“Sorry about that. Jude. Anyway, I’ll be back on Thursday. Then I am having you all weekend. And then I am locking you in the condo, selling your house, and moving all your shit in.”
“Is that the Tax Draconi way of asking me to move in with you?” she asks. I feel her cheek press up against my chest as she smiles.
“Actually, I think I am.”
She pauses for a moment and nuzzles into my chest.
“Well, since you asked so nicely...but only if there’s room for my pink and silver CD player.”
“Oh fuck. My property value is going to plummet, but I think I have a spot for it. Hidden. In a box. Deep inside of a cabinet. Where no one can ever see it,” I say, enjoying the music of her laughter.
14 Years Earlier
It’s been three days since I woke up and I still haven’t seen Jude. I keep asking to see her and everyone avoids the subject, saying she’s sedated, or she’s recovering. Today’s the first day I am allowed to roam the hospital in crutches. Up until now, the pain in my ribs was too severe to bear my own weight.
Of course, my first stop is Jude’s room. The hospital is small and it only takes minutes to find her, even at my slow pace. There are two beds in the room, but the one closest to the door is empty. The curtain is drawn between them, blocking Jude from view. On the television is a rerun of Saved by the Bell, her favorite show.
I trudge into the room, peek past the curtain and a strong current of nausea rocks me in the gut. She looks so tiny in the bed, her body covered in purple and green bruises. Her face is scratched up. She’s sleeping, and I choke back the tears and snot that erupt out of me as I take in what they did to her while I lay unconscious just feet away.
I tuck my face into my forearm, stifling the heaving sobs that erupt. My muffled sobs stir Jude and she turns her face and opens her eyes.
“What are you doing here?” she asks groggily.
I suck back tears. “I wanted to see you.”
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” she says.
All along, it was Jude who asked not to see me these past few days.
“Why?”
Her lips quiver uncontrollably, her eyes go red and glossy with tears. “I—I—I’m—embarrassed.”
Then a flood of tears stream down her face and my choked sobs break free. For minutes, she and I just cry. Not just about this, but everything. We had never allowed ourselves the privilege of self-pity.
But if there is any time to wallow in our sorrows, it’s now.
I sit next to her.
“I should be embarrassed, not you. I was the idiot who believed Mia would ever want to see me. They used my stupidity to set me up. They hurt you Jude. You didn’t do anything wrong. They should be embarrassed.”
“They made you watch—“ she starts crying again. I understand the shame. Though it’s not her fault, the idea of her brother witnessing her lose her virginity in such a disgusting way still stings with humiliation. I’m embarrassed I had to see it too.
“I didn’t see much. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them. They knocked me out over and over. I tried so hard to stop them.”
“I wish we were stronger. That we could have killed them. Another thing we can thank dad for, being late bloomers.” She says it like a joke, but I know she means every word.
We sit in devastated silence for a while, until Jude summons up the strength to speak again.
“Sil...they told me—that I’m—I had bleeding and they had to do surgery. That I won’t be able to—have—babies.”
I wince in devastation, tears that may as well have been fire rain down my face. Ever since we were little, she cherished every doll like it was a real child. We didn’t get toys a lot, so when we did it was a big deal. She told me she wanted to have kids who would have a nice mother and father like we never had. She wanted to rewrite our lives through her own children. And now, even that inherent gift she was given, the ability to make her own life, was gone.
“When did the doctors say you would be able to walk?” I ask.
“I can stand to go pee now. But I think it’s another week before I can really move. Why?”
“We’re not safe here. Did dad tell you?”
“I know. He said that he would hurt you if I told.”
“It’s not just him, Sheriff Tibbett, the Pettits, they all know and they are covering it up. We can’t live here. I won’t let you go to school and have to face those assholes.”
“I wish I could kill them all, make them suffer forever.”
I nod, wishing there was a way I could blow this whole fucking town into smithereens.
“What are we gonna do?” she asks.
“As soon as we are both discharged, when pops is at work, we’re running away. And then, I promise you, one day, we will make every piece of shit in this town pay.”
We sob in silence until there are no more tears.
It will be the last time I ever cry.
He can’t wait to see you.
That’s the text I get from Tax on Thursday morning, accompanied by a pic of his gorgeous cock.
What about the other head attached to your body?
You know the answer to that. I meant what I said before I left, about you staying. That’s not just Hercules talking.
Hercules? Please tell me you just made that up.
I did? ;)
I can forgive anything but naming your cock Hercules.
I was jk (not really). But serious about the other part.
I know. And I meant what I said as my answer.
Good. Now you can stop pretending that you do anything other than think about me all day.
Likewise, Tax.
Boarding. I’ll see you in a few hours.
I spend the next few hours working at my desk, trying to keep my mind off my reunion with Tax. At about 11:30 Laney rings me.
“Hey.”
“Hey. I have a call on the line from someone with Draconi?”
“Draconi? Really?”
I’ve never spoken with anyone other than Tax regarding Draconi. And I find it unusual that he wouldn’t give me any advance warning that someone else might be calling.
