Lost Ones

by Nicole French

  The door to the bar swings open, and Nico steps out into the cold, looking frantically up and down Twentieth, presumably looking for me. He’s putting on his gloves, but stops and shoves them into his pocket when he spots me holding myself against the wall.

  “Why did you do that?” he asks sharply as he bounds down the steps. “Why did you run away from me?”

  “I shouldn’t be here,” I say, pushing off the brick. I start walking toward Park.

  “Layla,” he calls as his boots pad through the snow. “Goddammit, will you stop?”

  He snags my arm and tugs me to a halt.

  “What?” I cry. “What do you want from me?”

  “I don’t want anything,” he says, but his voice shakes. “Just to see you. To make sure you’re okay.”

  There goes his gaze again, drifting down my body and up again, resting on my lips. But it’s not a lecherous look, not one that’s purely physical. It bears a hunger I recognize because I feel it too. And it’s only made worse because it’s like I’m standing in front of a buffet I can’t touch. I’m starving, but I’m not allowed a bite.

  “Do you not understand how much this hurts?” I say. “How painful it is to see you and know it can’t work? To––”

  Before I can continue, he pulls me into him and wraps me up in a kiss. It’s the kind of kiss I didn’t realize I had been missing, that I’d blocked out of my mind, papering it over as best I could with another man’s lips, another man’s touch. Nico’s lips are full and soft, his tongue is wet and firm, and his arms, wrapped securely around my shoulders and my waist, hold me steady, like he knows that without them I’d be lost in the euphoria that only he causes.

  A few second later––or maybe minutes, I really can’t tell with him––he breaks away, leaving only a small space between our mouths, where our breaths, white and warm in the chilly night, still mingle together.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers as he presses his forehead to mine. His eyes close, in a pain that matches the cyclone whipping around my chest.

  Finally, what I’ve done hits me. He’s with someone. I’m with someone. And here we are, making out like nothing’s changed. But everything’s changed. And it hurts. So. Bad.

  I push him away, putting at least three feet between us.

  “I have to go,” I choke out, taking one step back, and then another. “I have to go.”

  This time, he doesn’t follow.

  ~

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Layla

  I walk longer than my leather boots can really take in the newly fallen snow, and eventually I end up on the subway, heading uptown. But that feeling in my stomach, that knot of tension that always seems to be there these days, has just doubled, and I don’t seem to want to go anywhere.

  Quinn and Shama will both be at the apartment, avoiding the hordes on Valentine’s Day, and I’m tired of fighting with Quinn about my bad decisions. She’ll take one look at my face and know immediately I’ve been doing something I shouldn’t. And then she’ll open her mouth, and Shama will crowd in, and just the thought of it makes me feel claustrophobic.

  He kissed me. After he said he wouldn’t. He said he loved me, and then he kissed me, and what’s worse, I kissed him back.

  And it felt. So. Good. I hadn’t kissed him since Thanksgiving, since he broke my heart for the third time. I had imagined it plenty in moments of weakness, but oh, God, my imagination really can’t do justice to his mouth, the exact right pressure of it, the way he commands my body with every flick of his tongue. Even through his parka, I could feel his rigid stacks of muscle. It was everything I could do to keep from grabbing his bicep right there in the bar. It strained against the cotton sleeve, the black, tattooed lines just visible under the thin white fabric.

  Right there on the train, I gasp at the memory, causing the man reading the New York Post across the aisle to look up, alarmed. Quickly, I switch my gaze to an ad for HPV testing. It features a couple smiling and embracing each other––a black man and a white woman. They look happy, his arms wrapped around her waist. My heart twists. I miss him still. I miss him, and I don’t want to anymore.

  The train pulls to a stop at 137th and Broadway, and I get off without thinking, purely on autopilot. I’m staring at the mosaic sign, built into the tiled walls, and it occurs to me that I’m at City College. Well, of course I am. Giancarlo lives here. Still, I find myself walking up the west side of the street instead of the east, and I realize it wasn’t to Giancarlo’s apartment that my body intended to go.

