Out of Control

by Sarah Alderson

  I glance sideways at him. He’s busy staring out the window, glowering. Does he feel the same way that I feel when I’m around him? He can’t. Because, right now, all I want to do is cling to him, crawl under his skin and lay myself bare, both literally and figuratively. And the thought that I might do so – might act on any of these feelings – utterly terrifies me. As if I didn’t have enough fear to deal with right now.

  The rational part of my brain, the part that seems to be shrinking by the minute, wonders if I’m just trying to find a way of avoiding dealing with the images in my head. Is focussing on Jay simply a way of blocking out the screams of dying men and the sound of bullets pinging off metal? Is that what it’s about? Psychologists would probably call it transference. It’s what happens to kidnap victims when they fall in love with their kidnapper. I guess the same rules could apply to shooting victims and their co-escapee.

  I turn to stare out the window. It’s all too much to process. I try to focus on what’s around me instead of what’s inside me. That seems easier to do. It’s dark out and I glance at the clock on the dash. It’s almost ten. The streets are still busy, crowded with food carts and vans, people buying fake handbags from make-shift stalls, and bars and restaurants luring customers with their bright neon signs.

  Jay’s foot jitters as Yoyo drives carefully, keeping well under the speed limit. He slides down in the seat at one point, keeping his head low, and his knee touches mine and stays there – a point of contact which I fixate on, no longer able to focus on anything outside the car, because it’s as if I can suddenly feel Jay’s pulse alive inside of me, beating time with my own erratic heart.

  ‘So, Liva,’ Yoyo says from up front. ‘You from round here?’

  Marisa whacks him across the handbrake. ‘Does she look like she’s from round here?’ she hisses. ‘Does she sound like she’s from round here?’

  ‘No,’ I say over the top of her. ‘I’m not from round here. I grew up overseas. I just moved to New York.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Where were you living before?’

  ‘Oman,’ I say.

  ‘Where’s that?’ Yoyo asks.

  ‘It’s in the Middle East, bro,’ Jay says, smirking.

  ‘The Middle East?’ Yoyo asks, frowning as he glances back at me over his shoulder. I guess he’s wondering where my burqa is or something like that. It’s what some people immediately assume or joke about when I tell them where I grew up. ‘You like it there?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. Briefly, I try to picture my house and my friends, but they seem so far away, like characters from a book I once read. I wonder if I’ll ever see the place again.

  ‘So, why’d you leave?’

  I ponder my answer.

  ‘Boyfriend troubles?’ Yoyo asks, in an obvious attempt to pry into my romantic status. No doubt on Jay’s behalf.

  I realise that I don’t want Jay thinking that I have a boyfriend, so I answer quickly. Too quickly – without thinking. ‘No. I got expelled.’

  Jay’s jaw drops. He shifts in his seat so he can to look at me face on. ‘You got expelled?’

  ‘Yeah, why’s that so hard to believe?’ I say, kind of insulted.

  He shakes his head at me in wonder. ‘You’re just full of surprises, Moneypenny.’

  That buzz hits me in the solar plexus again. I’m even starting to not mind the Moneypenny name-calling.

  ‘What did you do? Skip cheerleading practice one too many times?’ This from Marisa.

  ‘I don’t cheerlead. And no.’

  ‘Drugs?’ Yoyo asks.

  ‘No. I don’t do drugs either.’

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You found a really straight one here, Jay,’ Yoyo laughs.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ Jay answers, smiling at me knowingly across the gloom of the back seat.

  ‘So what was it for then?’ Marisa asks, turning around. Even her interest has been piqued.

  ‘I was somewhere I shouldn’t have been,’ I say, glancing sideways at Jay, who’s still watching me hawk-eyed.

  ‘Like where?’ Yoyo asks. ‘Wait! With who? Were you having an affair with a teacher?’

  ‘No. God!’ I say.

  ‘Let me guess,’ says Jay, grinning at me. ‘You climbed on to the roof of your school?’

  ‘No,’ I say, leaving a long pause before I say, ‘the clock tower.’

  ‘With a gun?’ Yoyo asks. ‘’Cause you know, I can see why they might have expelled you for that.’

  ‘No, not with a gun.’

  ‘Then what were you doing up there?’

