Jagged Love

by Nicole Simone

  While it sounded nice in theory, I wasn’t ready to stick on the rose colored glasses. Besides, Andrew didn’t grow up on the cold streets of Detroit. He grew up in the suburbs with a warm house to come home to and a mother that loved him. It was easy to be positive with an upbringing like that.

  I flopped onto my back. “No offense, but what struggles have you gone through?”

  “I don’t believe in comparing tragedies, Haven.”

  His clipped tone grated on my nerves. I was sick of the long list of things he didn’t believe in and his holier than thou attitude. Since the day we’d met, he had remained evasive while I’d bared parts of my past nobody knew about.

  “You should leave,” I said.

  Andrew, without a fight, slipped out of bed. He searched for his shirt on the floor amongst the other discarded clothes. I scrambled, kicking the sheets off my body. Anger pulsed hot and quick through my veins.

  “That’s it? You are not going to ask why?” My voice cut the air like a knife.

  “I assume you have your reasons. Besides it’s been a long night, you need your sleep.”

  The rational side of Andrew I usually admired teetered me over the edge. I needed passion, anger, anything to feed off of. “What is wrong with you? I lost everything tonight and you give me bullshit about keeping positive. How can I keep positive, Andrew, when life keeps slapping me sideways?”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched. “You can’t play the victim forever.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  He found his shirt and snatched it over his head. The warmth in his gaze had vanished, replaced by a coldness that was unlike the man I had gotten to know. “It means exactly that. Playing victim won’t propel you forward in life, it will keep you stuck in the past.”

  “Aren’t you the pot calling the tea kettle black?” I gestured my hands toward his office. “Keeping photographs and old love letters from your ex.”

  “You snooped in my desk?”

  I straightened my spine against the betrayal that flashed across his face. The truth was out in the open now, might as well own up to it. Although, I would have much rather pressed rewind.

  “Yes, I snooped in your desk, but in my defense you wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “You never asked.”

  “That’s not true! I did ask and whenever I felt as if we were making headway, you clammed up.”

  “We have known each other less than a week. What did you think? I would spill my guts to you right off the bat?”

  “It’s about trust.”

  Andrew mercilessly laughed. “Trust?! That’s real rich coming from you. You don’t trust anybody.”

  “How can I? The scars I have on my body aren’t self-inflected. They were done by people without souls and they are more people without souls than with them.” Shoving my shirt up, I exposed the real me I had kept hidden for so long. “You see that?” My fingers traced a jagged line under my boob. “That is from when I was sleeping on the streets and was almost raped. And that?” I pointed to another scar above my belly button. “That was from when a girl beat the shit out of me because I talked to her boyfriend.” Andrew eyes were emotionless yet I pressed on, desperate for him to understand. “I wasn’t taught to trust. I was taught to survive, which was what I was doing until you came along.”

  “And what are you doing now?” Andrew asked.

  “Living.” My gaze pleaded with him. “Let me in, tell me what happened and then we can both move on.”

  A war raged inside Andrew’s dark eyes that filled me with hope. We could do this. We could move on from our past and find a future with each other. Tension coated the silence. He opened his mouth to talk and I lunged forward to hear the words I wanted to hear. Grief bled into his expression as his lips closed. My heart shattered and I sunk into the white linen sheets. I’d not only lost my home tonight, I’d also lost Andrew, but then again, how can you lose someone if they were never yours in the first place?

  Suitcase in hand, I knocked on Monica’s door. Her apartment straddled the border of the East Side and was smaller than mine was. She rented from an old lady who converted her basement into a cozy open living concept. There was a galley kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom separated by gauzy linen curtains. I hated to impose on Monica but I had nowhere else to go. The atmosphere in Andrew’s loft was uncomfortably strained and unwelcoming. He was too polite to kick me out so I did it myself. Nine in the morning, I wrote him a note, packed my meager belongings and closed the chapter on us. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but it was better now than later when he had captured my entire heart.

