Lost Ones

by Nicole French

  I turn to leave, start weaving my way around the people who are mostly there just to see K.C. A few from Venom reach out to say hi, but I ignore them, only one thing on my mind.

  “Nico!”

  I turn back to K.C.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” he calls out. Then, with a funny half-salute: “Wait ’til I get there.”

  ~

  It’s not until I’m waiting for my crazy fuckin’ expensive red-eye flight to New York to board, that I finally get some answers. My Yankees hat is wrinkled, the bill crunched, since I’ve taken it on and off so many times in the last four hours. I just dropped half the money I got for the Jeep on this ticket, but I don’t even care. I’d sell a kidney right now if it would get me to New York faster.

  I’ve called everyone I can think of trying to get some answers. Gabe’s been walking up and down Broadway all damn day, but he hasn’t seen anything. I even called Quinn, Layla’s so-called best friend, blowing up her damn phone for hours, but nothing. No texts. Nothing.

  But it’s Quinn’s number on my phone right now. Finally, some answers.

  “Hello?” I answer in a rush. “Quinn? What the fuck is happening back there? Have you heard from her?”

  I’m loud and frantic, and the businesswoman sitting next to me in the crowded waiting area gives me a dirty look. I glare at her and stand up, pacing toward the big windows of the gate.

  “It’s all right,” Quinn says. “She’s here, okay? Sorry I didn’t see your calls until now––I left my phone at the gym.”

  Relief floods me––and when I say floods me, I mean practically knocks me down. I brace a hand on a pillar to hold myself up.

  “Fuck,” I exhale. “Thank God. Can I––can I talk to her? Is she there?”

  “Yeah, she’s here. She’s still a little shaken up, but I think she’ll want to say hi.”

  There’s a rustle on the other end of the line, and a few moments later, sweetest fuckin’ thing I’ve ever heard in my life sounds through the phone.

  “Nico?”

  My body sags against the pillar. “Baby?”

  There’s a sniffle, like she’s trying not to cry again, and suddenly, I feel like doing the same.

  “Hey,” she says. “Are you––are you okay?”

  “Am I okay? Jesus Christ, Layla.” I rub my face with my hand. Goddammit. This flight is too slow. This world is too slow. I need to be with her now. “What’s going on?”

  “Give me that.” Quinn’s voice sounds in the background, and there’s another shuffle before she comes back on the line. “Hey.”

  “Hey your fuckin’ self,” I snap. “I want to talk to Layla.” I have no patience with this chick’s bullshit––not now.

  “She needs a moment,” Quinn says. “It’s been a shitty fucking night, Special Delivery, and I don’t think she should have to talk about it again.”

  “What do you mean, again?” I ask, ignoring the stupid nickname that doesn’t even work anymore, considering I’m not a FedEx guy.

  “I mean the cops have been here all goddamn night, and she’s been grilled over and over again while they took her statement. Fucking vultures. You’d think she was the one being accused of sexual assault, not the fucker who actually did it.”

  At the words “sexual assault,” I have to close my eyes as I pressed my forehead hard against the pillar. It doesn’t help. I can still only see red.

  “What happened?” I grit out.

  “You want me to say?” Quinn asks, clearly speaking to someone away from the phone. Layla. Goddammit, I just want to talk to her, not pushy Massachusetts princess.

  “Quinn––” I bite out.

  “He tried to rape her,” she states bluntly. “Tried to force her to suck him off. When she didn’t want to do that, the asshole threw her on the bed, tried to fucking strangle her, and then started, you know, the next step. He was pissed because she had gone somewhere without telling him or some bullshit like that. We’re pretty sure he was on something. Not like that fucking matters.”

  “Fuck!” I slap my palm against the pillar hard enough that the pain of it vibrates up my arm. If I felt like murder before, now I feel like I could take out this entire fucking building.

  The attendants at the desk look at me, alarmed, as do several other people waiting to board the plane. I glance at them, but turn around. I need to keep my cool. Hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I can’t get kicked off this flight.

