“At least bring me some water!” she shouted. Her mouth was dry, her tongue stale. She hadn’t eaten in days. She refused to. The only thing that she was truly hungry for was a blast of a crack pipe. Nothing else would nourish her the way that it could. It fed her soul and she felt like she was experiencing a slow death without it.
Her mind was playing tricks on her. She had relied on the drugs to make her feel good for so long that without them she felt nothing but sorrow. The physical ailments were minimal, but the mental and emotional ones were unbearable. Crack had a hold on her that was so strong she just wanted to give in and get high. Every time she thought about it she would get aroused by the idea. Her mind was trapped. When she looked in the mirror she saw her mother, literally saw her mother’s face. Bleu felt like she was losing it and if she didn’t score soon she would go insane. What she wouldn’t do for just one little hit. The thought alone made her tremble. She heard the lock on the door as Iman entered and she turned to look at him. Sympathy filled his eyes.
“Everything just hurts so bad, Iman. You can’t do this to me … not like this. I’m not strong enough,” she cried.
He knelt down on the floor. “You are,” he said. “It’s mental, Bleu, so if it’s hurting to think about shit then get it out. Talk to me. I won’t judge you.”
“What about rehab? What if I promise to go to rehab?” she asked. She knew that she couldn’t fully disclose the things that haunted her. The regrets she had, the things that she had done, being a part of Cinco’s murder. She couldn’t admit those things to Iman.
“You just want to go there because you think it’ll be easier to run away. I’ll bring rehab to you. Whatever therapy you need to get better,” he said.
“I never wanted it to be like this,” she whispered, her voice full of angst.
“Neither did I,” he replied. He got to his feet and walked over to the bed, pulling back the covers. He didn’t say anything, but she took the hint and slowly climbed to her feet.
Another knock at the door caused her to look up to find Big Les standing in the doorway. She smiled at his presence.
“It’s good to see a real queen back in the castle,” he said with a wink. “Hello, Ms. Bleu.”
“Hi, Big Les,” she replied. He pushed a small circular table on wheels into the room. It was covered in a white cloth and set beautifully for one.
Bleu looked up at Iman. “I can’t eat. I’m not hungry.”
“You’ve got to get your weight back up. You being this small scares the shit out of me. Just eat a little, a’ight?” he responded.
She nodded. She was too focused on being deprived of drugs to realize that she was deprived of food. Her body needed all the nourishment it could get. Not leaving it up to her, Iman walked over to the table and snagged the plate.
He dipped a fork into the meal as he sat at her bedside. She opened her mouth, accepting the food. It wasn’t until she tasted it did she remember how long it had been since her last real meal. Shelter meals and scraps, bags of chips from the liquor store weren’t enough to live on. She closed her eyes, savoring it as she moaned in satisfaction. She damn near snatched the plate from his hands as she began digging into the meal. He had to stop himself from chuckling as she annihilated the food. He looked up at Big Les and nodded his appreciation. Big Les nodded back.
“Glad you like it,” Big Les stated jovially. “Feel better, Ms. Bleu.”
He left them alone so that she could finish her meal in peace.
“I need to leave for a few hours. Big Les will be here. I need to know that you will be here when I get back,” he said seriously. He wanted to stay, but he needed to make a run. He didn’t want to play games anymore. Juggling his marriage and his relationship with Bleu was what had caused him to lose her in the first place. He didn’t want Bleu on the side. He wanted her in the forefront, and in order to make that happen he had to end things with Tristan.
“I will be,” Bleu said.
“I got something. It’ll help you sleep. I contacted a detoxification counselor and she recommended sleeping pills. I want you to take it. It’ll help,” he said.
“You don’t have to put me to sleep, Iman. I won’t run,” she said.
He wanted to extend his trust, but he wasn’t a fool. He knew how addicts got down. They made promises they couldn’t keep. He wasn’t setting himself up for the disappointment. If he were in a smaller city he could have put word out on the town to cut her off, anyone who served her would face deadly repercussions, but this was L.A. It was too large to put an advisory over every corner, so instead he would have to keep a close eye on Bleu until the poison was out of her system.