  Giggles could be heard on the other side of the door followed by a gruff male voice. Knocking again, I blew on my hands to warm them. A low rider car drove by blasting “I Need a Doctor” by Doctor Dre. How appropriate. The door cracked open and Monica peered out.

  I gave a weak wave. “Hey, it’s me.”

  She unlatched the chain. Wrapped in nothing but bed sheets, she looked flushed and had sex hair. A man was lying on her bed in the background, shirtless. I had forgotten about the negatives of renting a studio. There wasn’t any privacy and or additional room for guests. Falling asleep on the couch next to Monica’s moans wasn’t appealing in the least.

  “Hey.” Her gaze wandered over my face with concern. “Are you ok?”

  I felt like a truck had run over me, backed up and finished me off. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied. “I was wondering if I could stay here for a couple of days, but you’re busy.”

  “What happened to your apartment?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll explain later.” Picking up my suitcase, I stepped off the stairs. “Have fun.”

  Monica clutched the sheets to her body. “You sure? I can kick him out and fix us some tea.”

  She had to be really concerned because not once in the many years of our friendship had Monica ever offered me tea. Whiskey was her poison.

  “It’s fine. Just because I’m not getting any doesn’t mean nobody else should.”

  She flashed an unsure smile then nodded. “Alright, but promise to call me later.”

  “I promise.”

  Spinning around toward the street, the door softly clicked closed. My breath hung in the frigid cold air. Slipping my cell phone out of my pocket, I scrolled through my contacts and was dismayed to find very few options. There was my old friend from my brief stint at community college but last I’d heard, she moved to Las Vegas. My finger stopped on Mallory and while we were more co-workers than friends, she had a weak spot for strays.

  Pushing the call button, she answered on the second ring. “Hello.”

  “Hey, it’s me, Haven.”

  I was relieved when she sounded genially happy to hear from me. “Hey girl! Are you calling to tell me that the coffee shop has re-opened because I’m bored to tears over here.”

  “Um, no. I’m actually calling because I was wondering if you might have a spare room. My apartment caught on fire last night.”

  “Oh heavens, that’s awful!” In my mind, I pictured her slapping her hand over her chest in shock. “Of course you can stay with me and Clint.”

  “Thank you so much. It won’t be for long.”

  That was a bold faced lie. The amount of money that had to be acquired now was staggering and Rogue didn’t provide enough income to cover half. I’d have to get a second and third job or else I would be living with Mallory and her boyfriend for the next three months.

  “No worries. We have the room and with Clint gone most of the time, it will be nice to have the company,” Mallory said.

  She gave me the address of her house, which was in the suburbs of Detroit. If I wanted to fall off the grid for a while, this would be the place to do it. Nonetheless, as much as that sounded heavenly, Big Ted’s threat echoed in my mind. Since the building had been old, faulty wires could have been the reason for the fire but my gut said otherwise. Big Ted had showed up at my work and threated to kill eve
rybody close to me. Conveniently, my apartment burned to the ground two days later. It looked like a message to me.

  “Hey!” I looked over my shoulder at Monica who was running barefoot down the walkway. “I called you a cab.”

  “Thanks but you didn’t need to do that.”

  “You have been standing out here for the last forty minutes.”

  “I have?”

  “Yeah.” Her tone became gentle as if she was talking to a fragile toddler. “What happened to Andrew, Haven?”

  I winced. His name was a jagged piece of glass that cut my chest wide open, leaving my heart vulnerable and exposed.

  “Nothing happened. I couldn’t crash with him forever,” I said.

  “It’s been three days and when we talked last, it seemed like everything was going fine, so obviously something happened.”

  The cab arrived, saving me from an explanation. “I have to go.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m staying with a friend for a couple of days.” Monica’s expression of worry made me blurt out one-half of the story. “There was a fire at my apartment last night so that’s why I can’t go home. I don’t have one.”

