This is silly. What am I running from? This is Giancarlo, my boyfriend, not some terrible monster. We are practically living together now––he always wants me with him, and even though sometimes his attention chafes, I know it’s just because he cares. Because he wants me.
He wouldn’t hurt me. He wouldn’t.
Wouldn’t he? A voice echoes, one that isn’t Quinn or Nico or my other friends and family, but maybe a little bit of all of them. Maybe a little myself too. My wrist throbs. So when I hear a door open and footsteps sound in the building, I rush out the front door into the night.
It doesn’t take long to walk-run the five or so blocks to Nico’s old apartment, skipping around the groups of people arriving home from work and leaving classes at this time of night. It’s twilight, and the last glow of the sun has set over the river, which glimmers down the hill through the tall buildings, alight with a purple hue, the color of a fresh bruise.
I stop in front of the arched entrance to the familiar gray stone building, smiling politely at an older couple who walk by.
“Buenas noches,” I say, aware that I probably sound like a textbook, not someone familiar with the local lingo, but they smile like they would to a child and nod politely.
Then I turn back to the building. My fingers hover over the call buttons to buzz the apartment. For a second I’m not sure if I should press them. Gabe might not even be there, although I’d bet my foot that Carmen is. I could just call Nico, weird as it might be after not taking any of his calls or texts for months. But maybe he should tell his mother, not me––they could do with the information what they liked. Maybe this isn’t my business.
No, I decide. This doesn’t need a translator, and it doesn’t have to be yet another thing on Nico’s shoulders. And Carmen deserves to see the words herself––hear it straight from the source that someone in her family can go and get her the documents she needs to be here legally.
But just as I’m about to press the button, a hand closes over my wrist, and I’m yanked around with a force that nearly pulls my arm out of its socket.
“Come!” Giancarlo shouts as he fairly drags me back toward Broadway.
“Hey!” I wrench my arm out of his grasp, then clasp my wrist to my chest. “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” he demands. “I’m coming after my woman, who just leaves in the middle of the night for no reason! What the fuck do you think I should be doing?”
He makes another grab at my wrist, and to avoid the curious looks of another woman walking down the street, I let him tow me back to his apartment, trotting next to him the entire way. Inside, Giancarlo drags me down the hall, practically flings me into his bedroom, and slams the door.
“Where. The fuck. Did you go?”
I take a step back. His eyes are less glassy, but still dilated. Yeah, he definitely took something when he was out. But it’s the look of complete blackness on his face right now that really terrifies me. It’s a look devoid of any love or compassion or tenderness. Only contempt. Rage.
“What-what do you mean?” I stutter. “I told you where I was going.”
I take a step backward again, and my heel hits the bottom of the bedframe. Giancarlo approaches, forcing me to look up. He’s so much taller than me; I have to crane my neck to look him in the eye.
He snags my wrist again to hold me in place. “You were going to him, weren’t you?”
I frown. “Who?”
“Whoever you’re fucking behind my back. That boy, maybe. The one that walked you here.”
Shit. Not this again. I swallow. “P-please. Listen to yourself. You sound crazy right now. I don’t know what you did at work or if maybe you took something––I…I won’t judge you, I promise. But I really don’t think you’re yourself right now––”
“I’m fine.” Giancarlo bites out the words, and I shake slightly. “You are mine,” he spits. “We talked about this.”
“No, you talked about this,” I say, struggling unsuccessfully to get back my wrist. “I’ve never said anything like that, ever!”
“So now you lie to me too, eh?” he asks, his accent suddenly a thick syrup over his words. “You lie to me about where you go, you lie about why––you lie about all of it, don’t you? Don’t you?”
His words shake, and his voice rises slightly with a mild hysteria. I take a deep breath, willing my racing heart to calm down. Every cell in my body is screaming to get out. I’m overreacting. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. He…wouldn’t.
“Were you going to play his little whore? Suck his cock, do all the dirty things you never want to do for me? Eh? Is that where you were running to? Hmm?”