She could see the worry in his gaze and she sighed as she nodded. “Okay.”
Iman went into the pocket of his slacks and pulled out a pill bottle. She held her mouth open and he placed a pill on her tongue before handing her the water glass from the table.
“Feel better?” she asked.
“I do,” he confirmed. “I won’t be long. If you need anything, ask Big Les.”
Iman pulled the key to the bedroom out of his pocket and her face fell. “Please don’t lock me in here, Iman. I won’t go anywhere,” she said, eyes misting. “It makes me feel like I’m in a cage or something. Like I’m an animal or something.”
Iman nodded and leaned in to kiss her on the top of her head. He didn’t mean any malice. He had none when it came to Bleu. He simply wanted to keep her safe, but perhaps his reins were too tight. “Okay,” he said simply before getting up to leave.
Bleu waited for him to exit the room, and as soon as he was gone she spat the pill out of her mouth.
There was no way she was staying put. Her gut rumbled and she made a dash to the bathroom as suddenly it felt like she would erupt. She hadn’t eaten that much food at once in months and her stomach was betraying her. She rushed to the toilet, barely making it before she released. As she sat on the toilet, miserable and sweating bullets, another urge hit her. She reached for the trash pail that sat beside the toilet and brought it to her chest as she vomited simultaneously. Withdrawal was rough on her. Doing the right things to her body after doing so many things wrong to it threw her system into a frenzy. It was easier to stay on drugs than to quit and she was desperately feigning for a hit. She flushed the toilet and then weakly turned on the shower to clean herself. She was so damn exhausted. It felt as if she weighed a thousand pounds. The misery that had her in chains was pulling her down … drowning her. She stripped and then stepped into the stream of water, turning it cold, hoping to shock her body out of the funk she was caught in. Leaning against the tiled wall, she sobbed. Nothing in life had ever been so hard. I just want to smoke, she thought in despair.
She let the water rain down on her until her skin started to prune. When she was done she wrapped a towel around her body and climbed out. She knew that there was no getting out of the house. Iman surely had Big Les on guard, and even if she got past him she had no car, no money. Calabasas was too far away from any hood to score. No dealers were working this far out in the suburbs. She was stuck, but she was resourceful and determined to get any kind of high she could get her hands on. She made her way to the hall, looking left, then right, to make sure that Big Les wasn’t lurking before she proceeded to the master bedroom. She hurried on tiptoes and walked into the master bath, pulling open the medicine cabinet in such haste that some of the contents fell out, clanging on the sink. She cringed at the noise as she put the items back inside while searching for something … anything … to take the edge off of being sober.
Her heart skipped a beat in excitement when she came across a bottle of Vicodin. She opened the top, anxiety filling her chest, but when she turned she found Big Les standing in the doorway, silently brooding.
Like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar she froze.
“I … um … I have a headache,” she lied.
“Hmm-hmm,” Big Les huffed. “I’m not going to tell you not to do it, because f
rom what I know ’bout this drug thing is if you want to do it you’re going to. But I do know that the pretty young girl that walked in here months ago was too smart for this. That girl had the world at her feet and she’s still in there somewhere, but if you swallow those pills you’re going to lose her forever. You got to want to do better … for yourself, not for anybody else. It’s on you.”
His words made her fall apart as tears rolled down her cheeks and she plopped down right there on the bathroom floor. “I don’t want to be this person.”
“Then you know what to do,” Big Les responded. He went to turn around and Bleu stopped him from leaving.
“Can you just stay please?” she sniffed. “To make sure.”
He nodded and folded his arms across his broad chest as he watched her intently. Bleu’s insides screamed at her to just swallow a few of the pills, but instead she shook them out into the toilet, closing her eyes so that she couldn’t see the high that she was flushing away.
“Good girl,” Big Les said as he helped her to her feet. “Now let’s get you back to bed. The thing to kicking this habit is distraction. You’ve got to learn to keep busy. Anybody ever teach you how to cook?” he asked.
