ever allow us to be together, period.

“Holland. Are you okay in there? Holland, answer me. Your mama’s gonna be here any second,” she says into the crack of the door, rapping several times in between words. “She’s gonna fuckin’ kill you both if he doesn’t get outta here.” Rap-rap-rap-rap. “God, King, if you care about her at all, you’d leave so she doesn’t get punished for the rest of her life.” Rap-rap-rap.

King untangles himself from me. He stands and pulls me off the floor in front of him, but he won’t meet my eyes. I even move an inch in his direction, but he intentionally looks the opposite way. With wide, tear-filled eyes, I watch as he tucks his shirt into his pants with shaky hands, not bothering to wipe the tears from his face. Savannah keeps up her incessant knocking and verbal protests while I stand naked, dripping wet in front of this man turned zombie who can’t even look at me.

“King? Please, I . . . I know we can’t fix this, but please don’t leave like this, please . . .” I don’t even recognize my own voice, it’s so small and weak and desperate. I frown when I think about him lying to me. He’s a damn drug dealer or lord or whatever he is. This isn’t my fault, not really . . . is it?

I lean my ass against the vanity and feel the sting of the cut on my back and the knife in my chest while King absently reaches around me for the towel I was looking for earlier. He presses it against my belly and my arms float to grasp it while he leans in, enveloping me with his familiar smell of soap and a hint of cigarette smoke. He presses a kiss on my forehead, and still avoiding my eyes, he turns to open the bathroom door. Savannah falls in against him, still knocking and fussing. King rights her and slips past without a word. Just like that, he’s gone from my life, taking a colossal piece of me with him that I’ll never be able to get back.

My world tilts, and Savannah sounds like she’s talking through the end of a tin can when she rushes in, shutting the bathroom door.

Her hands hover an inch off of my skin and her eyes dart from my face to my hands clutching the towel. She assesses my shaking legs and snaps her eyes back to mine.

“Are you hurt?” she asks, unaware of the weight of her question.

I’ve never hurt more. Every hair on my head needs him, every cell in my body wants him, and every ounce of happiness evaporates, leaving me void of all the pleasures he brought to my life.

This is heartbreak . . . how do people survive it? I’m not equipped for the highs and lows of such a powerful relationship. Why has life sucker punched me so hard in the heart? This is Romeo and Juliet dramatic, Cleopatra and Mark Antony miserable. Shit, if Edward hadn’t saved Bella with his venom, it would be Twilight tragic.

I nod silently, and Savannah snatches the towel from my hands, patting and drying me in her protective, motherly way. How did she get to be so maternal? She doesn’t have any little brothers or sisters. She never even babysat the kids in the neighborhood, but she sure knows how to mother hen me to death.

“I can do that,” I say when she is about to discover the gash on my back. I wrap the towel under my arms and tuck a corner between my breasts to hold it in place.

“What did he say?” she asks.

“He’s a drug lord . . . it’s over.” My last two words catch in my throat, and Savannah wraps me in her arms while I let go of the sobs I’ve been holding back.

“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry, really I am. I see how nuts ya’ll were for each other, but it’s for the best. It could never go anywhere, you know? He’s just too . . . too . . . I don’t know . . . too everything. Too old, too illegal, too gorgeous, too rich . . . I’m not helping, am I?”

Her shoulders slump and I shake my head. She is definitely not helping at all. I need to think about something else—as if that were possible. I have to go to practice and my mama’s coming, I have to get dressed and put on my game face. ‘Suck it up, buttercup,’ she would say. I know I can never go back to being the naive virgin violin prodigy that I was two days ago. My time with King changed me forever, but somehow I am going to try and put this behind me and start again, focus on my future, and put all of my attention back into my music.

Mama is in the driveway ten minutes later, and I numbly slide into the passenger seat dressed in Savannah’s clothes. I try like hell to act normal. Mama’s usually very observant, but thankfully today she’s on the phone discussing hotel reservations with my daddy, who’s still out of town on business. After a quick ‘hey honey’, she backs the car out of the driveway and chats while we drive to STRINGS. Her voice is a muffled background noise until my ears perk up when she mentions a trip to New York. Crap, I almost forgot that we’re going for a weekend to tour Juilliard again and settle all the final arrangements for my move in two and a half months. We fly out next Friday to meet Daddy in the city so he doesn’t have to come the entire way home from Atlanta.

A trip . . . just what I don’t feel like doing, but honestly, it’s probably the best distraction I could ask for right now. Concentrate on your music. Think about your future and practice, I tell myself. Shut up! I shout at the levelheaded alter ego in my head. I’m dying. I don’t want to think about my future. I want King. I want to be a twenty-one-year-old woman, and I want King to be an upstanding member of society so we can be together forever and live in the suburbs and have babies. I’m not asking for anything out of the unusual, really. It’s the American dream, but that’s the problem. Just like the American dream, it’s unachievable and unrealistic.

I turn and watch the houses in my neighborhood whiz by and prop my elbow on the edge of the car window to wipe away a tear sliding down my cheek. As much as this hurts, part of me is really pissed too. How did I let this happen? I made choices, stupid choices that come with consequences, and now I have to pay. I’m not a sniffling, whining baby. I shouldn’t be crying in the car over a man I met two days ago, wishing for things that can never be. But I am.