  I pause at the corner of 139th. I come up here all the time now, day or night. Giancarlo lives only a few blocks north, where the shops turn from selling quinceañera cakes and Dominican food to stereos and discounted ENYCE threads. Quinn still makes a face whenever I say I’m heading uptown––she still thinks of Harlem as untouchable and dangerous, something out of a Spike Lee movie (so what if he mostly films in Brooklyn). She, like so many people I know at my school––like me only a year ago––didn’t really understand that wealth in New York exists on a spectrum, just like anywhere else. And that just because you don’t have it doesn’t mean you don’t have worth.

  I look down the street where I used to spend so much time. Like most of the streets up here that jut off Broadway, 139th is poorly lit, with streamers of drying clothes flapping across the fire escapes like bats, even in the snow. I can just make out the familiar concrete blocks that arch over the entrance, welcoming me there. In my mind, I see the tiny elevator, the black and white tiled floors, the tagged walls of the lobby. I see the narrow gray apartment and the small white room where I spent some of the most contented hours of my life.

  He might be there now. He might be sleeping on the couch or something, or in his old room if his sister or brother isn’t staying there right now. He might be there if I rang the buzzer, might forgive me for running away from him, might take me in his arms and continue what we started in the snow…and the hell if my entire body isn’t aching to do just that.

  “Hey, ma! What you doin’ tonight, baby?”

  A car blasting merengue drives by, and I cower toward a bodega entrance as a couple of guys hanging out the windows whistle. It’s certainly not the first time that’s happened, but there’s something alarming about the catcalls tonight. I feel like prey more than I ever have in this city.

  “Move,” I tell myself. “You have to move.” I’m a sitting duck, just standing on the street like this, whether it’s in the middle of the West Village or up here. That’s the number one rule of New York City: movement.

  “NYU?”

  I turn around, and there’s Gabe, exiting the bodega, a six-pack of Coke under one arm.

  I smile and give a weak wave. “Gabe, hi.”

  “Hey,” he says, all friendly as he gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. “You okay? You look lost.”

  I shake my head. “No, not lost, just…anyway. I know my way around up here.”

  Gabe nods knowingly. “Yeah, I’ve seen you around. Plus, Nico…”

  I blush, even though I know I have no reason not to. It’s not just because I was making out with his brother maybe an hour ago, right?

  “My, um, boyfriend lives a few blocks from here,” I say, shoving my hands into my pockets and nodding up Broadway. “I was just on my way there to wait for him until he gets off. He works at a club in midtown, I think.”

  “Oh, I’ll walk you.”

  “No, that’s ok––”

  “Yeah, no,” Gabe interrupts as he hooks his free arm through mine and starts walking, fairly dragging me along with him. “My brother would kill me if I let you walk around by yourself at night.”

  We walk in silence, letting the noises of the neighborhood replace conversation. West Harlem doesn’t get quiet until really late. It’s only about eleven now. Some of the curio shops are still open, with cheap suitcases piled on the sidewalk, although the owners are starting to bring them in. The big Dominican restaurant on 141st is still mostly full
, and music echoes every so often from an opening door.

  “So you know Nico’s in town, right?”

  “I––” I open my mouth to say that I saw him, but then realize that Gabe would want to know where he ended up. “Yes, I know. He’s here to visit family, right? You guys must be happy to have him back for a little bit.”

  “Here to visit…is that what he told you?” Gabe gives me a funny look.

  I blink. “Yes, why? Is that not right?”

  Gabe frowns, and it’s the first time he’s ever really looked much like his brother. Their eyes are the same––sooty and black with a twinkle––but the guileless expression on Gabe’s face most of the time is a lot different than the mischief and passion I know on Nico’s.

  “No, that’s right,” he says, in the end, and lapses back into silence. “Just visiting family,” he murmurs, like he’s telling himself the fact.

  “Is everything all right?” I ask. “Like…with your mom?”

  It’s not until I say it that I realize I’m probably overstepping. Gabe gives me a sharp look, pauses for a second, then relaxes.

  “He told you about her, huh?”