  ‘I just wanted to see what the view was like,’ I say, leaving out the part about the rush I got from climbing out on to that ledge – the real reason I was up there. I can’t explain to him the sense of victory I had standing on the lip of the roof, my arms and legs burning with the effort it had taken to climb, looking down at the tiny square of grass beneath. Or the way my blood ran like quicksilver through my veins, as fast as it’s doing now, with Jay’s knee pressed to mine. I steal a quick look at Jay and see that he gets it. He knows exactly why I climbed on to that roof, what it was that I was searching for – and maybe he also gets what it felt like too.

  ‘How high was it?’ Yoyo asks.

  ‘Four storeys,’ I say.

  ‘Shit. But why’d they expel you for that?’

  ‘Rules are rules. And they thought that—’ I stop abruptly.

  ‘What?’ he presses.

  I take a deep breath. ‘They thought that I was going to jump,’ I say. The idea still smarts. That’s what all my friends in Oman think too – that I was suicidal. I wonder if that’s why none of them have bothered to email me or post a message on my Facebook wall since I left. If I was suicidal I’d probably be pretty pissed at their lack of giving a damn.

  ‘Were you trying to top yourself?’ Yoyo asks.

  I stiffen at his bluntness, then realise he’s the first person other than my parents to actually bother asking. ‘No,’ I say. You’d have to actually feel something to be suicidal, I add silently. And I’d made a good job of learning how to switch off my emotions.

  ‘So what were you doing up there then?’

  ‘Hey, don’t you need to take the next right?’ Jay cuts in, leaning between the two front seats. I stare at his shoulder blades, his arms hanging loosely over the back of the headrests. He’s deliberately cutting off the conversation, trying to protect me. My heart aches at the gesture and my instinct is to lean forwards and press my cheek against his shoulder.

  But then that annoying rational part of my brain butts in. Clearly it’s done with shrinking and is putting up a fight. I don’t want anyone to protect me. Do I? Look what happened last time, it says. And it’s true. I need to listen to that voice. The last time I let someone else protect me, step in front of me and shield me, they died. And the thought of anything happening to Jay because of me makes my blood run cold.

  I can’t go through what I went through with Felix again. I just can’t. I’m already feeling too much and it’s complicating things – interfering with my judgement.

  There’s only one option that will keep Jay safe – and I should have done it long ago. I was just being too much of a coward. I didn’t want to do this alone – but I realise now that I have to.

  For the final minutes of the car ride I shift so my knee is no longer touching Jay’s and I concentrate on the air freshener shaped like a lemon dangling from the ceiling of the car, focussing my attention on it until my heartbeat returns to normal. Then I make a decision; I will wait until Jay’s found Teo, when we’re back at Marisa’s, and then I’ll leave. I’ll finish this thing by myself.

  And, I make one last decision, though it’s more of a promise to myself – that I’ll keep my word to Jay and to Marisa. I’ll make sure that my father gets him the best lawyer. I’ll tell them this whole story. I’ll tell them all about Jay, and all the ways he’s saved my life.

  31

  As soon as I
step foot inside the club I am grateful that Marisa insisted on making me dress up. If I’d turned up in my jean shorts and tank top combo I doubt the doorman would have let me in. Having said that, he may not have noticed. He certainly didn’t bother carding us or checking our bags . . . he was too busy staring mesmerised as a king cobra at Marisa’s cleavage. Yoyo is still grumbling about it as we wind our way through the packed dance floor towards the bar.

  Most the guys in the club are all wearing what I presume is wannabe gangsta fashion – low-rise baggy jeans, Nikes, snapback caps, T-shirts stamped with logos – or maybe it’s not even wannabe gangsta fashion. What do I know? I spent my teenage years in Oman, surrounded by wealthy private-school kids whose wardrobes bowed under the weight of all the polo player and crocodile logos. A quick glimpse of the girls pushing against the bar and gyrating on the dance floor reveals hair extensions are big news, as are skyscraper heels and dresses that cling like sandwich wrap to every curve.

  Jay is anxiously scanning over the top of the crowd, as is Marisa. Yoyo is on his phone, plugging his other ear with his finger as he tries to talk to whoever is on the other end. The music is brain-damagingly loud, but the beat’s good. I glance around. I don’t know what Teo looks like so I’m not much help.

