He was someone else’s everything.
I shattered our connection, dropping my eyes from his as I forced the huge lump down my throat.
“I’m glad Sybil has family here. I gotta go,” I choked out as a mumble. Keeping my eyes downward I hurried past Shane and Martie.
“What the hell is going on? How do you know that hooker?” I heard Martie question Shane.
“I just do Martha! Rose? Come on, Rose, wait!”
“I called you, remember? You came to be with me, not that whore!” Martie hollered.
“Please Miss Cooke, this is a hospital.” I heard another voice reprimand her for yelling.
“I’m just fine. I want to see my sister . . . now!” she demanded.
I never looked back. The anxiety of knowing that the man who wanted to take me to lunch and see what unfolded between us, was dating my best friend’s sister was too much. I hurried down the corridor, past the waiting area, into an alcove that held a couple of elevators crowded and pressed into adjacent walls. My muscles were burning matching the sting in my eyes and the ache in my heart.
I clicked the call button over and over again.
Tap . . . Tap . . . Tap . . .
I couldn’t stop the perspiration from flooding my skin as it became the unbearable reminder that broken girls will never get away without scars. It’s the emotional ones that run the deepest and create total ruin.
I could hear the motor winding, delivering the elevator to the fifth floor. I needed to get the fuck out of there. I could hear Martie still arguing with the nurse as she kept yelling for Shane. The elevator doors sprung open and I hurried in. My body ready to flush out the pain of walking away. I pushed the button with the capital L before I repeatedly pushed the button that closed the elevator doors.
“Please, please, please close. Come on you bastard, please close,” I breathed. My heart pounding the same rhythm of my pleas; my finger must have clicked it over 150 times.
Seconds later, as if the elevator doors knew I wasn’t supposed to be here any longer, they began to roll closed. I peered through the shrinking opening, the sliver of reprieve I craved before I met Briggs downstairs. Trying to collect myself I looked straight ahead and watched as Shane showed up just in time to disappear behind the closing elevator doors between us . . . his face colorless, drawn, and filled with regret.
I didn’t need his pity. I really didn’t need the heartbreak of being left waiting for someone to come along and whisk me away from my menial existence as a prostitute. Been there, done that . . . I know how that turns out.
Without stopping the elevator dropped five floors, letting out a dull, tired chime as it passed each level until it landed with a soft thud at the lobby. I waited, pushing on the doors with my fingertips, hoping that it somehow could tell I just wanted to get out; I waited impatiently for them to separate and give me the freedom to hurry out of the hospital.
I slipped my sweater over my shoulders as I hustled across the lobby and over to the entry of the hospital. I made it to the front doors when I heard Shane holler. I turned back and saw him jogging across from the stairs. I pushed on the automatic doors trying to get them to open faster.
“Rose! Please! Wait!” Shane grabbed my upper arm and tugged me back around.
His expression filled with remorse—drizzled with guilt.
“Why?” I asked pulling my arm out of his grip.
“Because.”
“Because, why?”
“Come on, Rose, stop. Let me say something.”
“No.”
“I like you.”
“You like me? Are you kidding? This isn’t preschool, Shane. You can’t give me a handful of Blow Pops and think it will fix this. You don’t even know who the fuck I am.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you really don’t.”
“Yeah, I fucking do.”
“Just go back to your girlfriend, Shane.”
“She’s not my—”
“I have nothing to offer you. Do you hear me? Martie was right, I’m nothing more than a two-bit whore.”
“Rose,” he breathed, pushing closer to me. His aroma filled me as his hands tickled down the back of my arms collecting at my elbows.
“Shane. Please. Don’t.” I pushed him away.
“Do we have a wee problem ‘ere?” Briggs asked as he appeared from the direction of the parking lot. His arms twitched under his full sleeves of ink.
“No buddy, no problem here,” Shane spat at Briggs as his eyes never left mine.
“Doesn’t look like the wee lady feels the same way as you.” Briggs’ voice was demanding and protective. “Rosie gir’, you okay?”
Shane’s eyes grew as he looked at Briggs. I saw the wheels turning in Shane’s head. He didn’t have to say a word, it was written all over his face. He thought Key was my pimp.
