After a half hour wait, the two of them were seated around a Santa Brigida pizza at 2Amys.
“I practically spent my entire teenage years here,” she said, grabbing a slice.
River was staring at the pizza, his mind somewhere else.
“Hey, what’s up?” she finally asked. “You’ve been out of it since breakfast. Don’t tell me you’re worried about church. Yeah it will be an all day affair, but—”
“Have you talked to Darryl recently?” he interrupted, a frown on his face as he finally looked over at her.
Bonita put her pizza down with her own frown. “Why are you bringing his name up?”
“I just...” He paused letting his concerns duke it out in his head. Part of him knew he should tell her about this morning’s encounter. Another part of him wondered what the point would be. She was here with him, safe and sound in a public place, enjoying their last Saturday before they returned to Pierre. Why ruin a perfectly enjoyable lunch with the disturbing revelations he’d uncovered about the man? It wouldn’t make a difference here and now. There’d be a more appropriate time and place when he could tell her everything, maybe later tonight.
He leaned and gave her a serious look. “I just want you to be careful around him, okay?”
“I don’t have to be careful around him, because I don’t plan on spending any time around him.”
He stared at her for a beat, then shook his head. “Yes, but….”
“He’ll be in church tomorrow”—River’s eyes shot back up at her—“and I fully plan on making it clear to him, to the entire West family, that we are done. Then he can finally leave me alone. So can we please not talk about him? The day has been going great so far. Why ruin it?”
He watched her pick at a cherry tomato on her pizza, no longer hungry. He sighed, more certain than ever that this news could wait.
“Hey,” River said, reaching across the table to take her hand. “I’m sorry I brought him up. I didn’t mean to ruin the day. There’s no point in continuing to ruin it by talking about him any more. Let’s just enjoy our pizza then we can go back to wandering through museums. Maybe you can get wedding dress ideas from Seinfeld’s puffy shirt.”
“It’s no longer on display,” she said with a weak smile.
“Well, I’m always open to a beach wedding with a bikini. I’ve heard there are even places where you can have a nudist…”
Her smile became a smirk and she threw the cherry tomato at him.
“Hey!” he yelped, dodging it as he laughed.
Then they were back to their usual selves...almost.
“Then it ends with the benediction.”
“Benediction?”
“It’s kind of like a final prayer. Don’t worry it’s short,” she added with a laugh.
“So church from 8 am to around 3? That’s…thorough.”
Bonita laughed and grabbed his arm as they walked back home. “It will be a new experience for you, Mr. I’ll-try-anything-once. Speaking of which, how did those chitlins settle?”
“Just fine Ms. Picky Eater. In fact—”
“Well, aren’t you two the happy couple.”
They were so caught up in their own conversation, they didn’t even see him in the distance until it was too late.
“Darryl!” Bonita exclaimed.
River instinctively moved in front of her, creating a barrier between them. “What do you want, Darryl?”
He walked toward them almost casually. He was dressed perfectly as usual, in a heavy wool trench coat, underneath which Bonita could see a pair of dark slacks and dress shoes.
“I was just in the neighborhood, my neighborhood. Thought I’d stop by to see Bonita and say hello.”
“You got my messages, Darryl.” She pulled herself from around River, ignoring the look he gave her. There would be time for explanations later. Still, he put his hand out to stop her, but she waved it off. She was so sick of this! It had to end, and since Darryl was seeing fit to press the issue, now seemed as good a time as any.
“I told you in the restaurant, it’s over. We’re done. Finished. Got it?”
He stared at her for a long time. Once upon a time that stare would have immediately forced her eyes down to the ground in either fear or shame or some other manipulative emotion he’d wanted to muster up. She wasn’t sure if it was the security of having River by her side, but this time she just stared right back at him.
“I got your message,” he said. Something in his voice set her senses on fire.
No!
Both River and she reacted at the same time when he opened his coat. She barely had time to register the gun before she saw River make a dive for Darryl. At the same time, she voiced the one word in her head.
“No!”
Bonita tried to stop River, but was too slow. She didn’t even know who the barrel was pointed at. Maybe it was the excessive surge of adrenaline, but she had the strong need to put River’s safety ahead of her own.
She was filled with horror as the gun went off.
The world seemed to stop for a moment, even though she could clearly see River and Darryl struggling. Everything went silent with that gunshot, then shook her with the sonic boom as she realized what had happened.
No! The word wouldn’t form, couldn’t form.
That’s because her world was already spiraling down, down, down...
River!
37
River felt it immediately. He’d reached Darryl too late to stop the gun from actually going off, but he had been able to grab his arm and shift the aim. He had a moment to register the shocked expression on Darryl’s face.
Maybe Darryl hadn’t meant to actually shoot anyone. Maybe it was just another one of his intimidation tactics. Maybe the maniac actually thought this would convince Bonita to dump River and come back to him.
But it didn’t matter. River felt it. It was in his ears as they rang from the loud bang. It was in his arms as he felt the vibration of the gun recoiling.