  Yoyo hangs up. ‘He was here half an hour ago. Mike’s not seen him since.’

  ‘Mierda,’ Jay mutters, scowling.

  ‘There are a few girls over there I recognise, let me go ask them if they’ve seen him,’ Marisa says, pointing to a small table on the other side of the bar, around which are six or seven girls who look like they’ve spent the day having their hair teased by Marisa’s boss Gloria. Before Yoyo or Jay can say anything she’s off, barging through the crowd at the bar to reach them.

  ‘I’m going to go ask around. See if anyone has seen him,’ Jay says. Then he turns to me, scowling. ‘Stay here with Yo. Don’t go anywhere OK?’

  I just nod even though I don’t need or want Yoyo to protect me. I think of the gun in my bag. Not that I’d ever think about pulling it out in a crowded club. But still it makes me feel better knowing it’s there.

  Jay disappears into the crowd and my stomach knots with anxiety. I don’t like not being able to see him.

  ‘So,’ Yoyo says, rocking on the balls of his feet, ‘you want a drink or something?’

  ‘No, thanks. I’m good,’ I tell him, standing on my tiptoes to try to see where Jay went.

  ‘Wanna dance?’ Yoyo asks.

  My head spins back to him. ‘What here? Now? To this music?’ I ask him. Is he crazy?

  He shrugs his big shoulders at me. ‘Yeah, why not? Jay told me you’re a dancer.’

  ‘He did?’ I ask, surprised.

  He grins at me, ‘Yeah.’ I wonder from the smile what else Jay told Yoyo. ‘What’s the matter, scared I’ll show you up on the dance floor?’ he asks, putting on a pretend pout.

  I cut him a look. Is he seriously offering me a line straight out of Step Up 2: The Streets?

  I take a leaf out of the Marisa handbook on putting men in their place. I put my hand on my hip and I offer him a sardonic eyebrow raise.

  It doesn’t work. Yoyo takes a step back on to the dance floor then wriggles his backside provocatively, and I actually laugh. Because the guy is huge. He’s the human equivalent of a super-tanker. His biceps are the width of my torso. The dance floor clears around him, like a shoal of fish sighting the shadow of a trawler looming above. But then he actually starts moving and my jaw does a cartoon drop to the floor. Holy shit. Yoyo can actually dance. The space around him opens up, not because people are rushing to give the big guy room and to avoid being trampled, but because people are staring at him. He has every hip-hop move known to man down pat, and then some. Then he throws in some body-popping until I’m having to clutch my sides, I’m laughing so hard.

  When he finishes, he rolls back his shoulders, cracks his knuckles and swaggers towards me as the dance floor explodes, clapping and cheering around him. ‘You were saying?’ he asks, sweeping one hand across his sweat-drenched brow.

  I am too speechless to answer. Things just took a turn for the even more surreal. It’s like my life is being directed by David Lynch.

  ‘Over to you,’ Yoyo says, gesturing at the dance floor.

  I shake my head quickly. No way. But Yoyo places his dinner-plate-sized hand on my back and shoves me forward.

  ‘What you afraid of?’ he whispers in my ear.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, tearing my bag off my shoulder and shoving it at him. ‘Hold this.’

  He grins at me, showing all his teeth, including one that’s capped with gold. He’s like a giant man-child, but he looks kind of comical standing there holding my handbag clutched in his arms, so I can’t help but smile back. What was it that Jay said about me? That I had heart? I get what he meant now – because that’s the first thing that springs to mind when I look at Yoyo. He has heart.

  I turn my back on Yoyo and close my eyes, trying to listen to the music, to get a feel for the beat. This is as far from classical ballet music as you can get but I’ve taken contemporary dance too and a few hip-hop classes on the side.

  When I dance it’s one of the only times I’m not aware of what’s going on around me and when I can turn off whatever chatter is inside my head. That’s one of the reasons I’m so happy to spend three to four hours a day inside a ballet studio. I’m one hundred per cent in my body for that time. It’s similar to being up on a roof looking down, I guess, the same kind of explosion of light and air charging my blood, the same kind of high, only more muted. It’s a physical reaction, not a mental or emotional one.