  “I didn’t mean to impose. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Gabe wrinkles his long nose. “Nah, it’s okay. She’s still in her apartment. For now. The whole thing is really stressing us out, and it’s worse for Nico since he’s so far away right now.”

  I stay quiet, since Gabe is apparently feeling chatty. Nico never liked to talk that much about his mother’s residency issues. He always treated them like a lost cause.

  “We’re probably going to move her up here,” Gabe’s saying, “since her new landlord’s got eyes for developing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Gabe shrugs. “Little things. A bunch of other places in the neighborhood have been bought over the last few years. Some of the other tenants have been pushed out. A couple even by having Immigration mysteriously knock on their doors. The landlord refuses to do repairs, cuts off the heat. We’re all kind of spooked. It’s their M.O. when they want to vacate rent-controlled apartments.”

  “That’s awful!” I reply, totally aghast. “How can they do that?”

  Gabe sighs, causing his lips to flare. “They can do a lot of things. Housing in New York is pretty fucked up if you don’t have a lot of money.” His fingers twitch at my elbow, like he’s itching to rub them together. “That’s why I want to be a doctor one day. Nico shouldn’t be the only one to take care of this kind of thing.”

  I nod, considering yet again how little I understand about Nico’s responsibilities to his family and the burdens that made him leave. My anger thaws. He left because he needed to find out who he was without all of this. How could he make promises without that knowledge?

  I get it. I really do. But it doesn’t make missing him any better.

  We cross Broadway at 144th Street, and Gabe looks on curiously as I stop in front of Giancarlo’s building. I doubt he’s actually there, since he had to work tonight, but since I’m here, I might as well try.

  I press the apartment buzzer.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey,” I say in surprise when I hear the familiarly accented voice. “You’re here.”

  There’s a few beats, and I wonder if Giancarlo heard me. Then the same voice answers from above.

  “I am here.”

  I look up. There’s Giancarlo, looking down at us from two stories above with a face like thunder.

  “Hey, man,” Gabe calls warily, waving a big hand.

  Giancarlo glares at him, then at me. “I will let you in.”

  He disappears, and Gabe looks at me. “He seems…nice.”

  I sigh. “He can be intense, but he means well.”

  “Yeah…” Gabe looks back at the window, but it’s clear he doesn’t believe me. “You sure you don’t want to come home with me? I bet Nico would love to see you.”

  I shiver, more at the thought of telling Giancarlo I’m leaving than at the idea of going with Gabe. “No, that’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

  Again, Gabe looks skeptical. But when the buzzer to the door sounds, and I pull it open, his lanky shoulders fall.

  “Okay. But, um, hey.”

  I turn back, waiting, still holding the door open.

  Gabe glances up toward the window once again, then back at me. “I, uh…listen, you’re welcome at my place anytime. If you need somewhere to crash or whatever. Just…come ring the bell. Okay?”

  I take a deep breath and try to give him the friendliest smile I can. “Thanks, Gabe. I will.”

  The response seems to appease him, and he relaxes. “Okay. See you, NYU.”

  I watch him leave, then enter the building and start up the big stairs, only to be shocked when I find Giancarlo waiting for me on the second landing.

  “Jesus!” I cry out, holding a hand to my heart. “You scared me! What are you doing lurking on the stairwell?”

  “Who the fuck was that?”

  I freeze in front of him. Giancarlo looks me over, his eyes grazing over my body slowly, taking in the tight black pants, the jewelry, the makeup––all the little signs that I wasn’t just sitting at home for the evening, pining away for him.

  “Come upstairs,” he says, and starts toward his place without waiting.

  The door slams heavily beside us, and he whirls around like a cyclone.

  “Where the fuck were you? Out with him, this little boy?”

  I swallow guiltily. “No, I wasn’t. Gabe saw me get off the subway and offered to walk me home. You met him once before, remember?” A thought occurs to me. “Why aren’t you at work? It’s only eleven o’clock.”

  “I finished early.” He takes a step closer so that we’re nose to nose. I can see myself in his smudged glasses. “I went to your apartment to surprise you. You were not there.”