“Go back to her, Shane. It’s where you belong.”
I turned to Briggs, he was ready to pounce if Shane was going to try and get violent.
“Rose . . .” Shane whispered.
“Will you please take me home, Key?” I asked. He nodded before he pulled me into his chest and I was swallowed in his embrace.
I looked back at Shane once, as Briggs put me into his Black Lexus SUV. I noticed that Shane was still standing there, watching me. My heart shattered for him, yeah, even when I wanted to be the one who broke his heart before he broke mine.
THE RIDE BACK to my apartment was in silence. Briggs never wasted words on small talk. Especially when his clients were hos that reminded him time was money. Besides, I was exhausted and didn’t really want to talk. Sounds of busy pushed past us as life continued outside on the streets of the city. The whine of breathless engines and growls of cars trying to jockey for a spot, as the impatient honked their horns, the only conversations filling the thick barren air between us. I knew Briggs was curious about Shane and that he wanted to hear about Sybil’s status, but he also knew better than to ask me right now. Give me a ride home and then we’ll see.
Briggs pulled up to the front of my building. Dark, dingy steps lead to a cracked wooden black door with numbers loosely nailed to the thick part. Not a place where you’ll find doormen pulling open car doors, I sat waiting for the awkward moment to pass hoping that he’d ask me if I wanted to stay with him for a couple days. I had no idea where he lived, if his apartment, house, or studio even had enough space for me, but I didn’t want to stay where that prick Dax’s blood soaked the hardwood floors. I wasn’t ready to see the broken table that was most likely piled up right where it was left before we were whisked away. And I sure in the hell didn’t want to face the nosey manager who makes it his business to know every little thing that occurs behind the closed doors of our complex.
“You okay, Rosie gir’?” Briggs asked as he turned off the engine.
“Yeah, sure.” What the hell was I going to say, no?
“That wasn’t too convincin’. You wanna talk ‘bout it?”
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty exhausted. I just want to sleep for like three days. But I can’t. I gotta get back to work. Rents not going to pay itself, and I owe you for . . . Sybil.”
“What? Don’t you disrespect me. I’m not goin’ to take your money. You go in there, get some rest. You’re gonna be just fine.”
Tears swelled in my eyes before plummeting down my cheeks.
“Oh, come on Rosie gir’. Now there’s no need to cry.” He slid the palm of his hand down across my head, catching the back of my neck. The pressure in his fingertips felt good as he rotated and massaged the muscles on either side of my spine. I felt the stress drain from my neck and clear down through my shoulders.
“I’m just exhausted. That’s all.”
“You need to take care of you’self now, Rosie gir’. You hear me?”
I nodded.
“How ‘bout I’ walk you up. Come on now,” Briggs said as his fingers parted from my neck and he pushed open the driver’s door of his SUV.<
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“Naw, you don’t have to, Key, I’ll be fine.” I pulled off my seatbelt. “Besides, you’ll get towed if you leave your car here unattended. I’ll text you once I’m in my apartment.”
“I don’t like this one bit. You promise?” he asked as he tucked his thick finger under my chin and made me look up at him.
“I pinky-promise you,” I answered holding out my pinky finger to him.
Briggs gave me a confused look until I grabbed his hand and twisted my pinky around his.
“This is a pinky promise.”
“Fin’,” he huffed before leaning over and kissing my forehead. “Take care Rosie gir’. If you need anyt’ing, you call me. Oh, and here.” He handed me a wad of money.
“What’s this for?”
“My bail. You ain’t payin’ me way.”
“Briggs!”
“No, Briggs, Rosie, I won’t have it.”
“Fine,” I answered.
There was no use in arguing, he was just as stubborn as I was. I smiled, just enough so he knew I appreciated him before I slipped out and pushed the car door closed.