  Monica and I weren’t huggers. I could count the amount of times we hugged on my fingers but when the situation called for it, we did. She wrapped me in her arms as my eyes sprung a leak. I sniffled against her shoulder.

  “Oh honey,” she counseled. “I’m so sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  “If you need anything, blankets, linens—anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  Stepping apart, Monica had teared up as well. She wiped her face on her white t-shirt and I laughed. “We are a mess, aren’t we?”

  “We are always a mess but remember when we lived together and were too poor to buy toilet paper?”

  “How can I forget?”

  At twenty years old, Monica and I had roomed together in a crummy studio apartment above a porn shop. We lived off ramen noodles and viewed toilet paper as luxury item. While it had been a year a growth, I wouldn’t want to relive it. Nor did I want to relive the years when I lived on the streets. The day I moved into my own place was considered one of the best moments of my life. However, that only happened because the landlord felt bad for my poor ass. She let me pay off the security deposit in installments. Who knows if luck would strike twice?

  Monica clamped her hands on my shoulders. Steely determination twinkled in her eyes. “Repeat after me. If we can survive that, we can survive anything.

  “If we can survive that, we can survive anything.”

  “Good.”

  “You are like a younger and skinnier version of Dr. Phil,” I joked.

  She cocked her hip and put on her best impression of her grandmother. “Honey, I’m like the modern day Oprah. Dr. Phil is a joke.”

  Monica’s grandmother, Mrs. Lovette, had been a fan of daytime talk shows to where it bordered on a religion. She would plop herself down in front of her 1980s boxy television until Monica came home from school, where she would then proceed to tell us how she would counsel the guest differently. Mrs. Lovette passed away two years ago, but she was greatly missed by everybody who knew her. The cab honked twice, impatiently.

  I shifted my weight. “Alright, I better go before the cab driver blows a gasket.”

  “Ok. I’m really sorry you can’t stay with me. My apartment isn’t suited for two people.”

  “It looks like you were doing just fine with having Marco there.”

  She rolled her eyes skyward. “Well yeah, it’s fine when you are doing the naked tango.”

  The cab driver stuck his head out the window, yelled time was money, and tapped his watch. Monica held up her finger to signal one minute. He mumbled something in a foreign language that sounded like stuck up princesses.

  I gave Monica another hug and rolled my suitcase to the cab. Climbing inside, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. Andrew’s named flashed on the screen and I hit ignore.

  “5432 Hampton avenue, please,” I told the cab driver.

  The city sprawl soon spread into wide-open spaces, white picket fences, and beige as the theme color. Welcome to the suburbs.

  Mallory’s bright red door was a cute touch to the old brick home. So were the black and white striped rugs on the porch. I wouldn’t have guessed by the way she dressed, but Mallory had an eye for home décor. I rang the doorbell and waited. Through the stained glass panels, I saw her approach.

  She opened the door with a smile. “Hey!”

  “Hey yourself.”

  “Did you find the house ok?”

  “Yeah, easy peasy.”

  Mallory stepped aside and gestured me for to enter. “You are just in time. I was making hot chocolate.”

  Wiping my feet on the doormat, I walked into a cozy hallway. Cinnamon and chocolate scented the air, reminding me of snowy winter days. Above the staircase, pictures of Mallory and her boyfriend hung on the cream colored walls. Shoes haphazardly tossed on a shoe rack made me smile. It was exactly the kind of home I hoped to have one day.

  Gathering the mess off the floors, she tossed it into a hallway closet. “Sorry. I’m not used to having so much square footage to clean.”

  “Don’t apologize. I was just thinking about how cozy your place was.”

  “Oh, well, thank you. It’s the first place Clint and I have called home together. I wanted to make it feel special with little things that hold meaning to us.”

  “That’s really sweet.”

  Mallory blushed as she straightened her ponytail. A rough-cut diamond on her ring finger caught the light. It was simple in its beauty, like Mallory.