“Did the person give a name?”
“Yes, she said it was important. Name is...Judith James.”
Jude? “Yes. Yes, put her through.”
Laney patches the call to me.
“Hello? Jude?” I ask.
“Yes, hi Mia.”
“Oh my god it’s been so long. Is everything okay?” For a moment I panic, remembering Tax is a on a flight and she is his closest relative.
“Yes. Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you. I was hoping I could speak to you in private as soon as possible. Maybe meet around lunch?”
“Ummm...yeah...yeah. Sure. What’s this about?” Tax said she had a hard time coming to terms with what happened. Maybe she’s ready to hear my side of things.
“It’s about Tax. I’m worried. I need to ask you a favor. Please don’t tell him I am reaching out to you. At least not until after we speak.”
“Okay...” I respond hesitantly. “Could we do this outside of the office?”
“I would prefer that as these are personal matters.”
“Okay. Does noon work for you? There is a park across the street from Alea. Do you know where that is?”
“Yes. I’ll see you then.”
My knees bounce up and down as I wait nervously on a park bench for Jude. I almost feel the need to apologize to her. Even though I didn’t do anything, all these years she thinks I did. All these years, in her mind, I set up her brother and her eventual torture.
And I want to say sorry for what happened to her. I know it’s not my fault, but it’s just like saying sorry to someone when they lose a loved one. You aren’t accepting blame, rather expressing your regret for the tragedy itself.
In retrospect, I feel like I was part of the problem. I befriended Sil, but that wasn’t enough. I didn’t invite him to sit with me at lunch,
I didn’t introduce him to my friends. As a kid, the impact of those small acts didn’t even occur to me. It was easier to just keep Sil to myself. In a way, I liked our secret friendship and I didn’t want to share him.
And Jude, she came to my house a few times and kept herself occupied while Sil and I worked on our project. She was always nice, a little more rambunctious than Sil. I liked her. But I never really reached out to her. I could have invited her to hang out with me and my girlfriends, but I just let the status quo be.
I should have done more. Being a nice person on the sidelines isn’t good enough. I know that now, but I didn’t when I was 16.
At about five after, I spot a petite woman walking through the park entrance. She is still a tiny thing. Of course she’s a woman now, so a few inches taller and a maybe a hundred pounds. It’s almost comical how tiny she is compared to Tax. Her raven hair is cut into a sharp bob, and she is sharply dressed in all black: pants tucked into high-heeled boots, a buttoned up black blazer, and black cat-eye sunglasses. I remember in high school, she used to wear so much color, while Sil dressed like he was in a perpetual state of mourning. Right now, she looks as though her next stop could possibly be a funeral.
I stand up and wave in her direction, she nods and walks towards me.
“Jude, it’s so good to see you. Really,” I say, extending my arms out for a hug.
She accepts, but the hug is tentative.
Jude pulls off her sunglasses, revealing her big dark eyes, framed by long thick lashes, just like Tax. She has grown into a very attractive woman. “I appreciate you taking out the time to meet me. I imagine Tax might have given you a certain impression of me. So, thank you for giving me the chance to explain my side of things,” she says as we both sit on the bench.
“Of course. And well, Tax just said you were having a hard time accepting that things weren’t what you originally thought. And I just want you to know that I never, ever knew. I thought I lost the letter. I didn’t even know it was a letter to be honest. If I had known, I would have told my father and made sure he brought everyone to justice.”
Her dark eyes grow, and she leans back a bit, seemingly taken aback by my statement. She adjusts her position on the bench to face me. “I understand that. But Mia, I’m here to tell you, there are some things you should know about Tax. Things he clearly hasn’t told you.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Draconi, Ms. Tibbett stepped out to lunch and then she called saying she wasn’t feeling well and was going home. She’s been fighting a bug all week. I cancelled her appointments, but I didn’t see anything with you today,” says Mia’s assistant, who stares at me a little too obviously every time I come into the office.
“No, that’s fine. I was just in the area and thought I would stop in for a quick chat.” I hoped to surprise Mia for lunch. I dropped a text on the way from the airport, but she didn’t respond. She must be resting at her house.
On the way to her place, I stop by the Milwaukee Public Market and get her soup from her favorite spot. That’s what good boyfriends do, right? I’m learning as I go here.
When I get to Mia’s, I use the keys she gave me to enter just in case she’s napping. I have my own pair, from my vendetta days, but I like using the ones she gave me instead. I enter the foyer and turn into the living room, where a single lamp is lit. And that’s when I see her, sitting on the couch, bent forward, her chest trembling. She’s crying. Something is wrong. She must be feeling really sick. Or someone hurt her. I’ll fucking kill whoever it was.
“Mia? What’s wrong, babe?” I ask, placing the soup on the nearest table.
She looks up at me, her eyes puffy and raw. I’ve made her shed tears before, but this time she looks torn up. This is different.
“Jude told me everything,” she says.
I’m going to kill that little bitch.
“Woah, woah. What are you talking about?”
