by Nicole Fox
All I could do was nod. I didn’t think I could’ve spoken a word if my life depended on it.
“You’re gonna stay away from me, that’s the first goddamn thing. After I leave this shitty little apartment, that’s the last I want to see of your face ever again. I don’t give a fuck what happens to you.”
“And you’re not gonna set foot in my bar ever again. If I see you in Amped—I don’t give a shit about what your reasons might be—I’ll call the cops on you for trespassing so fucking fast, it’ll make your head spin.”
“Your band’s not playing there ever again, and I’m gonna be in touch with every club owner that I know in the city to let them know that you’re not to play at any of them, either. I’ll let them all know what a lying bitch you are. So consider yourself blacklisted. If you’ve got any sense in that fucking head of yours, you’ll be planning your move to LA as soon as I’m out the door.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. I’d never seen Zane so angry before, and for the first time since we’d met, he scared me.
“You and I are done, and you’re done in this town. You fucked up, Roxy. I don’t know what kind of game you were playing, but you made the wrong move. And that’s the last goddamn thing I have to say to you.”
A tense silence hung in the air. I waited a long moment to see if Zane had anything else to say.
Now it was my turn to speak. I tried to come up with something to say, something that would convince him that I wasn’t lying. I didn’t even care about my band anymore—all I wanted was for him to know that I hadn’t betrayed him like he thought I did.
All that came out of my mouth, however, were blubbering whimpers.
“Please!” I cried, dropping to my knees. “You have to believe me! I didn’t do any of this! Zane!”
But my words fell on deaf ears. Zane simply glared at me with hate and disgust, and I realized that was that. He flashed me one more glare before turning and leaving. When he left, slamming the door behind him, I felt more alone than I could ever remember.
I spent the next hour or so sobbing, wracking my body with hard tears until I felt like I’d wept out every bit of water inside of me. I was sore and tired and worn out, and left without a clue of what to do.
A strange feeling came over me halfway through the day, however. I somehow managed to convince myself that I didn’t want Zane, that he was just some lowlife biker who didn’t deserve a woman like me. The thoughts felt a little hollow, but they were enough to get me moving again.
By the time the end of the day rolled around, I was ready to take action.
The next morning I called Amped, hoping to get a hold of Zane, but my calls went straight to voicemail. I tried Zane’s phone, but every time I called I got a message after one ring telling me that the number I was trying to reach was unavailable—I knew that meant that he’d blocked me.
Things went on like that for the next few weeks. I tried over and over to get in touch with Zane, but never did anyone at Amped pick up. I left voicemails, but they were never returned. I even texted Jess and Mia, but they went unanswered. I began to realize that Zane had been very, very serious about cutting me out of his life.
On top of everything, I still had the issue of money and work to worry about. I pounded the pavement again, dropping off my application to any place that looked like it was hiring. I managed to land a job at one of those boob bars where the girls were expected to dress all sexy to get men to open their wallets, but after a few hours of that I knew I couldn’t handle it for the rest of the day, let alone for a living. I walked out mid-shift, changing my clothes in the bathroom and leaving the skank-wear on the floor in front of the creepy manager’s office.
And the less said about my band, the better. They were still pissed at me for getting our first show canceled like it had been, and weren’t too thrilled about the idea of getting together for practices. Not that it mattered—with everything that had been going on I felt so creatively drained that I hadn’t touched my guitar once in the last two weeks.
One day, sitting alone in my apartment, I decided that if I couldn’t make things right between Zane and I, I could at least get him off the hook for the rape charges. So, gathering up my courage, I headed down to the station where I’d been interviewed before and told the officer at the front desk who I was. After a few minutes of waiting, the same officers who’d interviewed me before arrived and I was soon back in that same interview room.
As the officers paced back and forth in front of me, I thought about their threat that I could be charged with giving a false report. But I didn’t care what I had to risk—I needed to make things right.
“So you’re saying that everything we have in the statement was made up, that not a word of it was true?” said one of the officers, his eyes locked onto mine.
“What I’m saying is that I was never raped. Zane and I, um, had slept together, but it was all consensual.”
“Then why tell us it was rape?”
I wanted to tell them the truth, that I had no idea who had actually filed the report. But that didn’t seem to do me any good the last time, so I decided to cover one lie with another. I knew that I was risking a lot, but I didn’t have any other option.
“Because … after we slept together he got all distant on me. He wouldn’t return my calls, and just pretended like nothing had happened. And I was so fucking mad about that, because before we slept together he made all of these promises about how he didn’t sleep with just anyone, that things were gonna be serious between him and me—whatever it took to get me into bed. But when I realized that they were just words … I don’t know, I just freaked out. I decided that I had to do whatever it took to get back at him … so I did that.”
