“Yes, Vikki. I must.”
She shakes her head vigorously. She looks at Vlad. I turn to look at him as well. His hand’s still hanging dangerously by his side—the piece.
“Vikki, please. It’s OK.”
She doesn’t stay silent. “No!” She turns to Xavier, “You fucking piece of shit! Go ahead and blow your fucking brains out! No one gives a shit—”
“Vikki!” My hand goes to her wrist.
She stops. Then, she points a long finger (bright red nail polish) at Xavier and says, “I don’t give a fuck how high you are. You lay a finger on her and...” She runs her index finger across her neck. “See these men here?” She points at Vlad and Sasha. “I will have them take your fingernails out one by one if you fuck with me!” Then, to me, she says, “I hope you know what you’re doing. Because he’s not worth it!”
But he is, because he’s the last link I have to Savva.
She storms out. Vlad and Sasha follow suit hesitantly, Vlad’s eyes lingering a second on me before exiting. The door closes. Xavier says, “Lock it.” I do. Then he says, “Sit.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said no. You got something to say to me, say it. But I’m not your fucking pet. And Vikki’s right, you wanna blow your goddamned brains out, then fucking do it! I actually called you to thank you. You know, you did one good fucking thing in your life, Xavier. And you deserve thanks for that. But I’m not going to give you the sympathy that you think you’re gonna get if you blow your goddamned brains out—”
He growls the next words out. His hand quivers hard on the trigger. “I’m not looking for sympathy!”
“Put the gun down, Xavier. You’re baked, and if you wanna take your life, go ahead. But I have a life to live, and I don’t wanna risk you pulling that trigger on me—”
“I’d never do that—”
“Just put the fucking gat down! CHRIST!” He does it. Instantly. On the table. “On the couch!” I point to it. Zombified, he does that as well, then sits forward again at his table. “Now, I’m just gonna tell my friend I’m OK. Because you scared the shit out of her with your fucking drama queen act. So...just hang there, and don’t do shit!”
I step back, always facing him, and I unlock the door. I open it—my back to it—still looking at him. “Vikki, we’re cool. Just so you know.”
I hear her whispering by my ear. “Blaze, you sure?”
“We’re OK, Vikki. He’s put the gun down. And I’m leaving the door unlocked.” I say that last part louder, so Xavier can hear me. He seems to be fading. “Xavier! I’m keeping the door unlocked. Because we’re just chatting here, right?” He waves a dismissive hand at me. Quietly, to Vikki, I say, “Vik, it’s cool. Door’s open. I’ll shout if I need your help, OK?” I feel her fingers on my shoulder through the crack in the door. She gives me a tight squeeze. Then I close the door.
I ease up to Xavier. The piece is still within his reach, but we’d have to fight for it if he suddenly went crazy like he did at Swallow Café, because it’s not easily within his reach. We sit in silence for a few minutes. He takes his fedora off, throws it on the white rug. Rubs his fingers through his black hair. There’s an ashtray on the table. At least twenty smokes in it, a few joints as well.
“How long you been sitting here playing Russian Roulette?”
He mumbles.
“What?”
“A few hours.”
“And how many times have you pulled the trigger?”
He looks up at me. “It wasn’t loaded the first fifty times. I pulled it three times after I put the bullet in. Including when you were in the room here.”
I imagine what it would’ve been like to see Xavier’s glowing blood smattered everywhere around this pristine room. “That’s not right, you know?” I say.
“What?”
“Having other people find you like it’s some statement you’re making to the world. It’s disgusting. And it hurts those who love you.”
“No one loves me.”
“I love you, Xavier.”
“You don’t love me. You never did.”
“I did. And I do. Just not the love you maybe wanted. We were never made for each other romantically, Xavier. You should know that. What we shared was wonderful and beautiful, but you know we were both smoked out of our minds in those days. And I wasn’t ready for that shit emotionally either. But, like a brother, I’ve loved you ever since we were kids.”
He wipes his eye. Snoop Dogg’s singing Whoop Your Ass with Kurupt. “Life was simple when we was kids, remember?”
