by Mara White
That’s the real reason Jaylee wants to go.
The air is darkening between us. I can read frustration and jealousy in him, but it’s rage I see building, that scares me the most. It’s in his eyes, in the way he holds his mouth, in the very way he stands and holds his frame. I rush to him naked and hold him tightly to me.
“We don’t have to go. Why don’t we just stay here and talk?”
My guess is that if Ideal sees us together, he’ll keep his distance, but I’m sure he’ll gloat. There’s also chemistry between us, which will be hard for Jaylee to witness: Ideal and I have become close; there’s no denying it.
But however uncomfortable, it may be the cure for our predicament. Maybe Jaylee will have no reason to stick around if he thinks he’s lost me.
But if Jaylee believes that I’ve chosen Ideal, I’m afraid he might actually try to kill him.
“No, we have to go,” he says. “I want to show everybody that no matter what happens, me and you are for real. There’s nothing that can come between us. Nothing.”
As he says the last part, he looks at me so fiercely that I think maybe it’s a threat directed at me as well.
Because I’m what comes between us. All the fucking time. And I’ll do it again tonight.
I wonder for a moment what it would be like to be carried away by this love, to put total faith in it, as Jaylee always does. My whole life, I’ve longed to feel the way I do for this man. But now that it’s here, and he feels it too, I have to save him by turning him away.
I remind myself that what matters most is his freedom, a second opportunity to live his life, instead of wasting away behind bars. A chance for him to marry and have children—a chance to grow old. Of course I want the pleasure, the volatile spark of our connection. But if denying myself that can give Jaylee a shot at long-term happiness, there’s no question what I should do.
I have to break his heart now or risk never being able to let go.
I have clothes at Jaylee’s house, left from my trip with Janinie: the suitcases that Robert refused to hear about. The trip was in June, and it’s now only August, but it may as well have happened a lifetime ago. I dress in jeans and a tank top—gone is my desire to look desirable. I’m so defeated I just want to go home. The idea of denying Jaylee my love is bitter torture, when all I want to do is protect him and shield him from pain. I sit on Janinie’s bed and pull my wedges back on; Jaylee walks in wearing just jeans, his strong chest and defined stomach all still deliciously exposed.
Does he have any idea how breathtaking he is? How he makes my heart gallop just by entering the room? He stops short when his golden eyes reach mine. He can read the relinquishment in my face. He’ll never understand that me not fighting for us is me fighting for him.
“I would kill him if I could.”
“Oh, God! Can we please stay here? Let’s just not go.”
“You were mine to take care of, Kate. Mine to comfort. The tears you cried were for my baby. Not for some culebra to step in and take advantage. You think he was trying to help? He was planning my fucking downfall—and you almost fell for it, Kate. You almost fell for him.”
“I’m not a weapon, Jaylee, for you two to toss around.”
“You were hurting, and he stepped in like the piece of shit he is and took from me what was mine—because he saw an opening.”
“This isn’t about you and Ideal, Jaylee. Don’t make it about that. He’s an easy target. There are much bigger things at stake. You and Ideal share a history of fighting over women. I never would have made the mistake, had I known.”
“We’re going—and I hope it kills that motherfucker to see us back together.”
I just hope it’s not the other way around.
Chapter 20
We grab a gypsy cab on Broadway. Jaylee is agitated, fidgety. He rubs my fingers mindlessly. He hasn’t noticed that I’ve stopped wearing my wedding rings. I want to tell the driver to keep going, take us anywhere but here. Drop us in Jersey, the South Bronx—I’d walk home, I don’t care. But Jaylee has a death wish and he refuses to let it go.
“Janinie will be there,” he says brightly.
Oh God. I guess he doesn’t realize that Janinie can no longer stand me. She’s loyal to only one of us, and I screwed that up when I screwed Ideal.
“Great,” I say flatly. We’ve pulled up outside the party and I can hear the music echoing out over the Heights. Jaylee pays the fare and slides out along the long leather seat.
