by Dylan Allen
“About what?” I ask, bewildered and anxious at the same time.
His chest is heaving, and his lip is trembling. He blinks and squeezes his eyes closed sending tears spilling out of the corners of them.
The sight of this sweet, thoughtful, sensitive soul who I’ve grown to care about over the last few months, crying because of something I did, intentionally or not, hurt him brings tears to my eyes.
“Everything was perfect until you ruined it. I love you, but you like him. Even I can tell he’s a bad man. I wish I’d never met you.”
The force of his outburst hits me square in the solar plexus and I have no clue how to respond to what he just said.
Stone, on the other hand, has no problem saying what he thinks. He glances at Weston, and his lip curls in disgust.
“I should have let him choke you to death with his penis,” he growls and then turns and sprints for the backdoor.
Dismayed, I start after him, but the flashing lights and screeching sirens outside the bakery, stop me mid-stride. So, I let him go.
But as I turn back to deal with Weston and disaster that’s bubbling over in the bakery, I have a terrible feeling that I’ll never see that little boy again.
At that thought, my heart breaks, too.
One Year Later
PALESTINE, EAST TEXAS
Palestine
Regan
“Reggie, are you sure you know where you’re going? We’re in the middle of nowhere.” My friend Matty peers futilely out of her window at the fathomless dark. while we zip down the winding back roads. that were that cut through the dark forest.
“We’re in Jerusalem, Texas and the people who live here would be pretty offended to hear you call this little pearl, nowhere,” I drawl in an exaggerated twang.
“A pearl? Wow, the dark must hide all its charm,” Matty, quips dryly.
“And the machete wielding mad- men,” Jack chimes in from the back seat.
“You two are such city girls, you’d think you’d never been out in the country before.” I chide, tongue in cheek. I haven’t even been camping before. I think these woods are creepy as hell.
“So are you, your $1000 cowboy boots don’t make you an expert, okay?” I can hear Matty’s eye roll without looking at her.
“No, but they’ll sure make me feel like one if we run out gas and have to walk. Good luck running from coyotes in those four-inch Manolo's—hey,” I yelp and arch away when her fingers dance over my ribs to tickle me.
“Are there really coyotes out here? Do they eat people?” Jack asks, nervously.
I groan with exaggerated impatience “Calm your tits, tricks, we’ve got plenty of gas and I know where I’m going. I promised you an adventure and I’m delivering. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Matilda and Jacqueline, aka Matty and Jack are my best friends from freshman year. We all had internships at Wilde World this summer. They’ve been staying with me at my family’s house this week. And we’ve been having the time of our lives. My mother seemed to have mellowed and except for her horror over the way I wore my hair, she barely had a word to say about anything.
Growing up, Houston’s humid summers made my hair impossibly frizzy and my mother would drag me to the African hair braider on West Alabama to get my hair braided every week. In the fall and winter when the air was dryer and cool, we spent Saturdays getting our hair rolled, blown out and then pressed with a flat iron.
It was an ordeal. But in Tina Wilde’s eyes, an unruly coiffure was a sign of internal disorder. One of the things I looked forward to most about leaving home was autonomy over my own hair.
In the weeks before I left for SMU, I spent hours reading Black hair blogs. i learned my hair was considered a 3C texture and figured out which products were best for it and went down to Solid Gold on W. Bellfort to buy them.
Before I left, we spent half the day at the beauty salon getting it pin straight, the way she liked it.
The first thing I did after she dropped me off on campus was wash my hair. I walked out of my room and headed to orientation with it loose and free for the first time in as long as I could remember.
I stopped to ask someone for directions. She gave them to me and when I said, “Thank you” the girl responded with, “What are you?”
I laughed and answered, “An Aquarius,” tongue in cheek because it was such a vague question.
She gave me an impatient sigh and spoke in a slow, deliberate tone. “Are you, like…Dominican, or something?”
“Nope, I’m from Texas.” My ignorance was feigned, but only because I wasn’t sure how to answer.
If she’d asked who I was, the answer would have rolled off my tongue. I’m Regan Naomi Wilde - daughter, sister, dreamer, womanist, ally, writer, reader, rebel.
But what I was? I’d never given much thought to. In Houston, my family’s history is practically local lore and even though my grandfather is Irish, we were raised by our mother and have always thought of ourselves as Biracial Black people.
Over the course of my first week on campus, I found myself being asked that question, “What are you?” repeatedly. The response to my ambiguous and vague answers was, almost universally, disappointment. And it only made me feel more alone than ever.
One night, I stared at myself in the mirror and tried to see what stood out the most. But all I saw was a near perfect blending of both parts of my heritage.
My eyes are the same deep dark brown as the famously rich soil in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica where my mother spent her childhood.
The spray of freckles on my left cheek are a gift from my maternal grandmother who was born in the town of Letterkenny, Ireland.
In the summer my skin drinks in the sun and turns deep brown. By the end of winter, I’m so pale Tyson calls me Casper.