“I do.”
“How did it all get so fucked up, Blaze? How did we get so far into the shit?”
“We made choices, Xavier. Choices we have to live with.”
“I can’t live with the choices I made. My choice killed my sister.” His chin starts trembling. Tears fall on the table. He reaches in his jacket and I react instantly by jumping. “Chill. It’s just smokes.” He pulls out a pack of turquoise American Spirits; lights one up. His hand is trembling.
“What you on now?”
“Just weed. Did some H earlier.”
“Xavier, it’s been over a year since you and I spoke regularly. But I can’t be friends with you if you carry on this lifestyle. I appreciate what you did for me with Randy, getting me the gig at House Market. It’s opened up so many doors for me...” I leave out my feelings for Declan, who’s first and foremost in my mind right now. Especially when the Ruger was waving aimlessly in our direction earlier. “...but that doesn’t excuse your actions when you’re high. It doesn’t give you the right to raise a hand to me—”
“Blaze, I’m so sorry about that—”
“Let me finish, X. It doesn’t give you that right. Nothing gives you that right. But it’s worse than that. Because I know that shit wasn’t you. That shit is...this!” I point at the joints. “The coke, the H. And even if the drugs didn’t turn you to Mr. Hyde, what would I do, X, if you and I did get close again, and then one day you spiked too much because you just couldn’t get enough, and then died? I can’t go through that again. So, it’s simple, I think there’s more to you. You’re more than this crap. And that Xavier, the one I knew when we were kids, playing in the mud and pulling each other’s hair, that Xavier was always a friend. Him I cared about. You. But you’re not you on this crap. And that part of my life is over, X. It took my best friend’s life.
“I won’t let it take her brother’s life as well.”
This last statement undoes him completely. And his head falls into his hands—the tip of the smoke burning dangerously close to his long curly hair.
He regains composure and I say to him, “I’m taking the bullet from the Ruger, X.”
He doesn’t answer. I get up, move around him, pick the gat up from the couch. He showed me how to use it years ago, so I open up the cylinder and take out the single three-fifty-seven Magnum cartridge (basically, one motherfucking strong bullet!) I put the bullet on the table, put the gat back on the couch. I sit down again. “I’m sure you have plenty more of these things lying around.” I point at the bullet. “And I’m not going to take an illegal firearm out with me and end up getting arrested for it. It’s your life, Xavier. But if you continue to live it the way you do, I’m not going to be a part of it. You have to know that. I appreciate what you’ve done for me from the bottom of my heart. I’m also not oblivious to the pain you’ve caused me. And that’s not intended to blame you, because I’m fully aware of my role in it as well. But I’ve chosen to face my guilt. You need to do the same. And then you need to move on. A really close”—I ponder the right word—“friend of mine told me that there’s just no point in playing the facts over and over in your head. It happened. We need to learn from it and move forward. And if you can’t do that, you’re on a different track to the rest of us. You hear me?”
“This is all I know, Blaze. This is all I’ve ever known. I don’t even know where to start. Where do I start?”<
br />
“No one can answer that but you, X.”
He sucks in a desperate drag of nicotine. “This high is so totally fuckin busted it ain’t funny.”
I say nothing. “I’m gonna go, Xavier. Thank you...from the bottom of my heart. You changed so many things for me. But this is goodbye. If you wanna come clean, I’ll help you. But you gotta do it all the way—no using, no selling. And if you blow your brains out, I ain’t gonna come and fucking clean your gray matter off this floor. I’m sorry, I can’t do that again. I just can’t. But if you do come clean, I’ll be there for you. All the way. And you’ll have a friend in me. I promise you that. You hear me?”
In a rough voice, he mutters, “Yeah.”
“So, what’s it gonna be?”
He sucks in a drag. “Blaze, I wanna stop. I really do. But...the memories are too hard.” Silence. He thinks about it a second. Then, as if telling his mother he’s stolen money out her purse, he looks down and mumbles, “I can’t stop, Blaze. I...won’t...stop.” He doesn’t look me in the eyes.
