“Look at me.”
“No,” I squeaked. Eyes blurry with tears, I forced them to look at the ground.
“What are you hiding?” Eli bellowed. His voice rose so loud that it echoed in the room, reminding me of the story of Echo that I’d read with Mama. I didn’t remember much of the tale, but what I did remember was that Echo was cursed to only echo what other people said. She followed a man that she loved, but because she was cursed, she could only echo what he said. She could never say how she felt.
I wanted to tell him. My gaze was rising to his. It was rising deep from my belly. All the secrets I kept, all the pain I felt, all the shame I held—it needed to be set free. It demanded to be heard.
“What the fuck is this?” Eli and I both turned in unison to see Vic standing at the top of the stairs, eyes furious.
As if he’d just walked in on us about to burn down his apartment, Vic glared daggers from atop the stairs. I wiped the tears from my eyes and said, “Vic, this is my friend, Eli.”
“Your friend?” Eli asked, indignation lacing his voice. Of course Eli was more than my friend. He would always be more than a friend. He was my first lover and probably my last true love. He held pieces of me I previously thought unattainable. “Boyfriend” didn’t quite explain Eli and I, but I wasn’t about to explain our long, sordid story to Vic.
“I know who it is,” Vic replied, his eyes trained on Eli as he descended the staircase.
“You do?” Eli and I both replied, surprise in our voices.
“You asked me to look into Vera’s disappearance, or have you already forgotten?” Vic’s voice was tougher than gravel when he replied. I nodded, not comprehending what Eli had to do with that.
“Well,” Vic continued. “A lot of interesting shit has popped up, including but not limited to a man named Cruz Zeros, alias Zero.”
I gasped. “What does Zero have to do with Vera? Hold on… Zero’s name is Cruz? Vera said she had an ex-boyfriend named Cruz…” I stopped rambling as the implications whirled around my skull. Was it possible that the Zero I knew and loathed was the same Cruz Zeros that Vera had dated? That would be too weird. And impossible. Because Vera lived in Louisiana and Zero…
Zero was a drug lord who traveled to make sure his deals went down properly.
“Zero was more than Vera’s ex-boyfriend,” Vic said. “They did a lot of damage together in Louisiana. That’s not what concerns me right now, though. What concerns me is one of Zero’s henchmen in my house, with my sister.”
“What?” I gasped again, starting to feel like a southern belle in an old movie. Who was Vic talking about? There was only Vic, me, and Eli in the room; Lennox was upstairs (somehow sleeping through this altercation). Also, had he just called me his sister? Figures the first time he did that would be in anger.
As I peered at Vic, waiting for him to explain, it dawned on me. “Wait, are you implying that Eli has something to do with Zero?” Vic didn’t respond, only hardened his gaze on Eli further. I nearly laughed. “Eli is no henchman!”
Eli had yet to say anything to Vic. Instead he was steadily making himself appear taller. He’d also folded his arms, which I think was an attempt to push out his already roped muscles. I wouldn’t have been concerned—in fact I probably would have laughed, but Vic was doing the exact same thing. They were eyeing each other like two people on the wrong end of a bar. This testosterone show wasn’t doing anybody any good.
“Uh…Lennox?” I called out, hoping she would wake up. “Lennox!” I yelled again when Eli and Vic clenched their jaws. They reminded me of two bulls who’d gotten loose. I gave one last Hail Mary yell for Lennox, sighing in relief when I saw her appear on the staircase.
Wearing pajamas and with tousled red hair, Lennox had clearly just woken up. She smiled at me but the display of affection was short-lived when she saw Eli and Vic.
“So, who threw the glove at whom?” Lennox asked. Vic barely acknowledged her quip. “Seriously, guys, if you’re going to duel, you have to do it right. Twenty paces apart, with a pistol, and I think there needs to be a damsel.” Lennox eyed me. “Well, Grace is playing that part well enough.”
“Hey,” I muttered with lackluster indignation.
Lennox stepped in front of Vic, completely cutting off his line of sight to Eli. “Is Bruce Banner anywhere in there?”