  I gulp. “Um, no. I wasn’t.”

  Giancarlo’s dark eyes narrow. He worries his jaw back and forth for a minute, and a muscle on one side starts to tick. “Who is he?”

  I frown. “Who?”

  “The man you are fucking behind my back. Making me a fool? Being a fucking whore?”

  “Hey, I wasn’t doing anything! I just met a friend for a drink because you had to work on Valentine’s Day. I wouldn’t have been out at all if you had just told me you got the night off.”

  Giancarlo takes a step toward me, and I step backward.

  “I knew it,” he gritted out. “I knew you were always going to cheat on me like this. I knew better than to trust someone like you.”

  I suddenly feel like I’m drowning. Where is this coming from? Sure, Nico kissed me, but I put a stop to it and left. I did the right thing, whether Giancarlo knows it or not. He has no reason to say any of this.

  Or does he? Does the fact that I’m still in love with someone else show all over my face?

  “You never loved me from the beginning,” Giancarlo continues, spitting the words out like poison. “Admit it. Admit that you were only using me. Using me like the puta you are.”

  “Using you for what?” I pipe up, finally finding my voice. “This shitty apartment? The crappy takeout food we eat?” I can practically feel my roommates sitting on my shoulders, cheering me on. That’s it, Lay. Don’t let Snape get away with that shit. “What exactly am I using you for?”

  Giancarlo’s face darkens further. “I suppose that’s better than the two rooms you share with four girls? You always want me to fuck you in the middle of the room, like we’re animals. You’re a spoiled brat who doesn’t appreciate the privacy here, no? The privacy I pay for!”

  “I think you mean the privacy your daddy pays for, don’t you?” I cut back. “And it’s not like this is a palace or anything. You live in a shitty one-bedroom in the worst building in the neighborhood.”

  A hand, fast as lightning, snakes out immediately and grabs my wrist. Giancarlo jerks me close, but even when I stumble next to him, my wrist stays steady, held fast
near his chest while my body weight tugs on it. His hand is immovable––I’m caught.

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever the fuck you were with?” Giancarlo looks closer. “I’m not stupid. I know you were with someone.”

  “No,” I say as evenly as I can, even though my heart is thumping wildly. “I didn’t sleep with anyone.”

  “Did you kiss him?”

  Giancarlo’s eyes drop to my lips, like he’s studying them for imprints of Nico’s mouth. As searing as the kiss was, I half wonder if he can see remnants. And it’s then I know that my guilt is surely written through my thoughts and on my face. It spreads, just like the realization spreads over Giancarlo.

  “H-he kissed me,” I whisper. “I stopped him. And ran off. Straight here. I––I didn’t want to. He just did it, and I left. I’m so––”

  “Ahhh!”

  Giancarlo shoves me away from him, finally releasing the iron grip on my wrist and causing me to fall back several steps from the force while he paces the living room like a caged animal. I rub my wrist––it’s red from his grip––and cower slightly into the corner. I’ve never seen him like this, not even when I angered him in the kitchen. Not even the other week when he couldn’t keep an erection and blamed me for it. My heart falls. Nothing I say here will make it better; nothing is going to alleviate my guilt. Because I did kiss another man, and in doing that, I hurt this one badly.

  Then someone else’s face flashes through my mind, someone I haven’t thought about or spoken to more than a few times in the last several months. Someone too busy wallowing in her own misery to care about her daughter’s life.

  My mother. I remember her all those years, dealing with my father’s late nights at the office. Realizing that in Brazil, where more than one of my uncles have not-so-secret extra-marital affairs, her husband is probably already involved with another woman if he wasn’t before. I wonder if he was unfaithful all those years where they clearly didn’t love each other. I wonder if she knew I was going to be like him.

  The realization guts me, and I start to cry.

  “Giancarlo,” I creak, unable to wait for him to speak. I’m full of remorse and self-hatred, and it pours from me like a river. “Giancarlo, please. It was an accident. I didn’t think anything would happen, but I should never have gone. I should have just stayed at home and waited for you, I know that now. Please, please forgive me. He’s no––”