“I’m done with these games. I want to go home,” I say, sounding like a spoiled child even to myself.
“Too bad! You shouldn’t have done what you did. You’re coming with me,” Jaylee grabs my shoulder harshly and drags me toward the building.
“Jaylee, I know you’ve been lying to me!”
His fist gathers in my shirt; he could easily rip it off of me. His tenderness has been replaced with aggression. I know this Jaylee too.
I shrug him off, refusing to be bullied.
“Don’t get rough with me! You can’t tell me who I can and can’t sleep with. You were in jail! I’d never have known the guy if you hadn’t invited him to watch us fuck in a public bathroom! You’re unbelievable! Just because I’m in love with you doesn’t mean I’ll follow all your asinine rules!”
I’m fighting this hard because I can’t stand to destroy him. When I see hurt in his face, all I register is the innocence underneath it. Jaylee loves me unconditionally. I’m the one with the tainted record. I’m the one who’s unworthy and out of control. I’ve got to do this now. I can’t stand to damage his heart anymore.
With impeccable timing I look up to see Ideal walking toward us, coming down the hill. He’s in the middle of the street—arm drunkenly slung around some girl. His demeanor is nonchalant; he’s so debonair for a thug. I’m relieved to see him. I almost want to run to him, run away from Jaylee.
This is it. It’s now or never. Time to walk away and abandon my one true love. I don’t need to tell him that I know everything. It’s enough to do it like this. My heart flutters into my chest with apprehension and I take a breath—just as Jaylee’s fist comes into blunt contact with my face.
I reel back, not knowing if I was hit because I was looking, or hit for what I said. Ideal drops his arm from the girl and zeros in at a jog. I stagger to the curb and throw up on my own feet.
I won’t stick around for this fight—I’ll refuse to take part. Maybe they should just fuck each other and get the tension out of their systems. I heave again and spit into the street.
Ideal is at my side; he wraps my hair around his hand, holds my chin in the light, and inspects my face. He pulls up the hem of his shirt to help me wipe the blood from my mouth, but I shake my head. He’s holding my hair, his abs exposed; his closeness is all too telling. I can feel the shiver of impending destruction rising into the night air.
His caring reaction could mean nothing—it’s Ideal, and he’s always like this—but to Jaylee it’s equivalent to mutiny. I know Jaylee’s furious. By letting Ideal help me, I’ve already begun to betray him. I can’t see him, but I can feel my wild beast of a boyfriend seething with resentment somewhere in my blind spot. He’s surely wound up, not only because of Ideal, but because he allowed his own feelings to take over. Now he’s hit me. Where can we go from here? I’m convinced he understood that I know how much he and Robert orchestrated everything.
He stalks over to us with lengthy strides and I can’t help but cower. The pain in Jaylee’s eyes at my reaction is tragic. He’s already lost. His fists ball up at his sides.
“Go inside,” Ideal says to the girl, who’s standing dumbstruck. He nods toward the building with his chin. She turns and obeys him, shrugging her shoulders. I turn to the curb and spit out blood into the mess I’ve already made.
“Go with her,” Ideal says to me. I shake my head, and wipe the red spit from my lips with the back of my hand.
“Go,” Jaylee repeats, and I look at him, and his eye contact
alone is enough to strike me dead.
“I won’t take orders from either of you. Say what you need to, but from here I’m going home. Alone.” Crush him now, I say to myself. Get it over with.
I spit blood again. He’s hit me really fucking hard.
Jaylee is torn to threads; his face is shadowed, but I can see a hundred emotions flicker across it. He’s outlined in a full golden halo from the soft glow of the streetlight. He is both an innocent boy and a full-grown man. He’s never been more beautiful. His raw emotion, his desperation, his masculinity are all at stake. I love him now, and I’ll love him forever. But a bandage must be torn off, not peeled away.
“¿Con quién tu quiere’ estar?” Ideal asks me on cue. This man knows when to save me; for that I’ll always be grateful.