My entire face screws up. “Are you fucking serious right now? I t-told you where I was going! You’re acting nuts!”
His hands land on my shoulders like dead weights, and he starts pushing me down to the carpet. “You say you’re my woman? Prove it. On your knees.”
I struggle against his force. “What? No? I’m not doing anything like that to you right now!”
“Yes, you are!” he roars, pushing me down hard enough that my knees land on the floor with a crack. Suddenly I’m shoved against the back of the bed, pinned there by his legs while he struggles to unbutton his pants.
“Stop!” I cry out, pushing against his iron thighs. “What are you doing?!”
But my struggles only get me yanked under my arms and tossed onto the bed. Giancarlo straddles me, his half-erect penis hanging out of his pants while he pins my arms above my head. Pain lances through the shoulder he wrenched on the street.
I shriek: “Get off me!”
“Stay DOWN!” Giancarlo shouts. “You’re my woman! Mine!”
“I am NOT!” I scream, and in a reflex that’s purely rooted in fight-or-flight mode, my hands fly out with curled fingers, flailing wildly to beat off his much larger form. “LET ME FUCKING GO!”
And suddenly I’m off the bed like a doll and tossed backward with a loud thud as my head whips against the plaster over the bed. Then Giancarlo’s on top of me again, and his hands close around my neck, holding me against the pillow while he straddles my body all over again. I fight to suck in air, but none comes as his hands tighten around my windpipe.
“Giancarlo!” I wheeze, but the word barely makes it through his grip. I try to pound my chest, let him know I can’t breathe, but his steel-like grip remains.
“Are you going to calm down?” he says, over and over again. “Are you? Are you going to calm the fuck down?”
The world starts to feel brighter, but also fades a little––out of fear or lack of oxygen, I can’t say. Either way, I’ve never been more terrified, and my body freezes. I couldn’t have moved if I wanted to. All I want is to run. But instinct takes over––before I can run, he has to let me go.
“Are you going to calm down?” he asks for the last time. He stares at me, his black eyes shining through smudged glasses.
Somehow, with my last remnants of oxygen, I nod, a tiny shake of my head that quivers under his grip. Please, is all I can think, a prayer to someone out there. God. Jesus. A saint. The universe. Please don’t let him kill me. I don’t want to die.
His eyes clear suddenly, like a fog has lifted. As if he realizes where we are, what he’s doing, Giancarlo’s hands let go, and he lifts off me suddenly. I remain frozen for a half-second while I inhale a massive breath. And then, as the oxygen goes to my brain, my heart, my soul, my body erupts into sudden action.
Giancarlo watches dumbfounded with a big hand thrust into his thick black hair, as I jump off the bed, grab my purse off a chair. I don’t even think about what I’m doing as I grab a few books, my computer, shove them into a bag.
“Wait,” Giancarlo says as he finds his voice. He stumbles toward me, reaching out. “Amor, please, stop. I didn’t mean to––”
His hand finds my elbow, and I spring out of reach, a textbook under one arm. My jacket is on the other side of the room, but that can stay. I’m a whir
lwind, I just need to get out.
“No!” I shout, as I sprint toward the door.
“Layla!” Giancarlo shouts, still stumbling, tripping in his faze over the thick carpet and falling to the floor.
It gives me the extra few seconds I need to make my escape. This time, I don’t scurry. I fucking run.
I sprint down the stairs, two at a time, run out the building and ignore the shouts of my name echoing down the block from two stories up. I dash down two blocks on Broadway, ignoring the concerned looks on people’s faces as I wipe away tears and struggle for breath after breath. I still feel like I can’t breathe. I need…I need something.
I feel around in my pocket, but realize too late that I’ve left my phone there in my hurry to leave. I need to call someone. Let them know I’m coming. Figure out what the fuck I’m going to do next.
If I had been thinking clearly at the time, I probably wouldn’t have stopped on my way to the subway that night. I wouldn’t have spied a pay phone across the street, dodged oncoming traffic flying down Broadway in order to get to it. I wouldn’t have fished the dollar out of my purse I needed to make long distance phone calls. I would have just kept going.