Then it was in his heart as it was ripped open.
He saw Bonita fall to the ground.
“No!”
Darryl was forgotten as he scrambled over to her, tripping on an uneven crack in the pavement. He skidded so hard he ripped a hole in his jeans right through to the skin of his knees. He didn’t even feel the pain. It was usurped by another kind of pain, a pain that threatened to erupt from his chest in a super nova as he watched the pool of blood form underneath her.
“Bonita!”
She looked up at him with an expression of confusion. “I…I can’t…”
“Don’t, don’t, don’t...just, just—oh fuck, Bonita.” He babbled as he reached out to cup her face, straightening the glasses that had fallen slantways. The other arm came around to lift her, then he thought better of it. Didn’t everyone say not to move people who’ve been injured?
But where had she been hit? In his blind panic he couldn’t find the bullet hole in the dark coat she was wearing, the coat which was already wet and heavy with the dark stain spreading around her middle.
For some reason she smiled up at him. If he’d been in a more rational state of mind he would have taken it as a good sign. She’s alive.
Instead his eyes searched crazily for that hole. Where was it, dammit!
“Your eyes are the greenest I’ve ever seen,” she whispered before closing her own.
“No!” He screamed.
“Somebody call 911!,” a voice yelled out. It seemed a million miles away and yet so close.
Then they all came at once.
“Is she dead?”
“Hey, that guy’s got a gun!”
“What the hell happened?”
“She’s mine…mine.”
That one voice broke through from the rest with stark clarity.
Darryl.
River stood up and spun to face him. Darryl for once had lost that cool and collected expression he wore. It was replaced by a mixture of shock and triumph.
The blood that raced to his head blinded River to everyone and everything except destroying the man.
“Fuck you!” he roared and dodged straight for him.
He felt the impact. He felt them fall to the ground. He felt the first bite of pain as his knuckles met the cartilage of Darryl’s nose. After that everything was numb.
In a vague fog that would only penetrate his memory later on, he heard the shouts and screams of the voices around him, felt the flesh and bone crush beneath him, felt the warm blood cover his fists, saw the flashing lights in his periphery, sensed his body being pulled up and away.
Once Darryl was no longer beneath him, lucidity returned. He saw the pool of blood where Bonita had been. Nothing remained but her glasses which had obviously fallen off her face since he straightened them for her.
He wondered for a crazed brief moment if she had already been sent to heaven, body and soul, like in those Left Behind books. Because of course she would go to heaven, someone like her, so good and pure and sweet and innocent. Unlike River, who was headed straight to hell. And for a few seconds he was already there.
Then he saw her on the stretcher being carried away. That old, familiar darkness overcame him as his world, his future, began to spiral down, down, down...
Bonita!
38
The police were holding him for questioning.
“Technically” he wasn’t under arrest, at least until they “cleared a few things up.”
River hadn’t said a word. If he had he would have incriminated himself a million times over: the absolute desire to beat Darryl to a bloody pulp; the hope that his fists had caused the man to breathe his last breath; the utter lack of concern for his own fate, so long as somebody fucking told him how Bonita was.
But no one had said a single thing to him since he had uttered the magic word: lawyer.
His name and the fact that he was justified in his actions would eventually get him out of the police station. But, as Darryl had made so clear earlier this morning, he was in West territory and River had just caused considerable damage to the heir of that empire.
So here he was.
River stared at his hands as they lay flat on the his knees. He saw the bruises that were already beginning to form. He saw the cuts and open wounds that were already caked with dry blood. He saw the nail that had been ripped from the bed during an ill-placed punch that hit the pavement instead of Darryl’s face.
The memories were slowly coming back, along with the pain.
Pain.
He flexed his hands to intensify it. Better this kind of pain than the one that ran far deeper. The pain that infiltrated his veins. The pain that caused his heart to seize...when it wasn’t exploding with rage. The pain that ran in circles around his head like a pinball machine, turning his brain to mush.
The pain that came from no one telling him how Bonita was doing. If she was alive at all....
He balled his hands into fists. He welcomed the bruises that protested in agony, the wounds that reopened just as healing was beginning to set in, the joints that cracked with pain.
If Darryl was in front of him right now, River would happily use those damaged fists to pummel the bastard all over again.
Flex.
But he couldn’t blame Darryl alone. After all, part of the blame lay with River. He should have said something after the confrontation that morning. Told Bonita and her family while they were stuffing themselves with pancakes. Maybe her parents would have told them to stay in, play boardgames instead. Maybe her father would have put in a call to the great Congressman West and had his son sent to the loony bin where he belonged. Maybe Bonita and he would have been more alert while walking home, instead of her teasing him about church.
Church. There would be no church for Bonita tomorrow. Certainly none for River, which was unfortunate. He needed all the atonement he could get.
He closed his eyes and bit through the pain. He relished it, fed on it. The old River began to seep through. The River that traded the apathy of his youth for teenaged rage and resentment. The River that wanted to lash out at any and everyone. The River that was unhinged and untamed.