I joined the Caribbean Student Union and the Irish American Student Coalition to try to figure out where I might fit. I found things and people I loved in both organizations, but I realized that no matter what I called myself, my resting bitch face was a universal language that made friendships hard to cultivate, no matter where I was.
It was in the bowels of the library, researching a piece to submit for a spot on the school paper’s staff that I felt most at home. I guess it should have come as no surprise that it’s also where I met my best friends.
The submission prompt asked us to pick a historical figure that was notorious, scandalous, or is widely despised. We were to cite reliable sources and tell a different story. One that was just as true, but perhaps, more inconvenient.
I knew right away who I was writing about – Jezebel. The biblical Phoenician princess whose name has become synonymous with ruin and deceit is, in my opinion, one of the most misunderstood women in all of history.
I’ve been obsessed with her since my grandfather told me that she was actually a ruler whose name was dragged through the mud because she was so ahead of her time. For a little girl, who often, felt misunderstood and underestimated, hearing her story made me angry. The budding storyteller was itching for a way to set the record straight, and this was my chance.
My very first conversation with Matty was an argument in the stacks over a book we were both intent on checking out. When our heated exchange revealed that we’d picked the same subject for our newspaper pieces, we quickly settled our quarrel. She invited me to join her and her roommate, Jack, for dinner.
We spent the evening talking about our shared outrage over the way, both history and myth alike, make men heroes and describe women as treacherous sirens, child-eating monsters, or husband murdering gold diggers. Our food grew cold, and our friendship caught fire.
The rest is history.
“So, how do you know this guy?” Matty asks, breaking into my wandering thoughts.
“Weston is my walk on the wild side from high school,” I say with a mischievous and lascivious laugh. But, if I’m completely honest, I have no idea what to expect tonight.
The last time I saw him, he called me a “dis
loyal cunt.” He was carrying an unlicensed weapon of some sort and had weed in his pocket that night at the bakery. He was handcuffed to the gurney that took him to the hospital for treatment of his stab wound.
My grandfather was furious when I called him to try and do damage control, and my late-night shifts came to a swift end.
“Oh my God, is this the guy who pierced your hymen?” Jack asks excitedly.
“Jack, can’t you just say I lost my virginity?” I groan.
“Why? You knew what I meant, so clearly, it’s fine,” she pouts.
“Touché, and yes, that’s him. I don’t know what to expect, because the last time I saw him, it wasn’t exactly hearts and roses.” To say the least.
“So, what was high school Regan like? Were you the girl everyone wanted to be, and every boy wanted to fuck but who no one could touch?”
I laugh at the irony of how completely opposite my experience was.
“My looks, my money and my family connections didn’t compensate for what is, according to my mother, my greatest flaw - I’m not good with people. My greatest sin is being a girl who doesn’t smile. Before you guys, my brothers were my only real friends.” Besides Stone.
I’ve never told them about him. Partly, because I’m afraid they won’t understand how I became best friends with a ten-year-old boy. But also, because it still hurts to think about that last night.
I never saw him again. I wanted to go see him, but I didn’t know what to say after the way he’d run off so hurt and angry. I was afraid showing up unannounced would make things worse. And so, I let him be.
Matty doesn’t say anything, but after sharing a dorm room with her all year, I understand her silences as well as I do her spoken words. If she’s quiet, she’s thinking. I glance at Jack in the rearview mirror, and her sad smile makes me self-conscious.
“Don’t feel sorry for me. I take initiative when it matters. I’m not crazy about people in general. I don’t really mind that they leave me alone.” Silence falls and when I look in my rearview mirror at Jack, I notice a pair of headlights far behind us. It’s the first car I’ve seen since pulled off the 45.
Matty breaks the silence. “I’d seen you before that day we met in the stacks. I’d heard your family was rich. And I thought…a girl who looks like you, with money, who doesn’t smile and eats alone, I thought you were aloof. I was surprised when you suggested I use the book first. I should have known better; I know what it is to be judged for things I can’t help.”
“I didn’t know you felt like that. Reggie, I’m so sorry,” Jack leans forward to hug me.
I give her an awkward pat but keep my eyes on the road. “You’re going to make me drive off the road.” I grumble, but with a smile on my face.
“I thought your magical cowboy boots could save us from anything,” Matty wiggles her fingers at my ribs again, and I shriek with laughter.
A glance in my rearview mirror smothers my good humor.
The car is closer now. So close, I can tell that he’s going faster than me. This is a two-lane road; I could let him pass me. But I’d rather stay ahead because the shoulder is nonexistent, and I don’t want to risk being side swiped.
I punch the gas and speed up to keep a good distance between us and try to relax for the rest of the drive. I need tonight and all the debauchery it promises.
I’ve spent the summer with my hair tamed, my clothes tailored, my legs stockinged and my smile plastered on. I’m itching for a little bit of Weston’s dark.
I turn off at the exit when the GPS instructs me to. The car that had been so far behind us is only a few car lengths away now and pulls off the exit behind us.
This close I can tell it’s a big truck and I speed up as soon as I come out of the curved bend of the exit. But no matter how fast I go, it keeps pace.