  For a second, I wonder if Quinn is embellishing, making the story more than it really is. But I remember Layla’s voice––the terror I heard when she called. No matter what happened, that wasn’t fake. That was real. And I want to kill the motherfucker who made her sound like that.

  “Let me talk to her,” I say once I’m able to think clearly again. Well, as clearly as I can.

  “Don’t upset her, Romeo,” Quinn says. “She’s been through enough today already, you hear me? She’s been through enough this entire fucking year. It’s really late over here, and we all need to get some sleep after this fiasco.”

  “Quinn. Please.”

  “All right, all right.”

  There’s some more shuffling as the phone is handed back to Layla.

  “Hey,” she says. “I–sorry. I just…yeah. I can’t really talk about it anymore.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry for anything,” I tell her. “And you don’t need to talk. I just needed to know you’re okay, baby. I’ve been going crazy over here.”

  She sniffs again. Fuck, I didn’t want to make her cry.

  “I’m okay,” she says. “You don’t have to worry, okay? My friends are here. We’re getting everything figured out. I’m sorry to take you away from whatever you’re doing. I shouldn’t––I shouldn’t have called you like that.”

  “Baby, didn’t I tell you to call me if he ever did anything to you? Didn’t I?”

  There’s silence for a second. Then a very small: “Yes.”

  “So you just did what I asked. I’m glad you did. And I’m so fuckin’ glad you’re all right.”

  “I am,” she says. But she still sounds sad. “So, um, yeah. You can go back to whatever it is you’re doing today. Hanging out with your friends or Jessie or whatever…”

  I hate the way her voice quivers. She sounds so weak, so tired. Then I realize that she doesn’t know. We haven’t talked in weeks, months. She doesn’t know the results of my interview. She doesn’t know that I’m on my way to New York.

  “Layla,” I say, trying and failing to keep my voice from shaking. “I––I’m at the airport.”

  “Oh? Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to you, sweetie.”

  Around me, the airport buzzes, but I can only hear this girl. She’s the center of this moment, her gravity, her power over my mind, my heart, makes everything else silent, obsolete. Why the fuck did I ever try to fight it?

  “What?” she asks finally. “What do you mean?”

  “I got in,” I tell her softly, turning my face back toward the pillar and pulling my cap low. “To the FDNY. I start the academy in two weeks.”

  I wish to God I were there, watching her face while I tell her. I’d be down on my knees right now. Begging her to forgive me for waiting this long to tell her the truth: I belong to her.

  “That’s…oh, Nico. That’s amazing. I knew you could do it…”

  I can feel her grappling with her answer, unsure of exactly what to say. It’s not the overjoyed response I was hoping for, but of course, she’s not exactly herself. I close my eyes in pain, imagining her curled up on her bed or the couch. Holding her stomach the way she does when she’s hurting. Curled into herself.

  I want to wrap myself around her. Tell her it’s going to be all right. Tell her that I’m there, that I’ll make sure she’s safe, that I’ll never leave her again.

  “Now boarding all seats for Flight 117 to New York/La Guardia Airport.”

  The call for general boarding rings out, pulling me b
ack to this moment. Seven hours. Seven more hours, and I’ll be there. I can tell all of this to her in person and more.

  “Layla?” I ask as I turn toward the gate.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m coming back,” I tell her again, willing her to understand. “So don’t––don’t do anything, okay? Don’t go anywhere, because I’m coming straight to you. And, baby? I love you. I love you so fuckin’ much. Do you hear me, Layla? I love you.”

  There’s another long pause, and I wonder for a minute if I’ve lost her. If she missed all of it. But I’d tell her again. I’ll tell her over and over until she believes that what I say is true.

  “I hear you,” she says, small and quiet. “I’ll be here.”

  ~

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Layla

  The next morning, I wake up feeling like I’ve been run over by a train. Everything is stiff. Worn out. But a quick glance at the mirror across the room reveals I don’t look as bad as I feel––the red marks are starting to bruise now, but it’s nothing a little concealer and a scarf won’t hide. It’s the emotions of the last twenty-four hours that have gotten to me.