A smile crept to his face as that scene in Star Wars played out in his head, the one where the emperor encourages Anakin to kill him:
I can feel your anger. It gives you focus... makes you stronger.
No. The last thing Bonita would want would be for River to give in to his anger, to return to the River, nee Riot, he once was. Better to let the training that he’d been introduced to kick in.
Breathe.
He heard the door to the holding room open and his older half-brother walked in. He’d been the one to introduce him to the trainer who had taught River how to fight, but with focus and control.
River had wanted his one and only phone call to be to Bonita’s parents, but he didn’t know their number. His only hope was that someone at the hospital had enough sense to use her phone, or better yet that she was alive and conscious enough to do it herself.
He held on to that thought.
Michael walked in with an empathetic smile on his face. Once upon a time he was a Wall Street corporate attorney. He’d since hung up that shingle to become partner at his father-in-law’s practice, handling cases just like this one. He’d taken the train down from New York as soon as he’d hung up with River.
“Happy Holidays?” He said with that dry sense of humor he always had.
“Fuck off,” River said, in no mood.
“Sorry, bad joke,” Michael said sighing and sitting down on the chair opposite him.
“Is she alive?”
“The girl you were with? From what I’ve heard, yes. She’s in surgery.”
River perked up at this. “For what? Where did it hit? Will she make it?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, River. I’m your attorney not the doctor. My focus is on helping you.”
“I don’t care about me, I only care about—”
“Well, you should. Because if you end up in prison, you won’t be seeing her at all.”
Michael stared at River waiting for a bit of comprehension to sink in.
River scowled at him for a moment, then sagged. “Okay fine, as long as she’s alive.”
“And in one of the best hospitals in the area,” Michael assured him. “Okay, let’s get straight to it then. The good news is, you have a pretty solid claim for self-defense, or at least the defense of others. Plenty of witnesses and the gun was recovered. I’m sure there will be tests that will uncover the gunshot residue on his hand.”
“I don’t give a shit about that.”
“Well, luckily I’m here to give a shit for you. Especially since he happens to be the son of a rather popular congressman, soon to be senator. Although, that campaign is debatable after today. It doesn’t help that he’s in the hospital right now with a face that is probably never going to look the same. You were obviously a better boxing student than I was.”
“They actually took him to the hospital?” River asked with disgust. Why hadn’t they thrown his ass in jail? Or better yet, left him there on the ground like the piece of shit that he was.
Michael gave him a wry grin. “Well, you did quite a number on him.” His eyes wandered down to River’s fists. “Apparently.”
“Good,” River muttered.
“You might want to keep those generous thoughts on the matter to yourself. At least until I’ve gotten you out of this. So, like I said—”
A sudden flash of memory hit River.
“Her glasses!” he exclaimed. “They were still on the ground when they took her away. She needs them. She can’t see without them, Michael.”
Michael gave him a sympathetic smile. “How about this, River, you work with me so we can get you out of here today. Then we can go see about those glasses. I’m sure some Good Samaritan picked them up and—”
“Good Samaritan...” River felt the pain wash over him again as he thought back to the first day he’d
met Bonita, grabbing that book off the shelf for her.
Now the look on his brother’s face turned to concern.
“River, I’m going to need you to focus here, okay? You’re definitely getting out of this, but not if you start taking mental detours.”
It took River a second or two to bring his mind back around. Yes, he needed to focus. Anything to get back to Bonita.
He looked his brother dead in the eye. “What do you need?”
39
The light.
It was bright, too bright. It wasn’t welcoming at all. Bonita squinted against the harsh glare of it.
She was cold, shivering in fact. The air felt sterile. There were noises, beeps and blips, feet shuffling across hard floors, voices. She struggled against the tubes and wires and blankets that entangled her.
Where was she?
“Bonita!”
That was familiar. She latched onto it, relaxing as she sought it out. The world was in a blur for some reason.
My glasses.
The face that rose into view was fuzzy, but she recognized it anyway. There was the scent as well: honeysuckle and home.
“Mommy.” She hadn’t used that word since she was in elementary school. Somehow it seemed appropriate, but she couldn’t figure out why.
“Oh, mija.” Now her mom was crying.
Don’t cry, Mom. She couldn’t say the words. Her mouth was thick and dry, like she hadn’t had anything to drink for days.
“Where-whe—”
“Don’t talk, mija. Just relax. I’m going to get the nurse and your father. He just went out for some coffee.”
Nurse?
Then the pain hit her. A soreness that radiated from her left side through her whole body. She wanted to ask why she was in so much pain, but her mother was gone and she was alone again.
The pain was too much.
What happened? Before she could answer, she fell again, deeper, deeper, deeper. Until the world was black.
Her eyes snapped open.
The world was still a blur, but less foggy. She groaned and looked around her trying to find something familiar in the muddled haze of the room around her.
So Wrong Page 21