* * *
Iman stepped into the condo that he shared with his wife. The atomosphere was ice-cold. White walls, white furniture, a silence so heavy that it clung in the air, intimidating him as soon as he stepped inside. It fit her personality to a T. There was no warmth left in Tristan. It had disappeared long ago, and as she approached him with a glass of red wine in her hand, wearing a silk floor-length kimono and stiletto heels, she smirked. “You remember that you have a home?” she asked.
He rubbed the side of his face, preparing himself for the inevitable fallout to come. “Tan, I need to talk to you,” he said.
“So talk!” she shot back as she sipped. The glassy look in her eyes told him that she was already halfway into the bottle. His absence made her cling to the nightly ritual. She was miserable. He was miserable. So what was the point?
“I want a divorce, Tan,” he said softly.
She chuckled condescendingly and sipped from her glass. “I’ll pretend like I didn’t hear that,” she replied.
“I’m serious, Tan. You can have the houses, the cars; I’ll always take care of you. I’ll hit you off with whatever you need as far as money, but my heart, you can’t have that. It’s with someone else now,” he said.
Tan’s face turned red as her eyes glowed with rage. She threw the red wine in his face and then glared at him, daring him to do something. A part of him wanted to slap the taste from her mouth for the disrespect. She knew better. She was testing him. She wanted an emotional reaction from him. A reaction, it was something that she hadn’t received from him in years, but he gave her nothing. He clenched his strong jaw and stepped away from her as he grabbed a paper towel from the kitchen countertop. He wiped his face calmly and said, “I’m done.”
He walked out as her screams began to fill the air. “I made you, you puta! You don’t walk out on me! My father will kill you! He will kill you for breaking my heart!”
Iman knew that it was probably true. Lisbon Sandoza would definitely bring beef to Iman’s door, but he was fully prepared for it. To him, Bleu was worth it.
29
Iman smiled as he watched Bleu move around the kitchen. She was slowly but surely getting her weight back up, and the color had come back to her cheeks. The way the sun shone through the kitchen window, illuminating her features, made her look almost angelic. This was the girl he had remembered. She was finally getting back to the old her. There were so many things that he wanted to tell her, but he knew that she couldn’t handle much right now. It had taken a full two weeks just to get her body off of the drugs, but her mind still was in a delicate place. He did his all to keep her busy, stepping out of his comfort zone to fill her days with positivity. He was from the streets, a hood fella with money; there were certain things that he just hadn’t done to spoil a woman. Women gave in to him easily, giving him what he wanted before he actually had to put in any effort, so the courting part of a relationship he often missed. With Tan he had been too young to know exactly what to do, but with Bleu he was going all out. They frequented museums, he took her on hot-air balloon rides, and they went to corny paint-and-sip classes just to keep her moving. That was the life of a crackhead … always busy … always moving … he knew that during her stint on the streets she had gotten used to that pace. He tried to accommodate that. She placed a plate of food in front of him and the aroma of homemade French toast filled the air. He pulled her arm, drawing her near. “You’re getting good at this cooking thing, ma. I won’t need Big Les in a minute,” he said with a wink.
She laughed and then tensed when she noticed how closely he held her. They hadn’t taken their relationship there yet. It hadn’t been rekindled. They were working on building a friendship, because Bleu was fragile. They slept in separate rooms, because he knew that she wasn’t ready to take it there with him. They hadn’t even spoken about his marriage or the fact that he had broken her heart before, because he didn’t want to overwhelm her. When emotions ran high so did her urge to smoke, and he was trying to avoid any setbacks.
She recoiled, slightly uncomfortable with their intimacy. There were too many loose ends left regarding their past. Too many questions unanswered. Uncertainty shone in her eyes.
“I know you have questions … I’ma answer them for you one day. In fact, I have questions of my own, but you’re not ready. Let’s just focus on you making it through another day … clean … happy. Are you happy?” he asked.
She thought about it, but before she could respond the sound of gunshots rang out into the air.