“You know damn well what I’m talking about!” She pauses, like she’s afraid to ask. “Did you...kill my father?”
Shame. There it goes, wrapping around my chest and squeezing tight. Fear. Pounding on my heart like a tribal drum. I’m going to lose Mia today. I’m going to lose the best thing that ever happened to me.
“Calm down. Let me explain.”
“I won’t calm down! Explain? It was a yes or no question. You were going to kill me that night. The night you came into my house. You didn’t come just to intimidate me. You were going to slit my throat you sick fuck!”
Though I stand tall above her, my insides wither to their smallest point. Now I feel sick.
I tried to explain to her who I really am, but she didn’t fucking get it. I didn’t want to see her like this, I was trying to protect her from the ugly truth.
“Mia, I would never hurt you.”
“All you’ve done is hurt me. Over and over. And it’s my fault for being an idiot and thinking I could save you. It’s my stupid savior complex bullshit.”
“You did save me,” I say, desperate to hold onto any shred of respect or love Mia might have for me.
But those words don’t touch her heart, which is shielded by anger and betrayal.
She scowls at me. “If I had evidence, if my father wasn’t cremated, I wouldn’t hesitate to call the police on you. You’re lucky your sister made it clear that there’s no trace of anything you did.”
“Jude is trying to sabotage us.”
Mia laughs incredulously. “She told me the real reason you didn’t want us to meet. Because she wanted to tell me everything. You made her sound like some sort of unhinged psycho. She was perfectly calm and fine when I met her.”
My desperation converts into manic rage as I ball my fists up at my temples and shout. “Mia, she’s nuts. Can’t you see what she’s doing? She wanted you dead. I have been trying to keep her from hurting you!”
“Well, I was right in front of her today and she didn’t do anything.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Sometime during the shouting, Mia had stood to her feet. I was too overwhelmed to notice, but I do notice when she breaks down again, sitting back on the couch.
“Why, Tax? My dad was a good man. I get the others, but you took the only person I ever could trust. You took him from me and left me alone in this world. My mom was taken away and then my dad...You sick son of a bitch.”
“You have to understand...I didn’t tell you things because I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Stop! Just stop saying that!”
“Mia, he might have been a good dad to you. But he was a different man to me and Jude. I didn’t want to tell you this...but he was part of the cover up. He took money and even when I tried to tell him what happened, he told me he would arrest Jude and me for stealing my dad’s car and attacking him. He told me to never see you again.”
She rises up to her feet. “Shut up! You don’t get to talk about him! He was a good man!”
“I understand why he did it. He had to raise a daughter all by himself. How do you think he sent you to Marquette on his salary? Helped you buy your house? Mia, it was blood money! My blood, my sister’s blood!”
“You’re a fucking liar! My mother had life insurance.”
“Her life insurance policy was shit.”
“How would you know? Oh yeah, you’ve been spying on me for years. You’re crazy and I’m fucking crazier for ever trusting you.”
I can’t get through to her. Panic sets in as I stand there, watching Mia slip away from me. I have to get through, through the anger, pain, and fear. I can’t lose her again.
“Mia, my little eighty-pound sister was gang-raped by a bunch of drunk teenagers who each outweighed her by at least one hundred and ten pounds. They beat me within an inch of my life. Then they fucked her with broken bottles, tree branches, they beat her, they kicked her in the stomach. I saw her lie there lifeless while they fucked her limp body. Your ex-boyfriend and his disgusting brother forced his friends to do it, so that none of them woul
d tell. They were so brutal, they took away her ability to have children. And your fucking father turned a blind eye. Two teenagers who he knew came from a house full of abuse, who never even knew their mother, who had no other person to turn to but him, who he had a responsibility to protect, he turned his back on them! Who knows what else he turned a blind eye to? Whatever good you think he did, that single act defined him.”
“What defines you?”
“I don’t hurt people unless they hurt me first.”
She snickers. “Really?” What a hypocritical thing to say to her.
“Your dad thought I was trash and he made that clear to me the day he came into my hospital room. He told me to never come to your house again. I was lying there, covered in stitches, bones broken, spirit crushed, and he told me I wasn’t welcome. He wasn’t all good Mia. He might have been your daddy, but he was another person in a long line of people who hurt me.”
“Shut up!” Mia howls. “Get out! I hate you! I don’t ever want to see you again. Ever!”
I take a breath and soften my tone. “Fuck. Mia, you don’t want to do this.”
“Get out! I don’t care if you fucking put a billboard of us fucking on Times Square. Fire me from Alea. You can’t ruin my life any more than you already have. You’re a fucking psychopath. Leave! Don’t call me. Don’t try to come back. If I see you anywhere around me, I will call the police and I will get a restraining order,” she cries.
“Mia, I’m not gonna give up on you so easily.”
The woman who has grown to look at me with happiness in her eyes now looks at me with devastation instead. “It doesn’t matter, Tax. Because I have given up on you. Now leave, or I am calling the police.”
Debt Page 30