He watched me open the door, and I noticed he was still sitting there after I looked back right before the door shut behind me. I knew he’d sit there until I texted him. That’s just how Briggs was. The eyes that kept me safe, Kean Briggs seemed to have my back even when I didn’t know about it. Broken by his past, just like me, we connected instantly the first time we met. It didn’t matter who we were, everyone at one point or another has been broken, and you could either sweep up the pieces and throw them away, or find some crazy glue. But through our unspoken words; his—the injustice of war and mine—the hidden marks of abusive parents, we found a safe haven in each other’s company. Briggs has never gone into detail about the war, or the appalling things he saw; maybe he didn’t because he wanted to protect me. Maybe someday he’d open up about it. All I knew at that moment was I couldn’t have been happier to have him in my corner.
The common entry of the building looked the same as my eyes scanned the carpet leading to the stairway. I shuffled toward the elevator, but then decided to climb the stairs. By the second flight my heart began to thrash in my chest. I didn’t want to go into my apartment alone, not because I thought someone could be there, but because I didn’t want to see all the blood, and leftover mess from what happened just three days ago. I pulled my key out from my purse, slipped it into my lock and twisted. It was the longest fifteen seconds in my entire life. Longer than the disgusting fucks I took when I was just seventeen years old and started selling my body. Longer than the Greyhound bus ride I had to take home from Sonora when I was fifteen because my parents got super wasted and kicked me out of our cabin for not eating all of my dinner. When I pushed my apartment door open it was like cracking the doors to Hell and waiting for the devil himself to invite me in. I squeezed my eyes shut with an extended blink before I opened them and stepped inside my postage-stamp-studio apartment.
I peered around the room, no blood on the hardwood floors; the broken table next to my bed was gone and replaced by another table half its size. Both, Sybil’s and my beds were made and covered with new bedspreads. Any evidence that a crime had been committed here didn’t exist. Even the tinge of blood I had smelled days ago was gone.
My phone chimed with a message from Briggs, pulling my attention from the room.
BRIGGS: HEY, U OK? U DIDN’T MESSAGE ME!
ME: Sorry. I’m fine. Hey, did you clean up my apartment?
BRIGGS: MAYBE.
ME: Come on . . .
BRIGGS: I HAVE MY WAYS. I DIDN’T WANT YOU TO COME HOME TO THAT MESS.
ME: Thanks Briggs. I really appreciate it. Thank you for making me feel safe.
BRIGGS: GLAD YOU’RE SAFE. SLEEP TIGHT, I’LL CALL IN THE MORNING.
ME: Thanks
Briggs wasn’t one to message emoticons in texts but he always used shouty caps. He claimed his phone was stuck on caps lock, but I think it was the only way he believed he could be heard over the noise in his head. I looked around, knowing he came back to my apartment and took care of everything—made me feel like I wasn’t so empty or alone in this world.
But even with Briggs making my apartment comfortable again, every time I closed my eyes some nightmare would take over. If it wasn’t Sybil’s sister, Martie, who told me how she loved Shane, and how she’d never lose him to a whore like me, or the visions of Dax beating the shit out of Sybil, it was the reality of my life before meeting Shane tainting my mind. It was my fucked up life that I so desperately hated, but tightly clung to for refuge. Insecurity once again wrapped its gnarled hand around my thoughts and made sure my sleep wasn’t peaceful.
“Well, I like the way the mud feels squishing through my fingers,” I say as I push my hands back into the cold wet mud, and pull out a glob I roll between my palms.
“Well, then I’ll be the salesman and you be the baking lady,” Billy says looking at the dry mud pies we left out from the day before. “Because my momma doesn’t want me dirty before church.”
I think about the word church, something my parents really never talk about. I wonder if Billy likes going, because every time he talks about it he scrunches up his freckly nose. I wonder if God lives in his church, but I never ask because I don’t want Billy to know we aren’t “God people” like he and his family are. It makes me feel lonely and that makes my tummy ache.
I scoop up a clump of mud, before I pat it into a round flat pancake, I guess I’m the only one making the mud pies today. I don’t care, I like playing with Billy, he makes me feel special.
“Look at all these pies!” I sing, hoping to erase the God fear in my belly.
“They are so pretty, just like you Rosalie,” Billy answers before he leans over and kisses my cheek.
My tummy does somersaults.