“I see. Well, if that’s your choice...” I stand. I look at the gun, the bullet. I turn to leave. Two steps from the door, I turn back. Xavier hasn’t moved. I walk up to him again, bend down. I kiss his head. Then I grab the fucking bullet off the table. Maybe he doesn’t have more. I can hope.
And I walk out.
-5-
Vikki’s chewing her nails. Vlad and Sasha stand like bouncers around her. She almost knocks me over with a hug when she sees me. I’m shaking as I hold her. I hold out the bullet to Vlad behind her. He grabs it and puts it in his pocket; gives me a tight, respectful nod.
All this time, I’m waiting for the BOOM from behind the door, the one confirming that Xavier has indeed pulled another cartridge out, loaded it, and then fired.
I think this is why I don’t let Vikki go.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. It plays over and over in my mind. “We need to go,” she says.
BOOM, I hear in my mind. “Sure.”
Every step on the expensive carpeting is another BOOM. I imagine it as the elevator dings. I turn, and see Xavier’s door at the end of the hallway. The elevator closes. There is no BOOM.
I think of that philosophical conundrum about a tree and it falling. And would I hear the bullet from all the way down on the first floor? When we get outside, I look up at his terrace. We close the doors to Sasha and Vlad’s five series BMW.
In my mind, I’ve heard the boom a hundred times already. But the tree is on its own now. And if it goes BOOM, I won’t hear it. At least I got to say goodbye. I never got to say goodbye to Savva. I always wish I had. If I could only say goodbye, I think I could finally let her go.
BOOM. It’s not the bullet. It’s my eyes. And they’re watering. BOOM BOOM BOOM.
-6-
I text Deck.
Me: I love you.
He texts me back.
Declan: I love you, too. I miss you. And I need you.
I need him, too. I need him so badly that it hurts. I ask Vikki if she’ll drop me off at his place. She does. And he’s already there. Alone. His expression looks like he’s been through a war. “Tough day?” I sit on the couch next to him and cross my legs.
“Rough,” he says.
“I can see it.”
He rubs the back of his fingers over my temple. “Nothing compared to yours. That’s even plainer to see. What the fuck happened?”
I don’t argue. Because I think he’s right on that count. “I said goodbye to some old ghosts. That’s all. Did you make the money you wanted to?”
“More than that. Much more.”
As a joke, I say, “And, did the ‘hot blonde’ seduce you?”
His eyes flicker away nervously. He hesitates a second before answering. Then, stammering, he says, “Uhm, no, no.” He clears his throat. “It was cool. All above board.”
My skin goes cold. “Oh. Cool. So...all ran fine?”
He moves a little away from me. “Yeah, just business, you know. Whatever. Boring shit.”
I scratch my lip, wondering why I’m sensing a level of discomfort here that I can’t pinpoint. Maybe she ran her fingers through his hair and made him uncomfortable or something, and he doesn’t want to burden me with it.
I let it go.
I lie down on the couch, and put my head on his lap. I stroke his knee. The sun is setting fast. “You not hanging with Trev and Skate tonight?”
“No, I just wanted to be with you.”
“Me too.”
“Wanna spend the night again?”
I wanna spend every night. “Yeah. But only if you spend the night at my place tomorrow.”
“Deal. I gotta catch up on my reading.”
“Not making it with your e-reader?”
“It’s not that. Your place is cool to read in in the morning—the way the light glows in, golden and peaceful.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna miss it. I mean, when the lease runs out.”
He runs his fingers slowly over the shaved side of my hair, then moves his hand over to my shoulder. “How’s your new friend’s place?”
“Not nearly as large as mine. But maybe it’ll be cool to get a roommate, you know. A new leaf.”
His hand moves down my arm, then up again. “So you’re not gonna look for a place anymore?”
I shrug as best I can while lying down. “I’ll see how things go.” I tell him about Randy’s call, and the potential label deal.
“Damn, that changes things. Money changes everything.” His tone is wistful.
I sit up, peer at him. “Deck, you sure you OK?”