“With you,” I whisper, the least truthful words to ever have come from my lips. My eyes fill with tears but I hold my gaze steady with Ideal. I won’t let myself look at Jaylee.
I can see Ideal’s support. His friendship is written all over his face. In this moment, I can see that, for him, it’s not revenge—Ideal cares for Jaylee as well.
“You heard her,” Ideal says, never breaking our eye contact. If Jaylee walks, Ideal is magic. If Jaylee fights, we all lose.
“I’ll kill you for this,” Jaylee seethes, and I hold my breath.
“Kill me later. Not in front of the lady. I think you done your damage for the night.”
Jaylee is waiting for me to look, but I can’t. Looking at him would call my bluff. Ideal reaches for my hand.
Jaylee turns and strides away, and with him goes my heart. Something closes over my chest and it feels cold. The awful emptiness returns. This is the greatest sacrifice I’ve ever made, the hardest lesson I’ve ever learned. Ideal pulls me close when it’s clear that Jaylee’s gone.
“Llora, mujer,” he says, crushing me into a hug. His strong arms wrap around me as I sob into his chest. “A po’ ta bien, you’ll be a’ight Pero pobre de Jaylee, ese hombre got some serious shit to deal with. I hope he makes it through the night.”
Ideal walks me all the way home, his arm flung casually around my shoulders now. He’s offered sex as release and comfort—how typical—but I’ve declined.
“Robert told me everything. I’m no longer in the dark.”
“What, so now you think that wasn’t real what just happened? That kid lost his shit over you. Doubt he ever be the same.”
“I thought all this time I was hurting Robert, but he’s always been the one in charge. They both watched me run around like an idiot. I feel like everyone was laughing from the sidelines.”
“I don’t think nobody was laughing at you, kittycat. You lost your baby and you lost your love. But look what you got—you still got your girls and Jay‘ll get his freedom. It ain’t perfect, but I wouldn’t say that you lose.”
“Thank you, Ideal. I also have a second chance to get to know my sister, thanks to you,” I say, giving him a hug. “I’m sure you’ve heard, but she didn’t press any charges. She said she left of her own free will. They never figured out who gave the order to kidnap her. It could have been Jaylee’s uncle for all I know.”
“I got the lowdown, chica. Emily’s been sending me some cash,” Ideal says with a grin.
I’m not surprised they’re communicating. Emily thinks Ideal is her own real-life super hero.
We’re parting more than a block from my house. I’m guessing there is still danger for Ideal in us being seen together.
“Too bad she’s married, right? I think she’s smitten after your daring rescue,” I smile up at him.
Ideal throws his head to the side, cracking his neck and smiles at me devilishly.
“I ain’t got a problem with married women,” he says, looking down at me. “Hook that shit up.”
It feels unreal to be joking with Ideal, when I’ve just gone through a staggering loss. But that’s the remedy, I guess: Keep on going. Put one foot in front of the other. Move toward something that doesn’t hurt so much.
I punch Ideal lightly in the chest and he kisses my forehead.
“See you ‘round, kittycat,” he says, knocking my shoulder.
“See you around,” I say.
I turn to walk away, and the familiar stretch of upper Broadway looks ominous. There are the usual corner boys out front of the deli and the late-night barbershop; they all seem to fall strangely silent as I pass. No more catcalling. In fact, not a single comment is uttered, not a single sound. Where’s the reggaetón and boisterous cajoling, guys? It’s as if they’ve all gotten a memo: No more celebrating—the deal is done. There is something sinister in the way they watch me walk past.
Approaching my dark house feels like the end, a last moment of freedom before slipping back under the veil of real life. What is real life supposed to look like? I no longer have a clue.
Chapter 21
I wake up to the clipped sound of police radios. Then I see the telltale, sickening disco of red and blue lights dancing through the window. The colors rotate and swim on the ceiling, a hideous carnival of bad news.
Robert isn’t in the bed; I’m torn between flying down the stairs to see what’s happening, and rejecting life itself and pulling the covers over my head. My mind flashes on the girls, and I leap up, tripping on the sheet, somehow managing to drag it with me halfway down the hall. I peek in both of their rooms, and find them sleeping soundly. Relieved, I creep to the top of the stairs to listen to the conversation below.