But at that moment, I needed to hear his voice more than I needed to be safe. To me, they were the same thing.
“Hello?”
The deep, melodic tone is instant balm to my soul, but also opens up wounds even further. The chaos of the last twenty minutes breaks over me like a waterfall, and the tears immediately turn to choked sobs.
“N-Nico?”
It’s loud. There’s static on the other end of the line, like he’s outside, maybe driving somewhere. And for a second, I’m not sure if he can hear me. Or if he even wants to at all.
“Layla?” he calls. “Is that you?”
“I-I want you to k-kill him,” I stutter automatically into the phone, my words caught on the sobs. I barely even know what I’m saying as all the pain and frustration of the last few weeks, months, shit, the entire year, pours out of me. “I want you to come with your-your boys. Flaco. K.C. Who––I don’t know––who-whoever you would bring to help you. And I-I want you to beat the sh-shit out of him, j-just like you would have, w-way back w-when…you know…w-when you were younger.”
I don’t really know what he was like back then. He’s told me a little about it, and I’ve seen for myself that he’s no one to mess with. I’ve seen him wrangle unruly men at bars like they were nothing, seen his fists curl with the urge to fight. I know at the very least that when he told me to call him, threatening to take care of anyone who hurt me, he meant it.
My fear has suddenly been replaced with anger, an anger I’ve never known before. It’s a rage that burns white, like a glowing iron that’s so hot the red has all but disappeared. More than anything else, I’m angry that I don’t have the power to fight back the way I want to. That I’d never be able to.
But maybe Nico could. Maybe he would. For me.
The buzz behind the phone dies down, but his voice still crackles, like he’s getting out of range.
“Nico?” I ask again. “Are you there?”
At first there’s no answer. Then he’s back: “Where are you?”
“I’m-I’m at a pay phone,” I manage. “T-two blocks from h-his place. H-he…I c-can’t…” The words choke in my mouth. How can I tell him this? I don’t even know how to explain it to myself.
The line breaks up again, but occasionally there’s some swearing. “Motherfucker” breaks through a few times, but I can’t tell anything else.
This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have called. And as I look through the window of the phone booth to see Giancarlo jogging erratically down the other side of the street, I realize just how stupid my mistake really was.
“I have to go,” I say quickly. “I’m sorry. He’s coming toward me, and I don’t know what he’s going to do. I need to get help, okay? I need to go!”
I don’t wait to hear Nico’s response, just drop the phone as Giancarlo spots me and start sprinting down the street.
“Layla!” he shouts.
My feet trip on the pavement, but I manage to keep my footing. Several cars honk as I run into oncoming traffic, but the gamble means I reach the subway entrance a full block earlier than Giancarlo. I jog down the stairs, praying for a train, not considering what I’ll do if he corners me in the station while I wait.
The attendant in the booth watches curiously as I hurriedly swipe my MetroCard. I exhale with relief as a train pulls up almost immediately
“Layla!” Giancarlo shouts from the other side of the turnstiles, blocked by a flush of people exiting the platform. “Come back now!”
But I just stare, deadened, crying, terrified, as the scratched glass subway doors close between us, cutting off his voice. His black stare pins me to the hard, plastic seats as the train leaves, and we dive underground into blackness.
I ride it all the way down to the last stop, and then back up to Union Square. And then I wait a solid ten minutes behind a statue, waiting for Giancarlo to appear on my street. When he doesn’t, I dodge across the street like a shadow and into my building. And it’s only with a nod at the security guard that at last I feel safe.
~
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Nico
The phone rings. And rings. And rings. And again, goes to voicemail. Fuck. Fuck. I’ve been trying to call her for the last hour, and nothing. I thought at first she was stuck in the subway, but it’s ringing too many times for that. Layla either doesn’t have her phone––which would, I guess, explain why she was calling from a pay phone––or she’s ignoring me again.