“I’m good. Just a lot on my mind. Look, there’ll be a small memorial service for my pops on the weekend. Would you come with me?”
“Of course. I’d be honored to.” I move in and intend to peck him lightly on the cheek, but he turns, and his lips connect with mine.
And just like that, all is right with the world.
Completely, and absolutely right.
-7-
Now on his bed, I can’t shake the feeling there’s an invisible barrier between us. As he takes off my sweater and top in the dark, moves his lips to my nipples and kisses them, I sense it. I try and connect with him. I try and bring back the heat and the lost-in-the-moment passion we’ve felt together for the last week, but it’s as elusive as a plume of smoke in a howling tornado.
As he enters me, I hold him tightly around the neck. In my ear, he says, “I love you, Blaze Ryleigh. I love you endlessly.”
Thrusting inwards, he holds me. And I gasp the words back at him, “I love you, too.”
Sweat forms between our touching temples. Sounds increase and tension mounts. We grow closer, we climb, we roar, we howl exquisitely. That pleasant sting hits us. And we tumble over the edge together.
In the end, he turns from me, looks up at the ceiling. I put my hand on his chest, kiss his ear. “You know you can tell me anything, right, Deck?”
He swallows. “I know. But if I don’t, just know that it’s because I don’t want you to worry.”
That one hurts a little. “Can I trust you? Just answer me that.”
His face turns to me and his glowing blue eyes burn into my soul. With all the sincerity in the world, he says, “You can trust me absolutely. I promise you that.”
I run a hand over his golden hair. “OK. Just know that I’m a big girl. I can take a lot of shit. I think I learned that today.”
“I’m trying to save you the shit in the first place.”
“I see. OK. Fine. Just know that I’m here for you. OK?”
“OK.” He kisses me, long and passionately.
It isn’t as quick the second time round, but it does happen again: The world disappears. And so do its worries.
And so does this conversation. BOOM BOOM BOOM.
TWENTY-NINE
REARVIEW MIRRORS
-1-
Declan Cox
A degree of normalcy enters our lives. And, for the first time in a
long time, I feel myself settling into a complacent routine. Every now and then I think of pops—and that final image of him will be forever imprinted in my mind—but I find comfort in thinking he left us in doing one final, gallant act. An act that, essentially, saved the life of his son. Because my boys are my life. And now, so is my girl. So, thinking of how pops saved Trev’s life starts setting my mind at ease. Time heals, and even though it’s been only a week, I feel that mental convalescence strongly. It helps that Catalina didn’t bother putting up a fight. “Cut and dry,” said the prosecutor. She’s trying to blame me for “enraging her” but pretty much confesses to pulling the trigger—and regretting the shit out of it.
We all live with our regrets, don’t we?
Doc Abrahams called me and said he cleared it with Gina’s parents: I’m cool to continue visiting her to assist in her therapy. I do it twice more. And, both times, she flips. Both times, she calls me the devil. Both times, I retch when I get outside the home. The rage and terror in her eyes is so thick I can feel it hit me like a punch every time I’m with her. That’s been twice now—it’s Thursday today. Doc Abrahams, however, keeps telling me this is “the most progress” they’ve seen in months. So I agree to do it more.
The only problem is the nightmares: Gina’s dark blue eyes—large and quivering with eternal terror—find their way into my dreams. I awake twice in a sweat, once at Blaze’s place. Once at my own; Blaze by my side.
Blaze asks, “Is it your pops?”
And I lie.
Because I don’t wanna burden her...
I think she knows I’m holding back, and I feel the sharp blade of tension running across our relationship like a newly whetstoned Ginsu over the thumb—slow and dry. Why am I not telling her these things?
Because I’m scared. There, I admitted it. I’m scared of losing her. I feel on edge. Too much has changed, and too fast. If it hadn’t been for Blaze, I woulda dropped a mother-lode of Es last week Thurdsay when pops got shot. And I probably woulda been smoking up Queen Green with Skate all the way until now. I’ve moved plenty furniture while baked on grass before.
Find Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book Two) Page 17