  Squealing, I grabbed her hand and admired the ring more closely. “You are engaged! When did this happen?”

  “The other night. Clint planned a romantic picnic in our backyard and asked. It was only six years over due.”

  “Better late than never.”

  As a young girl, I was more focused on getting through each day than planning a hypothetical wedding. Honestly, marriage seemed like a pointless institution. A signature on a piece of paper was less meaningful than choosing to be together because you wanted to be, not because you were stuck. Nonetheless, Mallory deserved her happy ever after.

  She gazed dreamily at her finger. “I can’t believe it’s real. Clint is the love of my life and the thought that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together makes me stupid giddy, like yesterday I had a dance party for one in the kitchen.” Mallory looked at me straight faced. “I don’t dance, Haven, yet I busted moves like nobody’s business.”

  She seemed so concerned I couldn’t help but laugh. “I think you’re experiencing a well known disease called love sickness.”

  “God, I think your right.”

  Dropping her hand, I took a step back and admired Mallory’s glow. She looked like she had just gotten back from a vacation in Mexico. If the beauty industry could bottle love and sell it as a skin cream, they would make a pretty penny.

  “If you want, you can leave your stuff here and we can gossip some more over cups of hot cocoa.” Mallory said.

  “That sounds amazing.”

  Her welcoming kitchen mirrored the rest of the house. An ache pulsed behind my breastbone. Andrew and I could have had this if our hearts had room for each other. Sitting at the counter, Mallory handed me a mug.

  It smelled heavenly and as I sipped the velvet mixture, my bones sighed. “If Clint wasn’t marrying you, I would.”

  “We can probably work out an arrangement.”

  I grinned. Mallory and I had a similar sense of humor that went unnoticed at work. While my apartment burning to the ground sucked majorly, I liked how it brought the opportunity for us to become friends.

  “Have you guys set a date yet?” I wondered.

  “We’re going to elope. I want the day to be about us and not pleasing our families.”

  “So the wedding venue will be at the Detroit courthouse?�
��

  Mallory’s lip curled. “No that building is butt ugly, but we are scouting different courthouses. Have you seen the one in Santa Barbara?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “It’s gorgeous. I have to show you.”

  She jumped out her seat and retrieved her laptop. Setting it on the counter, Mallory pulled up pictures of the Spanish style courthouse. Her excitement was contagious and pretty soon we were discussing the logistics of plane tickets, what hotel to stay at, and honeymoon destinations. A knock at the front door interrupted our girl talk.

  “I wonder who that could be,” Mallory mused. “I wasn’t expecting anyone. I’ll be right back.” Muffled voices were heard from the hallway. Seconds later, she came back with unreadable expression on her face. “It’s for you.”

  I pointed to my chest. “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “Who is it?”

  Mallory grabbed our mugs and set them in the sink. “Go see.”

  Uneasily, my feet walked into the hallway. Big Ted had no idea where I was, yet I didn’t doubt his ability to find me. Turning the corner, the air left my lungs. Andrew stood on the porch holding a can of paint and a paintbrush. Our eyes locked.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey. How did you know I was here?”

  “Monica told me.”

  Of course she did, traitor. “I—I don’t know what to say.”

  Andrew’s brown eyes laughed. “That’s a first.” He closed the distance between us and looked at me with sincere regret. “I’m sorry about last night. It’s not easy talking about what happened between Camilla and me, but trust me when I say I’ll tell you eventually. Just not now, ok?”

  It wasn’t what I was hoping for, however, like Monica said, Andrew was allowed to have a past. I saw now my emotional outburst earlier this morning was caused by fear. Fear that Andrew would break my heart, fear of putting my trust into somebody and most of all, fear of the depth of my feelings for Andrew. Running away was my attempt at sabotaging the blooming relationship between us. Andrew obviously wouldn’t let that happen.