“But I didn’t know things would get so out of control! I just wanted to scare him, that was all, to make him know that he couldn’t just screw around with me like this. I did something stupid, and I need to take it back. If you have to throw me in jail, then do it—I just can’t stand seeing what I’ve done, how I’ve made such a mess of things.”
Tears were in my eyes, frustration from the situation taking its toll. One of the cops handed me a Kleenex as they both considered what I’d told them.
“You really screwed up here, you know?” said one of them finally. “We could charge you right now for making a false claim, put you in Riker’s for a month to let you think about how much time and energy and everything else you’ve wasted with this shit. But you’re just a kid, and something tells me you’ve suffered enough already.”
I nodded. But I knew that my suffering was hardly over.
“So we’re gonna let you off with a warning. But you pull anything like this again and you’re not gonna be so lucky. Got it?”
“Thank … thank you, officers.”
“Now let’s get you out of here.”
The officers led me out of the interview room and through the station. But before we left, a thought occurred to me.
“Is there any chance you could print something out for me that proves that the charges have been dropped?” I asked. “I want to be able to let Zane know for a fact that it’s all over, and I don’t know if he’s going to trust just my words.”
The officers shared a look.
“Sure,” said one of them. “Just hold tight.”
He headed off and returned five minutes later with a piece of paper in his hand. He gave it to me and l eagerly looked it over. Sure enough, it was the proof I needed. Zane wouldn’t have anything else to worry about.
“Thanks, officers,” I said when we reached the front of the station.
They bid me farewell and moments later I was back on the street. I knew what I needed to do. Sure, Zane had told me never to step foot in Amped again, but this was something I knew I couldn’t tell him about.
After a quick bus ride, I was in front of Amped. I took a deep breath, and paper in hand, I stepped through the front doors. I felt like I was walking into my execution.
Jess and
Mia were behind the bar, and both of them shot me the same cutting glare as I stepped in.
“What the fuck do you want?” asked Mia, her eyes narrowed.
“Yeah,” said Jess. “You know you’re about as welcome here as the fucking health inspector, right?”
Their words felt like body blows. I couldn’t bear the fact that my former friends now hated me like this. Between them and the band I felt like I had no one in the world.
“I need to talk to Zane,” I said. “It’s really, really important.”
“I’ll fucking bet it is,” said Mia. “But as much as I wouldn’t mind seeing your lying ass beg for forgiveness in the middle of the bar, it’s not gonna happen. Zane’s gone for the night.”
My heart dropped in my chest.
“Is … is he going to be back soon? Or is he at his apartment?”
“Why, so you can stalk him there?” asked Jess. “Listen, you’ve made enough of a mess of things already. Just accept that there’s some shit that you can’t put back together once you’ve fucking smashed it. It’s over. Just leave before we have to do what Zane actually told us to do if you showed up, which is call the cops and tell them you’re trespassing.”
I wondered if Zane actually was there, sitting in the back office and watching everything go down on the security feeds. But it didn’t matter—he didn’t want to see me, and that was that. Not wanting to subject myself to anymore, I left the bar. Standing on the sidewalk, paper in hand, I felt more hopeless than I could ever remember feeling. My life felt as though it was collapsing around me, and there wasn’t a thing I could do.
Chapter 22
Roxy
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse for me, I started to get sick. It was a strange kind of sickness, though—I’d wake up in the morning feeling nausea more intense than I’d ever known. My eyes would shoot open and I run to the bathroom as fast as I could. And once I’d done what I needed to do, the sickness would pass. Aside from that, it wasn’t too bad—I’d mostly get some spells of fatigue throughout the day, but nothing too crazy.
Still, when it happened for the fourth day in a row I knew I needed to go see a doctor. I called the nearest clinic and they let me know that they’d just had a cancellation, so I could come in right then.
An hour later I was seated on the crinkly paper in the doctor’s office, the squat, middle-aged doctor looking over the results from the blood tests they’d given me. After regarding me with a skeptical expression for a moment, he finally spoke.
“Miss Sinclair,” he started. “Have you been sexually active recently?”
I was a little taken aback by how personal the question was. But then I remembered he was a doctor, and this sort of stuff was normal.
“Um, kind of. I mean, I slept with someone a few weeks ago, but that’s it.”
The smallest hint of a smile formed on his face.
“Are you familiar with morning sickness?” he asked.
I didn’t need him to say another word to know just what he was saying.
“You can’t be serious,” I said, my voice sounding strange and far away.
“Miss Sinclair, you’re pregnant.”