I feel like I’m going crazy. Today was supposed to be a good day. A day to say goodbye to LA in style before K.C. and I drive back to New York together. As fate would have it, I wasn’t the only one fed up with California.
“Too much fuckin’ sunshine,” he said as we sat on the balcony of his apartment a few weeks ago with a couple of beers.
He’s been out here almost three years. He’s had enough. So when a radio station in New York offered him a job, K.C. took it––it’ll allow him the freedom to play only the shows he really wants to play while at the same time making a decent steady income.
Our plan was to sell as much of my stuff as we could, then drive back to New York in his Yukon, which doesn’t break down every month like my crappy Jeep and also has the benefits of air-conditioning. I was on my way to sell the stupid thing, then go to the goodbye party for us (okay, mostly K.C.) at some lounge in WeHo. I barely managed to get through the sale, but a solid chunk of that money just went to a last-minute plane ticket.
My cab stops, and I jump out after tossing a few bills toward the driver. I jog into the party, which is in full swing now––mostly full of people from Venom, here before the club opens, and a bunch of other industry types who are just strangers to me. These people are here to say goodbye to K.C. and mingle with each other. Everyone in LA is out to get something. If you’re like me, with nothing to offer except a best friend who’s starting to make a real name for himself, you’re not worth much except as a point of contact.
But it’s a good feeling not to be riding on my friend’s coattails anymore. A feeling I was enjoying an hour ago while I drove up Sunset, thinking about the next steps I’ll take in another week or so when I arrive for my first day at the FDNY Academy. I was feeling great before I got that phone call.
“Yo!” K.C.’s voice echoes through the crowd when I storm into the lounge, even though it’s immediately swallowed by the conversations around us. “There he is: Mr. Firefighter!”
A few people cheer and clap toward me, but I ignore them as I walk toward my friend. As soon as he catches the thunder on my face, K.C. immediately pushes a girl off his lap and stands up.
“Hey!” she crows, but he waves her away.
“What’s up?” he asks. “What’s going on?”
“I need a favor,” I say. “I gotta leave for New York tonig
ht. Now. It’s Layla––her boyfriend––”
“Who, Mrs. Perón? She spill something on her dress?”
If I wasn’t so pissed off, I’d laugh. K.C. took the Evita nickname and ran with it, probably because he knows just how hard it is for me that Layla has a boyfriend. But I’m not in a laughing mood, and the jokes stop immediately.
“Yo,” K.C. demands. “What’d that motherfucker do?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know. She called, freaking out on the street somewhere, asking me to fuck him up.”
“Is she okay? Where the fuck is she?”
I gotta give it to my friend. He’s only met Layla a few times, but like any best friend would, he knows how important she is. Dude’s already bouncing on his heels like he’s ready to jump clear across the country to have my back.
“I don’t know,” I say, over and over again while I pace around in a circle. I really do feel like I’m about to go crazy. “I don’t fuckin’ know. I was on my way to sell the Jeep, and the phone cut out––she’s not answering hers. I don’t know what the fuck is going on, and I’m fuckin’ freaking out.” I clasp his shoulder. “You gotta drive yourself, man. I need to be on the next flight out of here.”
K.C. nods. “Yeah, yeah, of course. Go get your girl, man. Tell her we’re gonna fuck that motherfucker up when we get back. Tell her I’ma cut off that pendejo’s balls myself.”
I give a slight smile, but it’s just talk right now. K.C. would probably help me take that fucker down if I really wanted––he’s had my back plenty of times when we were younger. But right now, he doesn’t know what he’s saying. He doesn’t know how capable I feel of outright murder at the moment.
Still, one thing is more important than that. I need to get to Layla. I need to find my girl.
“Thanks, mano,” I say. We slap hands, and K.C. pulls me in for a quick hug.
“Anytime, man, anytime. Your stuff is all packed?”
I nod. “I’m going back to the apartment to grab as much as I can. Everything else is in the corner.”
“I got it, I got it. See you in a few days, man.”
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