“Go away, Lenny,” Vic said through gritted teeth.
“Excellent idea,” Lennox exclaimed as she grabbed Vic’s hand. She attempted to pull Vic away, but he stayed in his spot. I watched her work in fascination. Where I’d been completely terrified of all the vibrating male energy, Lennox walked right into it. She was like a superhero to me.
Lennox huffed. “You eyeing him like that is making me a little jealous.”
“Go away, Lenny,” Vic repeated.
“Seriously.” Lennox placed her hands on her hips. “You guys gonna fuck or what?”
“Seems like that’s what he wants,” Eli spat. I inwardly flinched. The first thing Eli said to Vic had been inflammatory. Lennox glanced at Eli and back to Vic, then rolled her eyes.
“I was all set to watch Netflix and eat junk food and then I come downstairs and find Grace scared out of her mind and two dudes about to fuck or fight. What the hell happened?”
“This fucker,” Vic said, stepping up to Eli and poking him in the chest. “Is bringing his shit into my house and endangering my family.”
His family? Is he calling me his family? I didn’t have any time to ruminate on that because Eli growled, knocking Vic’s finger away. “You got no idea who this fucker is and what this fucker does.” That single act unleashed more aggression than anything I’d ever seen before, and I’d seen a lot of aggression in my short life.
Vic got up in Eli’s face. “I know you sold drugs for Zero.”
“You don’t know shit Cali boy,” Eli spat back. Vic and Eli were nose to nose, their glares matching in aggression and intensity. Lennox hung back, fingers at the bridge of her nose.
“Stop it!” I screamed. “Just stop it! You have no idea what you’re talking about Vic! If you’re going to beat him up for being Zero’s henchman you may as well throw a punch at me too.”
Vic stepped away from Eli and narrowed his eyes at me. “Excuse me?” Stepping back, Vic waited for me to respond. Lennox opened her eyes and released her nose from her fingers’ grasp. Even Eli waited for my response. I quirked my head to the side, feeling defeated. I wanted all my skeletons to stay in the past, dead and buried, where they belonged, but that didn’t seem possible.
“I suppose I’m not such a damsel after all.”
SIX MONTHS BEFORE
Potatoes. I was getting potatoes. Mama needed potatoes to cook that night, and that was why I left the house to come to the market. I kept repeating the words like a mantra in my head: Potatoes. I’m getting potatoes.
Healing happened with time, that’s what people said. The past two weeks had been a slow, torturous reminder that despite how much people waxed on about the swiftness of time in their later years, time did not change. The Earth orbited the Sun at a torturously constant rate. Now, I hadn’t paid as much attention as I should have when Eli was teachin’ me about physics, but I knew sometimes time does wonky stuff. I knew sometimes time is relative. I knew sometimes it isn’t as cut an’ dry as time equals the Earth’s orbiting.
For the previous two weeks though, you could be sure the Earth behaved accordingly, because those two weeks moved at exactly the length they were supposed to, and not a minute less. I knew. I counted.
I counted each hour of each day like it was my own personal rosary. The hour hand ticked by with slow precision, each tick getting me further and further away from my armageddon. I watched the second hand tick tick tick a constant, mocking rhythm. I prayed for a miracle, for divine intervention, to move the damned minute hand faster and make time move forward.
My miracle never came.
Wandering the produce section of the supermarket, I heard
the distinct tick tick tick of the second hand. Somewhere in that supermarket, a clock did its duty, reminding me that I was never, ever far away from Hell.
I fingered the tomatoes, wrinkly and near death. All the produce was either dead or dying, just like the town. Just like me. There hadn’t been a good shipment of produce in months. The only thing our town shipped any more was drugs. As I touched another dying, decayed piece of fruit, I felt a tug on my arm and was pulled aside before another breath left my body.
“Where have you been?”
“Eli.” His name passed my lips like a prayer. Seeing him now, it was so much harder. It wasn’t his fault what had happened. It wasn’t his fault our baby was dead. I knew that.
“What’s wrong, Bug? Why haven’t you been at the tree? I’ve been so worried.” Eli clasped my hands.