“Go upstairs,” Iman said as he reached under the table he was sitting at and suddenly pulled out a strap of his own. He stayed ready. There were guns placed strategically in every room of his house. Bleu’s eyes widened in fear. “Go!” he said as he moved to the front of his home. He walked out of the house, enraged at the fact that someone would bring beef to his home. He didn’t give a fuck who was busting at him, he was ready to clap back, but when he saw Tristan standing outside, gun at her side, he lowered his gun. He approached her and grabbed her by the face sternly. “Have you lost your fucking mind?!” he said through gritted teeth. He snatched the gun from her hands, tucking it in his back waistline, and then mushed her hard. He could smell the liquor coming out of her pores, she was so drunk. “Get your ass in the car before I hurt you, Tan. How the fuck did you even drive out here? You’re fucking faded.”
She pushed him hard in the chest. “I should fucking kill you!” she screamed, causing a scene in his affluent neighborhood.
He pointed his finger at her in warning. “I should slap the fuck out of you right now. You could have killed somebody! You know I don’t need this type of attention. What were you thinking?”
“Fuck you!” she said, snatching herself away from him. “My name is on this house. As a matter of fact, my name is on everything,” she said as she stormed past him. The realization that Iman had found someone new had hit Tristan hard and she refused to lose to another woman. It wasn’t about love. It was about control. Iman was hers. She wasn’t giving him up. “Is she here?” Tristan asked as she stormed through the front door.
He followed her, trying to stop her, but she was too persistent. “Is the bitch in my house?” she shouted, loud enough for Bleu to hear. Bleu came down the steps, and when Tristan saw her she scoffed in disbelief, recognizing her instantly. “Her? You’re fucking with her? You brought this bitch into my house! You had her moving my father’s cocaine, putting money in her pocket, and all along you were fucking her?!”
Tan lunged at Bleu, but before she could reach her Iman intervened, grabbing Tan up.
“I’m going to kill you! You fucking whore! You’re fucking my husband? In my house? In my bed?”
“You’re out of fucking control,” Iman said as he hemmed her up against a
wall as Bleu stood back, distraught. She felt cheap. She instantly remembered how badly loving Iman felt. He wasn’t hers. No matter how nice he was, no matter how much he helped, no matter how much she wanted him to be. He was married.
Big Les walked in with two grocery bags and halted when he saw the scene unfolding. Iman let go of Tan and pushed her toward Big Les. “Take her home,” Iman said.
“I am home. I’m not going anywhere. Take her home,” Tan sneered. “Everything in here belongs to me … including you.”
Bleu nodded. “She’s right,” she whispered. “I have no place here.… I’ll leave.”
“You’re not leaving,” Iman said sternly, but Bleu was already headed for the door. “Bleu!” His tone was more like a bark as his frustrations mounted, halting her midstep. He cleared his throat as he took a deep breath. “Please, ma.”
“I hope you know you’re a dead woman,” Tan said, becoming emotional at the sight of Iman’s connection with Bleu. Tan had put up with side chicks and groupies, because it came with the territory—powerful men needed playthings—but there was clearly love between Bleu and Iman. Tan could feel it and it made her sick. She wasn’t making idle threats. She had so much power at the tips of her pretty little fingers and she was a jealous woman. If she gave the order, Bleu would be nothing more than a memory. He had to de-escalate the situation before it got out of hand.
He grabbed Tan by the upper arm and forced her out of the house. He turned to Big Les. “Don’t let her leave,” he said. “I need to handle this.”
Big Les nodded and Iman shot one last look at Bleu before disappearing.
* * *
The overwhelming urge to smoke planted itself in Bleu’s subconscious, but she fought it. She refused to let Iman be the one to drive her down the road to disaster ever again. Hours had passed and Iman hadn’t returned. She was left feeling stupid all over again. Of course, she’s his first priority. That’s his wife, Bleu thought, realizing that she was just living in a dreamworld if she thought that he would ever leave Tan. I deserve to be somebody’s number one, she thought.
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