When we turn down the road that leads to the cabin where Weston is having his party, it does too. I know this area well enough to know that these lanes usually have a single house on them. They must be going to the party. I don’t know why my stomach knots like a ninny.
When it doesn’t follow us as I turn into the drive, I almost sag in relief.
Until I see the house.
There are only two cars parked in front. And no lights on in the cabin. It looks abandoned. Hardly the makings of the house party he claimed he was throwing.
“Is this it?” Matty asks just as bright lights cut slices into the car and land on my rearview. The truck is stopped a few feet behind my car and the lights blaze into my car and make it so we can see each other properly for the first time.
I look at my friends and see that neither of them look worried.
“We must be the first people here,” I say and turn the car off.
“Come on, let’s go in. I promise this is going to be a night like you’ve never had.”
Over the next seventy-two hours, I’ll wish for a return to my normal everyday boring life, more times than I draw breath.
The two women who I called sister will suffer for my poor judgment and our relationships will be forever altered.
The man who I called a walk on the wild side, will become my mortal enemy.
And the man I will love above all others, though he wasn’t present when my world shifted off center, set it all in motion the night he thought he was saving my life.
Six Years Later
HOUSTON, TX
Sos
Regan
“Call me back.”
I read Matty’s text with eyes still blurry from sleep. My boyfriend, Charlie mutters in his sleep and pulls the comforter up over his shoulder and turns his back to me.
I slide out of bed and hurry into the bathroom of the hotel room we booked for tonight and close the door behind me.
My phone says Matty called me four times before she sent that text.
Alarm sends my stomach into freefall, and I can’t get my normally pragmatic brain to pull the brakes on my fear. We’ve barely spoken in the last month.
I take a deep breath and with still trembling fingers unlock my phone to call her back.
But it rings before I can. The caller id flashes Jack’s name this time I answer it before the second ring. I hear Matty’s deep voice shouting a steady stream of curses in French and a man shouting too.
“She’s still not answering,” Jack sounds distressed and desperate.
“Jack?" I shout to make sure she hears over the pandemonium in the background.
“Oh my God Reggie, thank God,” Jack’s breathy, frantic voice is barely audible over the shouting behind her.
“What’s wrong?” I cover the mouthpiece to try and muffle my voice.
“No, no, no, no, no, no,” she cries and then I hear the unmistakable sound of a gun being fired. My blood turns cold and terror sinks claws into my chest and holds me in its grip.
“Jack! What’s happening? I’m going to call the police.”
“No no, Regan you can’t call the police. Please don’t,” she shouts but part of it is muffled as if she’s covering the phone. All I can make out is the general sound of chaos and irritation mingles with my fear.
“Jack, if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on, I don’t care what you say I’m hanging up and calling the police.”
“No, no—please wait” She sucks in a breath and when she speaks again her voice is much steadier. “We’re not hurt, but we do need your help. We’re at Dan Harrison’s house. We need you to go to his office and get his laptop and bring it over, please?” she asks
At the mention of my grandfather’s personal secretary, dread joins my fear. “Why? And who fired a gun at who?”
“We’ll tell you when you get here,” she says impatiently.
“No, you’ll tell me now or I’m not coming,” I snap, even though I’m already on the move.
“I told you,” she says in a voice made rough with annoyance.
“Told me what?” I ask confused
“Not you, Reggie. Hold on.” She co
vers the phone to muffle her voice. I’m about to hang up when Matty comes on the line.
“Reggie it’s me, there’s been an accident, we need you to go to Dan’s office and get his laptop.” Her voice is distinctly calmer and far more strident than Jack’s and the demand without any explanation snaps my patience.
“Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll call you back.” I ignore her groan of frustration and hang up so I can focus on getting myself out of the hotel room as quickly as possible.
I hurry back into the bedroom, sacrificing stealth for speed as I throw my clothes on.
Charlie turns over once, but otherwise doesn’t wake up while I finish zipping up my jeans, slip my feet into the silver ballet flats, put all my jewelry back on, grab my purse. I eye his prone form with envy. I wish I’d slept through the notifications on my phone.
In less than a minute, I’m walking out of the hotel room, and calling them back.
Matty answers on the first ring. “I can’t believe you hung up on me Regan, this is an emergency.” Her voice is edging to the same level of hysteria as Jack’s was and a renewed sense of urgency propels me away from the elevator and toward the stairs.
“Tell me what is going on. I heard a gunshot.”
There’s a beat of silence and I know she’s annoyed that I ignored her complaint. When she speaks her voice is taut with annoyance. “Dan was hit in the leg.”
I come to a complete stop in the hallway, my hand cover my eyes as horror and confusion kick my heartbeat into overdrive. “By who?” I shout when I find my voice again.
“It was an accident,” Matty says as if she can’t believe she’s having to explain herself.
“What the hell are you doing with a gun?” Anger dislodges my shock and I start walking again.
“It was just in case. He was supposed to have his laptop on him, but he didn’t. Then, he wouldn’t tell us where it was, so I waved the gun at him. It went off and he was hit in the leg. He said it was in his office.”