  I press a hand to my head as the events of yesterday return. Sitting in our living room for two hours with the police officers that came to take my statement after Quinn insisted that we call them. But there was really little they could do other than that––there wasn’t enough evidence of assault for them to press charges, nor could they do anything to help me get my things from Giancarlo’s apartment.

  “Tomorrow,” they said. “If you have bruising or something like that.”

  I never thought I’d be one of those girls. The ones who have to answer questions like the cops asked me. The one who has to defend my own attack.

  “What were you wearing?” the police officer wanted to know. “Did you do anything to provoke him?”

  And I honestly couldn’t answer no––that was the worst part. Because I did scratch him, didn’t I? I did yell. I did push him away. Didn’t I assault him too? Sort of?

  Shama and Quinn sat there with me, angry and defiant while I recounted the events, but I couldn’t tell with whom. Giancarlo? Or me, for bringing it all down on myself?

  After the very long interview with the cops, I trudged upstairs, and it was only when I was nearly asleep in my bed that I heard Nico’s voice again, frantic and worried.

  One more thing to feel guilty about.

  I’m coming back, he said.

  Don’t go anywhere.

  I love you.

  They were all the words I’d been dying to hear for months, almost a year now. Words that should have made everything feel better. And while they did soothe the pain some, a new feeling sprang in my heart, one I hadn’t felt before with him: fear.

  Because I saw the looks on all my roommates’ faces when I arrived at the apartment last night, blotchy and red-eyed, my hair a mess and my clothes stretched out of shape. I saw their faces after they listened to me tell my story three times: once to them, once to the R.A. down the hall, and once more to the policemen. They looked tired. Fatigued. I could see the effects my choices had on the people in my life. Their bitter disappointment in me.

  I’m not sure I can deal with that look on Nico’s face when he arrives.

  “I still think you need to call your mom,” Quinn says as she finishes primping her hair in the mirror over her desk.

  I curl back into my bed. The girl has been up and chipper for over an hour.

  Quinn turns around. “Did you hear me? Lay, you could probably just take incompletes with the rest of your classes and finish your final projects this summer. Take your last final tomorrow and go. Write your paper from home. Get yourself together.”

  She means Pasadena, of course, but Quinn doesn’t really understand how much I don’t want to go back there. If my roommates have been judgmental this semester, I don’t even want to think about what my mother and grandparents will say. Probably truck me off to some kind of therapist or rehab center, although for what, I don’t know. But it will come with a lot of long looks, breathy sighs, and several phone calls to my father. Brazil will be put off for years. My grandparents will resume their lives at the country club while my mom keeps running down to Cabo or the spa or wherever she goes in her spare time. And I’ll be left in that big, empty house, in that big, empty room. Alone.

  I shake my head stubbornly. “I need to finish here. And then…”

  I can’t finish the sentence. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Nico’s on a plane right now, due to arrive sometime past 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. I don’t know what his plans are. I don’t even know what we are.

  All I know is that I don’t want him to look at me the way Quinn is right now. I don’t want him to come back here and find me in pieces. I called him, raving like a crazy woman on the street. Made him jump on a plane to rescue me. The least I can do is put things back together, at least a little. Have some kind of plan for what to do next.

  I shake my head again. “I can’t even take today off. I’ve missed too many classes this term already. I should go for the final review.”

  I get out of bed and trudge toward the closet, ready to pick through the remainder of my clothes that aren’t up at Giancarlo’s.

  Quinn watches me dubiously. “Um…okay. Do you want me to wait for you?”

  I give a small smile through the closet mirror. “No. You go ahead. I’ll see you later tonight.”

  She stands up. “Okay. Well, I’m going to go grab some breakfast on campus, then. See you tonight.”

  ~

  Ten minutes later, I’m feeling a little better, dressed in gym clothes. I decide this is what I need best––a workout, which I haven’t gotten in weeks, since Giancarlo never wanted me to leave his place. It will clear my mind before classes. Everything feels better with an endorphin boost.