I wanted to drop through the floor. The news hit me so hard that I couldn’t even begin to think about how to process it. The doctor went on, telling me about resources for new mothers and all that, but he sounded like he was speaking underwater.
“I have to ask,” he said. “But is the father in the picture?”
It took all of the restraint I had not to burst into tears right then and there.
When I was all done at the doctor’s, I headed home as fast as possible. But as I took out my keys and prepared to enter my building, the low rumbling of a car engine sounded from behind me. I turned on my heels and was confronted with an all-black sedan driving slowly past my apartment. The windows of the car were tinted as dark as could be, and once it passed my place it revved its engine, as though warning me. I jammed my key into the lock, slipped through the barely-open door, and stepped inside.
This had been going on for some time. I’d been spotting these strange black cars passing in front of my building at all hours. Each time they’d do the same thing: drive slowly, and once they were in front of my building, rev their engine hard. I didn’t know who was driving the cars or who they belonged to, but I knew that they were looking for me, hoping to intimidate me—or worse.
The engine revved one last time after I shut the door. Between that and the news of my pregnancy, I felt like I was coming apart at the seams. I needed a life raft, and fast. But I knew that there was no one there for me.
When I entered the apartment I instinctively went for one of the bottles of wine in the kitchen. I wasn’t a huge drinker, but it always helped to take the edge off whenever I was stressed. I poured a nice full glass and licked my lips as I raised it to my mouth.
And that was when I realized that I was freaking pregnant, and booze was out of the question. Tears streamed from my eyes. Not because of the wine itself, but because of what it represented. My life had been totally overturned, and nothing would be the same. I couldn’t even have a glass of wine to take the edge off like a normal person.
The words of the doctor played over and over again in my mind: “Is the father in the picture?” I didn’t even know how to begin answering that question. It almost would’ve been easier if Zane was just a deadbeat—at least I’d know where I stood and that everything was going to be on me. But I had no idea how he’d react when I told him … if I told him. Maybe keeping this a secret from him was the right thing to do.
Another revving sounded from in front of my apartment. I rushed to the window and looked down, spotting, sure enough, another black car. As soon as I pulled the curtain opened it revved again, meaning it knew exactly where in the apartment I was. A cold chill ran through me. Soon, the car took off.
I dropped to the ground and curled up into a tight ball. There was no other way around it—I had to talk to Zane, to tell him what was going on. He might reject me, he might not, but I had to find out either way. So, gathering my courage, I headed out the back entrance of my apartment and onto the street opposite my apartment, hoping that the black cars didn’t spot me.
But I had no such luck. Just when I thought I was safe, I heard that familiar rev. Turning on my heels, I spotted another black sedan down at the end of the block. As soon as I spotted it, the vehicle flashed its lights and began driving towards me. Panic took hold of me and I turned back towards the direction of the subway station.
The car barreled down on me, catching up with every second that passed. Though my thoughts were beyond panicked, I found myself wondering with fear just what would happen if the car caught up with me. Was the time for intimidation over? Were they finally going to make a move?
I rushed to the subway station as fast as I could, my lungs taking in breaths so fast that they began to burn. I wove through the pedestrians that packed the sidewalk, shooting out “pardon me’s” and “sorrys” each time I ungracefully bumped into one of them.
Finally, I reached the subway station just in time to watch the black car rush past. I hurried down the stairs and by the time I reached the bottom I was so out of breath that I had to sit down. Soon, my heart slowed and I felt ready to go on.
But as I stepped into the subway that would take me to Zane’s neighborhood, I understood that the car following me, instead of simply driving past my apartment, now meant that I was in even more danger than I had been. They, whoever they were, had decided to take things to the next level. And they wanted me to know it.
It was only a matter of time before they did something worse than just trying to scare me. I needed Zane’s protection, and I needed it now. By the time the train stopped at the station in his neighborhood I was such a worried mess that I could barely walk. And by the time I reached Zane’s apartment, I felt like I was on some kind of strange drug. I’d never been more stressed out and fear-wrecked as I was in th
at moment. If Zane told me to screw off, I didn’t know what I’d do. Maybe high-tailing it to LA, like he’d suggested, wasn’t that bad of an idea.
Taking a deep breath, I approached his apartment building and pressed the button for his unit.
“Yeah?” came his voice from the speaker.
“It’s … it’s me.”
Silence.
“What the hell do you want?”
“We need to talk. It’s important—it’s … a matter of life and death. Please …”
I don’t know if my voice sounded extra pathetic or what, but it did the job.
“I’m coming down.”
The next few minutes passed by so slowly that they felt like years. Soon, the front door opened, and there was Zane. He glared down at me with the angry, narrow-eyed expression I’d gotten so used to over the last few weeks.