I catch only fragments of sentences, as the dispatch comes in and out over walkie-talkie. Surely my heart would tell me if Jaylee were gone. This is more trouble, but it can’t be the end for him. He’s only just been set free. Please, please let him be okay. It will destroy me if tonight’s interaction turns out to be our last.
Robert comes almost all the way up the stairs before he looks up to see me, standing paralyzed in fear. He motions me to come down, and pulls me to him when I come within reach.
“Jaylee?” I ask, with a choking sob. I need to know, but I’m so tired of needing Robert’s help. It’s demoralizing to depend on him, to have to run to him, even now that I know he is the mastermind and I am the reluctant puppet.
“No. Jaylee’s passed out drunk at home—with an alibi. I already checked. It’s the other guy.”
I whimper out loud, clutching the t-shirt I slept in, and I have the urge to inflict pain on someone, either that or to hurt myself.
“Is he dead?” I ask, holding in hysterics, imagining the end of such a generous soul.
“Did someone hit you?” Robert whispers in the dark. This is too much whispering. The officers below are shifting, looking up at us expectantly.
“Jaylee did. I broke his heart.”
I float down the stairs, the reluctant centerpiece in what’s become a film noir. They want to talk to me, of course. All of the witnesses said he was with me tonight, and my house is the place to come to when investigating gang-related incidents in the Heights. Robert is quickly at my side, his dutiful arm slipped around my wifely waist. Why, whatever is your concern, officer? We are just a pair of deeply sleeping spouses, one of the perfectly normal families on this block.
“Good evening, Ma’am, sorry to bother you, were you with an Álvaro Hernández earlier this evening?”
“I never knew his name.”
They hand me a sheet of photocopied mugshots, and right in the middle, circled in yellow marker, is a picture of Ideal. I nod my head and grip Robert’s hand tightly.
Love is triumphant, until we all fall down.
I never thought I’d be asked to identify a body. If life is already surreal in the wee hours of the night, death is more so. I instinctively call my sister Emily to meet me. Our new bond is thanks to Ideal, so it makes sense to me that she should stand by my side. She is all too eager to meet me at the morgue, and not out of self-interest—Emily also cares deeply for Ideal.
“I can drive you. I don’t want you to be alone afterwards,”
Robert says, with sufficient concern to sound relatively believable.
“Emily will drive me home. I can do this,” I say, trying to convince myself as much as I’m convincing him.
I change into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, grab my purse and my phone, and hurry out the door.
Acting like this will get somebody killed. Can you understand that? You going to get somebody killed pulling this stupid shit.
Oscar’s words echo in my head as I make my way to the police cruiser.
Jaylee is safe for now, it seems. But Ideal is dead.
At the coroner’s office, Emily is asked to wait outside, and I’m escorted into a cold and sterile room. It’s a jarring confrontation: stainless steel, bright white fluorescent light. There is no comfort in this space. As my shoes contact the laminate floor, I imagine his warm flesh touching down on metal. I wonder if he was already cold when they brought him here, or did his heat fade silently after being laid out, made anonymous with a sheet, a number assigned to his toe?
Ideal is beauty in death, just as he was in life. No bullet wound or violent blow has marred his aquiline face. His eyes are closed, his brows arched strong, his jaw set tight. The arched tattoo in cursive just under his collarbone declares, “All Bets Are Off.” I find it alarming that I never really registered this before. What else did you say, Ideal? What words are written on your body? What happened to all of your memories made in life? The time lost stretches out before me. Ideal had so much more to give. I should have asked him more about himself. I didn’t even know his real name.
“Can I touch him?” I ask the medical examiner.
“Better not. Forensics aren’t done yet.”
I look up into a set of clinical brown eyes. He sees dead people all day. Maybe even more dead people than people who are alive. But if I don’t touch Ideal, who will? Who else is there to say goodbye?