“I’m getting potatoes,” I murmured. “We’re out of potatoes.” I’d been talking like that lately, in blunt, laconic one-liners. It was all I could do to state the obvious. I felt if I dug deeper than what was right in front of me, I would suffocate.
“When you weren’t at our spot these past weeks I really started to worry. It was only when I saw you at your dad’s funeral that I knew you were okay.”
“We can’t…” I eyed the boxes of pasta on the wall to our left, as if they were going to grant me enlightenment. I noticed that a few of the boxes were expired, but that didn’t really surprise me. The old supermarket was hanging on its last legs. Everything in the town was dead or dying.
The boxes had probably been there since the first time Eli said he loved me.
“I can’t see you anymore.” I kept my eyes trained on the pasta boxes, willing the tears to stay locked behind the lids. It had been bound to happen. Eli was going to go to college and I was going to stay there. That had been the end goal when I’d taken his place. Now…now I was just speeding up the process.
“What?” Eli grabbed my hands. “Grace what are you talking about? Baby, what’s going on? What the hell happened to you these past two weeks?”
Baby.
I’d lost our baby. I’d nearly died. Daddy had a heart attack and actually died. I’d sold my soul to Zero. For you.
“What?” Eli pressed. “Dammit Grace, what is going on?”
“I’m leaving town,” I lied. I needed to create a distance between Eli and me. If he didn’t go to school then everything was for nothing.
“Well,” Eli said. “I’ll come with you.” It was that fast and that easy for Eli. Even after gaining his dream, he was still willing to sacrifice it for me. He was willing to follow me to the ends of the earth for no other reason than love.
And that was the problem.
I was not good enough for Eli. He deserved to get out of the dying town and to flourish. I was already damaged. The town had ruined me. I was barren and owned by Zero. Tied to me, Eli would become bereft too.
“You can’t.” I couldn’t look at him. His face would break me. I loved him not just with my heart but my entire body, my soul. “It’s not that simple. You’re going to school, remember?”
“And you’re coming with me. Right?” Eli tried to pull me close but I turned away from him.
I felt numb. My heart had bled out of my body the day our baby died. Absolute destruction had befallen me. I was razed, an utter ruin of a person, and if Eli stayed he would be ruined too.
How did I beginto tell him when I couldn’t even tell myself? Anytime I thought of…that day, I blocked it out. Permanent marker forever smudged the memory. It wasn’t possible, what had happened to me. I simply couldn’t have lost all that, without even realizing I’d had it.
“Whatever it is,” Eli said, determined. “We can figure it out together.”
My eyes snapped to his. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to wrap my fingers around the hands that held mine. There was a coldness inside me now that chilled me to the core. I couldn’t even feel his fingers on mine. The usual roughness was gone. The only way I registered their location was through sight.
I had memories of Eli, but they were as real to me as words in an unread book. Whatever feeling I’d attached to our memories had frozen with my core. I saw my memories as if through clouded ice. I placed my hand on the ice, feeling its frigid exterior, and watched our past whiz by. I saw the first time we met. I saw our first kiss. I saw the first time we made love. I saw everything, but it was all stuck behind ice.
I peeled my hand away, the frost still sticking to my skin, and watched my memories dissolve. I had no pickaxe and the sun seemed to be perpetually set. Vaguely I registered Eli’s frantic tones as he pleaded with me to open up.
If I opened up it would mean talking about that day. It would mean telling Eli the reason he was going to college was because I wasn’t leaving, but staying there and working for Zero. It would mean unfreezing and feeling all the awful emotions I was afraid might overwhelm me.
Eli wasn’t numb. Eli was still Eli. He eventually stopped pleading and simply watched me. He saw my impassivity, and came to the same conclusion. Whatever had made me me was utterly iced. If Eli stuck around, he would freeze too.
Eli left for school a month later. I like to think I made it easy for him to go. The last time we spoke was the day at the supermarket. He tried to talk to me. He tried very hard. He’d realized I was lying about leaving town and since Daddy had died, he’d become emboldened. He’d rapped on my door every day, but I’d stayed locked in my room.