  I run around Union Square, over to Palladium, the NYU dorm with the gym in the basement, and spend the next hour running out my troubles on the treadmill, trying to decide a plan of action. Going to class is about as far as I get, but it’s a better plan than nothing.

  I’m rounding the corner, almost back to my dorm, when I spot a familiar tall figure lounging by the entrance of the building. Immediately, my heart starts beating wildly with an eerie sense of déjà vu.

  Giancarlo recognizes me, and starts toward me at a run. I bolt the other direction, dodging people as I fight to cross Fourteenth Street onto the flat concrete expanse of Union Square.

  “Layla!” Giancarlo calls behind me, loud enough that I know he’s close.

  My legs, worn out after running for so long at the gym, won’t move fast enough. I run toward the nearest subway entrance, but just as I arrive, an influx of people pours from the station. I jerk around the entrance, but I’m not fast enough. A big hand snags my elbow, pulling me into a sturdy male wall.

  “Hello, amor.” Giancarlo’s lips are warm and sinister against my throat as he locks one arm around my chest, the other pressing something sharp––I’m guessing a knife––discreetly against my stomach.

  “Let me go,” I say, although not loud enough to stop anyone as he turns me away from the crowd. To anyone else, we are locked in a lover’s embrace. And with the knife at my side, I’m too petrified to move.

  “Now, why would I do that, hmm?” Giancarlo nuzzles into my neck familiarly, which was once something I liked, but now makes me ill. “I came here to see you.” When he leans back, his dark eyes are ice-cold. “We have some unfinished business.” He hails a cab, which immediately pulls to the curb next to us. “Get in.”

  “No,” I whisper, though the knife stays at my side.

  Giancarlo raises a black brow and squeezes my arm hard. “Get in,” he says, “before I make you. And I think that is not what you want.”

  Before I can answer, he turns me roughly toward the open door, twisting my ankle hard against the concrete and forcing me to fall onto the vinyl seats. Unable to run, I’m shoved inside the c
ab, which smells of body odor and stale pizza, the prick of the knife at my waist the entire time.

  “Broadway and West 144th,” he barks at the driver, who immediately takes off down the street.

  The taxi takes a sharp right on Broadway and stops for a moment in traffic just in front of Carlyle, where another cab has stopped by the curb. I look out of the window just in time to see a familiar pair of broad shoulders emerge from the back seat, with a familiar worn Yankees cap turned backwards so that I can see the black and white emblem.

  “Nico!” I shout with a voice that’s hoarse from yesterday. I bang on the glass window, but the mix of cars and horns and glass muffles my sounds, which is immediately silenced when Giancarlo yanks me back toward his body.

  “Stop,” I whimper. “Please, just let me go.”

  But the car speeds on with the traffic, and Nico’s strong frame gets smaller and smaller.

  “Nico,” I murmur, even while I’m pressed against another man. But it’s no use. He can’t hear me. He doesn’t even know I’m gone.

  ~

  Nico

  I’ve been pacing outside Layla’s dorm on Union Square for twenty minutes when her roommate, Quinn, finally calls me back.

  “Jesus!” she says. “I was in class, you know. My professor had to ask me to leave because my fucking bag wouldn’t stop buzzing.”

  “Where’s Layla?” I demand. “I’ve been standing outside your building for the last half hour. She’s not picking up the landline.”

  “How should I know where she is?” Quinn asks. “The psycho wanted to go to class today. It wouldn’t be the first time she just took off without telling anyone.”

  “Did she? Go to class?”

  There’s a pause. “Hold on. Her lit class actually meets across the hall from mine.”

  I haven’t hopped around this much since I was eighteen, training as a boxer because I had too much angry energy and nowhere decent to put it. I could use a heavy bag right now, actually, except a part of me would be perfectly happy delivering this rage to the man who deserves it. Eight-foot-tall, tango-dancing fuckboy who doesn’t know how to keep his fuckin’ hands to himself.