It scares me.
I don’t understand why he kisses me.
It confuses me.
I drop the mud pie and I run all the way home.
My Mary Janes are caked with dirt, I flip them off at the front porch, and hurry into the kitchen. I don’t want any reason to make mom mad and I hope I catch her before she swallows the devil’s poison.
“Mom, mom, Billy and I were making mud pies and he kissed me, right here!” I cry, pointing to my left cheek. Swirly feelings are rumbling around in my belly.
Worrying about boy germs making me sick, when I look up at her and notice her blood-red eyes, and then see the devil’s poison behind her and on the counter, half empty . . . I’m too late.
“Dirty hands and a dirty face make for a dirty filthy girl. Didn’t I tell you to never play in the mud with that boy? I bet you let him kiss you! Look at your knees, just covered with filth. Little girls that play in the mud like pigs will be treated like pigs,” she slurs.
My mom’s monster eyes look through me. Her face crinkles up and her breath smells like the whiskey more than her skin this time. She’s tasting the devil’s bottle again, already finished it half-way down, even at seven years old; I know what that means . . . I’m in for a beating. Nothin’s gonna to stop her, I look up at the old metal clock in the kitchen above the sink, five o’clock at night; dad will be home in a half hour and if she’s already beaten me he won’t find a reason to punish her for not keeping me in line.
She grabs my arm, grabbing it so tight I feel the pinch of her nails through the ruffle of my sleeve. The devil’s in her again, spit’s flying from her lips as she screams at me. I didn’t mean to ruin my dress, my favorite pink floral dress. She doesn’t care, her hands are so tight, so sharp, as she pulls at the collar of my dress. The same dress I had worn to see my pee stinky grandma in her hospital bed. I wanted grandma to get up, and take me away from my life. But she didn’t, she just brushed her fingertips over the pleat of my dress and smiled. It was the last smile I had gotten from her that meant anything to me. The smile I tucked in my heart, locked away as the only memory of her which held any value.
“You filthy, dirty little shit! Look what you did to your dress. It’s ruined, ruined!” my mom screams tearing me from the memory of my grandma. Her hands bunch to fists over the rounded collar of my dress, and she yanks, ripping my dress apart. The back of my collar digs into my neck, my knees buckle and I fall to the ground. The air brushes across my bare chest and tears splatter across my skin. When I look down, my dress is ripped clear down the front. My favorite dress, the dress I visited my pee smelly grandma in, her smile dress.
“Little girls that act like pigs will be treated like pigs.” My mom takes a wooden spoon from the counter, slams it into the Crock-pot of chili and slops a heap of it into the cat’s dish. “Go on; eat your dinner like the pig you are. Letting boys kiss you, did you let him reach up under your dress too?”
My voice is hiding, my heart hurts—I hate her. My toes ache from being cold, and my dress flaps around me.
“I hate you.” I cry so loud it makes my belly shake and my lungs burn.
“You have no idea what hate is, you conniving little spoiled brat. But don’t worry, when you grow up and you’re forced to marry a man you don’t love and he makes you kiss him, you’ll find out what it feels like to really hate someone. When your father comes home, he’ll see what you did,” she answers, pointing to the front of my dress before she catches the back of my head and throws me down onto my hands and knees. “Now eat your dinner before you get your punishment for bringing dirt into the kitchen.”
She holds my head down into the cat bowl until the tip of my nose is buried so deep I can’t breathe. She makes me stay down on my hands and knees until the chili’s all gone, even the old chunks of cat food at the bottom of the bowl. She swats the spoon across my back before I get up and run to my room.
“You better not come out! Do you hear me Rosalie? If you don’t want a whipping, you keep your whoring little ass in your room . . . Rosalie!”
Sweat pushed across my skin as I tossed and turned in my bed. A sea of raging fear and hate swelled through my body. The vivid memories of my childhood buried deep flooded every recess of my mind and turned my heart causing it to thunder in my chest. Words I hated to hear, memories I kept buried until my mind was weak enough to let them out. I heard my name being called, at the moment between sleep and restlessly becoming conscious.
Broken Girl Page 14