  As I move to the music, I’m only slightly aware that people have moved back. I glimpse Yoyo’s face for a brief moment and see that his eyes are bulging in surprise. When I stop, sweat pouring down my back and panting for breath, he’s the one clapping the loudest.

  ‘Damn straight, he wasn’t lying. You can dance.’

  I wipe a hand across my brow, slicking back some hair that’s come loose. God, that felt good, like I was burning some of the excess emotions. I feel calmer now, less panicked.

  Yoyo suddenly glances over my head and scowls at something. ‘Be right back,’ he growls, ploughing straight through the crowd, still clutching my handbag. I try to see where he’s going and catch sight of the back of Marisa’s head. She’s talking to three guys. I guess Yoyo has a possessive streak.

  ‘Hey, nice dancing.’

  I spin around. A guy with carefully crafted facial hair and a diamond stud in his ear is standing in front of me. He’s sporting the baggy jean look and has full tattoo sleeves.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, crossing my arms over my chest and looking around for an exit.

  My crossed arms don’t appear to be putting him off. He takes a step closer and I catch a waft of cigarette smoke and alcohol. ‘Want a drink?’ he asks.

  A hand slides firmly around my waist and someone presses themselves close behind me. ‘Actually,’ I hear Jay say, ‘we were just leaving.’

  I draw in a breath at the feeling of his hand, which now lies possessively across my stomach, and without thinking I press back against him.

  The guy scowls at Jay. ‘He your boyfriend?’ he asks me.

  ‘Er, no,’ I admit.

  ‘Well then,’ the guy says to Jay, ‘what’s your problem?’

  ‘There’s no problem,’ I say loudly, feeling Jay’s body tensing against me. I turn around and take hold of Jay’s hand. ‘Let’s go,’ I tell him.

  Jay stands there glaring at the guy until I drag him away towards the bar.

  ‘Did you find Teo?’ I shout over the music when we’re clear.

  His attention comes back to me. He shakes his head. ‘No.’ He casts a glance around. ‘Where’s Yoyo? I asked him to take care of you.’

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ I tell him, annoyed. ‘He went to find Marisa. He’s over there,’ I say, pointing. It’s hard to miss someone the size of Yoyo.

 
Jay seems to relax. ‘Nice moves, by the way,’ he says, smiling a smile that tugs at my heart and makes my earlier decision to leave him once we get back to Marisa’s seem both absurd and impossible.

  ‘Yo, cabron.’

  Both of us jerk around. The guy with the diamond stud is standing behind Jay and this time he has company. Two other guys flank him on either side, like pet Rottweilers.

  Jay immediately blocks me with his body and I see his hands crunching into fists at his sides. Shit, I think, what is it with us and trouble? I move around him and position myself at his side.

  ‘What’s your problem?’ Jay asks them calmly.

  ‘We heard you been dissin our bro,’ the guy on the right says.

  Jay laughs under his breath and I cut a look at him. Laughing doesn’t seem like a wise plan, given there are three of them and two of us, and Yoyo has handily disappeared with the bag containing the gun.

  ‘I wasn’t dissin anybody,’ Jay says almost wearily, his arm coming up to press me back behind him again. It’s then I remember the gun stuck down the back of his jeans. My eyes slide towards it. Should I make a grab for it? But how stupid would that be? To wave a gun around in a crowded club? If I do that we’ll end up arrested, which is not how we need the night to end.

  ‘Te voy a matar!’ the main guy says, cricking his neck to one side and cracking his knuckles.

  I don’t speak Spanish but even I can understand the gist of his words, and I grip Jay’s arm and squeeze hard, but Jay ignores me. He takes a step forwards so he’s almost banging chests with the guy.

  ‘Listen,’ he says softly. ‘Me and my girl here,’ he jerks his head in my direction, ‘we’ve had a really shit day. Truly mierda. Like you would not believe.’ He starts ticking off on his fingers. ‘We’ve been shot at, we’ve been chased, we’ve had to climb out the window of a twentieth-storey apartment and free-climb our way up on to the goddamn roof. We have two guys dressed like cops trying to kill us,’ he smiles and leans in closer, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘and let me tell you something, these guys, they make you three look like total pussies.’