He came home every other weekend and tried to see me, but I stayed hidden. I wanted him to move on with his life. I wanted better for Eli. I was trapped in that town; trapped with my shadows and my ghosts and all my shames. He could be better.
Eventually he stopped coming. That day was bittersweet—more bitter than sweet. I cried all day when I realized there would be no rapping on the door that weekend. It was one thing to want to be forgotten, and another to actually be forgotten.
Mama disappeared inside herself. Without Daddy there to yell at her and use her like a megaphone, she was just a shell. Our house was empty. Despite his absence, his shadows remained. I still couldn’t go upstairs, because of the time I had and he’d beaten me to near unconsciousness.
I still felt like I could only leave under the cover of night, but I stayed in the house of shadows and I stayed with my mama, the shell. She refused to eat what I made for her. She was slowly withering away. I feared she would die soon.
“Mama?” I asked her one night. Holding her dinner, I waited for a response. Her eyes were glazed. Wrapped in a blanket, she stared at the wall. I sighed, setting the split pea soup in front of her. I shrugged and walked back into the kitchen.
“I should have done better by you.”
I paused, and turned around. “Did you say something, Mama?”
“I shouldn’t have waited so long to free us.”
“What are you talking about?” I kneeled so we were face to face. She was talking, but she wasn’t making any sense, and she still wasn’t looking at me. Mama stared off into space, a fog over her features. I clasped her hands, trying to bring her back to me.
A bellowing knock ricocheted around the house. I dropped Mama’s hands and, for the first time in months, felt excited. Maybe Eli hadn’t forgotten me. Maybe he was just running late this weekend. I knew it was stupid and selfish of me—I was supposed to be letting him go—but I ran to the door. I had to see him.
I opened the door, expecting Eli.
“Zero,” I gasped.
“In the flesh,” he responded, a crooked smile on his face.
“What—why are you here?”
“It’s been awhile since you came around. You forget your deal?”
No, I hadn’t forgot the deal I’d made. In any case, I imagined the devil didn’t let you forget your deals, which was why Zero was at my doorstep. “I’ve had some family troubles. My daddy died,” I tried to explain. In reality, it wasn’t Daddy’s death that was causing me such intense, agonizing heartache.
�
�Are you dying?” Zero asked.
I was a bit stunned. “No.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.” Zero walked away without another word. I watched him amble down the wooden steps of my house, which were desperately in need of repair. Weeds, tree roots, and dandelions were breaking through the wood, causing the steps to sit at odd angles. Nevertheless, Zero walked with unnerving ease.
I went back inside, passing Mama along the way, her stare unwavering. “Who was that?”
Again, Mama’s question caught me off guard and I had to backtrack. I paused in the doorway, hand on the empty frame. Years ago Daddy had removed all the doors in the house, even the ones in the bathroom. Privacy was the devil’s weapon.
“I’m sorry Mama, I didn’t catch that.”
Head turned slightly, so that her ear was pressed against the chair, she asked, “Who was at the door, baby?”
“No one, Mama. Just a neighbor child.” Mama seemed satisfied at that, and turned back to staring at the wall. I stayed in place a while longer, wondering what could have possessed her to suddenly start talking after weeks of quiet. In the end I didn’t find an answer.
I numbly sorted Zero’s drugs. He sold marijuana and meth. I guessed those were the biggest sellers in our county. I thought I overheard one of his guys talking about how he sold different drugs in different cities, but I couldn’t be sure. I wasn’t exactly employee of the month there.
Since working for Zero I’d lowered Eli’s debt from twenty grand to a resounding nineteen point five. After Zero had showed up at my house, I’d gone to the warehouse and had been working non-stop. Non-stop, yet I’d only put a five hundred dollar dent in the debt. I felt like a slave in my own town.
My job wasn’t to sell drugs, since after the initial “trial run” I proved to be much better at organizing and maintaining the supply. I loaded the drugs into the correct boxes, kept the right numbers for the right routes, and kept the inventory. If some of the inventory went missing, they knew who to blame: me.
Let Me Go (Owned Book 2) Page 16