by M. S. Parker
She grinned. “Yeah, I’m an awesome friend like that.”
I rolled my eyes, but I appreciated the tease. I was going to tell her everything, and it wouldn’t be pleasant, but she was trying to make it as easy on me as possible.
“Did you see the story on the news the day before Thanksgiving about the hostages in Iraq who were rescued from being sold?” That seemed as good a place to start as any.
She went completely still. “Yeah.”
“Four of them had actually been taken in Iran weeks before.” I pressed my hands together to prevent them from shaking. “I know because I was held with them too.”
The color drained out of Martina’s face, her normally honey-colored skin as pale as I’d ever seen it.
“Freedom had to have an emergency appendectomy our last week in Iran, so she went straight from the hospital to the airport where I was supposed to meet her. On my way there, some men with guns stopped the taxi, grabbed me, threw me into a van, and then took me somewhere on the outskirts of the city.”
“How was this not national news? International? Hell, even local?” Martina looked like she was going to be sick.
“Freedom kept it quiet because she wasn’t sure what had happened to me at first. She was trying to get the police to search for me when she was sent a ransom video.” I still went cold every time I thought about what that must’ve been like for her. No matter how pissed I was at her, I knew that she loved me, and it must’ve been awful for her. “She knew our parents could afford the ransom, but she didn’t trust the kidnappers to honor the agreement, so she called an old boyfriend who has a security agency and hired him to find me and get me out.”
The story became easier to tell with each word, and soon, they were pouring out. I told Martina everything. From being certain I was going to be raped when I’d been dragged out of the cell to seeing the men die in that hallway. I told her about Eoin pretending that I was a prostitute and then how I’d kissed him. And more.
I filled her in on everything that’d happened after I’d gotten home too. All the way up until I walked out of my parents’ house and showed up at her work. By the time I was done, I felt surprisingly better, as if I’d purged myself of something that had been making me sick.
I reheated my food and ate it as Martina thought things over in silence. Finally, just as I was finishing up, she reached over and put her hand on mine.
“I’m so glad you’re safe.”
With a start, I realized that no one had said it to me like that. Their relief and joy at seeing me home safely had been genuine, but it’d always been tinged with a hint of exasperation as if I’d held some level of responsibility for the chain of events.
Maybe it’d been unconscious on the part of my family, and I sincerely hoped that was the case, but either way, it just proved that I’d made the right choice by leaving.
Things needed to change.
Three
Eoin
This was not how I pictured the end of my first official week at my new job. After Freedom left, I waited for Cain to tell me that I was fired. Instead, he dropped back into Bruce’s chair and sighed.
“No more fucking clients…or their sisters.” He rested his head on the back of the chair and closed his eyes.
“Never again,” I promised. “I’m done with women for the foreseeable future. Not worth it.”
He raised his head and opened one eye. “You’re forgetting who you’re talking to. I dated a Mercier woman. They’re worth a hell of a lot.”
I blew out an exasperated breath. “Not this much trouble.”
He shrugged and put his head back down. “Wait and see. They’re a lot more addictive than you think. I dated Freedom for about three months, and then, just before I got my new assignment, she dumped me. Took me almost a year to get over her.”
Shit.
“Not the same,” I insisted. “Aline and me, it wasn’t like that.”
It might have been, if things hadn’t gone to shit every fucking time I was with her. I slept with the woman three times, and each time, all hell had broken loose right after. Like the better the sex, the crazier things got.
“Mm-hm.” It didn’t sound like he believed me, but I wasn’t so sure I believed me either.
He looked like he was going to take a nap, which was fine with me because I didn’t feel like talking. My mind had already been fucked up because of what’d happened over the weekend, and Freedom’s visit hadn’t helped matters much. I needed to get my head on straight and focus on my future, not on the latest thing Aline had done to get herself into trouble.
I hadn’t been thinking for very long when my phone rang. A quick glance at the screen told me it was Israel McCormack, Leo’s dad. If he was calling me during the week, something was up.
“Hello?”
“I hate to bother you at work, kid, but…” His voice cracked. “Nana Naz…she’s in the hospital.”
I stood up so fast my head spun. “Is she…what happened?”
“I don’t know. Doctors wouldn’t let me stay with her while they’re doing the examination.”
I’d never heard him like this. I hadn’t been there when he’d gotten the news about Leo, but he hadn’t been alone then. He’d had Nana Naz. Now, he didn’t have anyone. Because of me. Because I couldn’t save Leo.
I had to do something.
“I’m on my way.”
A moment passed as he cleared his throat. “Thank you.”
“Call if something happens. I’ll check my voicemail when I can.”
Before I ended the call, Cain was on his feet, his expression serious. “What do you need?”
“Time.” I shoved my phone in my pocket. “Family emergency.”
He nodded. “Do what you need to do. The job’ll be here when you get back. Need me to do anything for you?”
I shook my head, my mind already halfway back home. “I’ll be fine. Just have to go.”
“Then go.”
He didn’t even pause, just told me to go, and he meant it. I didn’t know the other guys well, but I knew they’d understand too. Family came in all shapes and sizes, which I understood better than anyone. And that was why I planned to get back to San Ramon as fast as I possibly could. Another part of my family was hurting and needed me.
The five-and-a-half-hour drive sucked. It was long enough for me to hate every second of it but not so long that it would’ve been worth trying to find a flight. I made it two hours into the drive before I realized that it might’ve been smarter for me to have gotten one of my siblings who lived in L.A. to drive me.
Smarter because that was when I started to get that hollow echoing sound, the tunnel vision, that warned me that a flashback or panic attack – or both – was coming. I pulled over, hating myself for having to waste time but knowing that it’d be worse if I tried to fight through it while behind the wheel.
Fortunately, it didn’t take long to calm down. Focusing on getting to Israel and Nana Naz, of being there for them because Leo couldn’t, helped. I kept that in mind as I finished the drive to the hospital.
At the first red light I hit in the city, I texted Israel to let him know where I was, and he said he’d meet me in the lobby. He hadn’t called to give me any updates, but I was taking that as a positive sign. Plus, I doubted he would’ve left Nana Naz alone to come down to the lobby if things were that bad.
I refused to think of anything else.
When I entered the lobby, I spotted Israel right away. He’d always been a big man. Even though he was two inches shorter than me, he was broader, more muscular. The first time I’d seen him after Leo’s death, he’d looked older but still larger than life. Now, he looked…smaller.
The realization made my heart and stomach twist, but I didn’t let any of it show on my face. I had to be strong for Israel, had to be at least a fraction of the man Leo had been. I made a silent promise to my friend that if I had to give up everything in L.A. to take care of his dad and grandmother, I w
ould.
“Thank you for coming.” Israel hugged me, and I wished he’d been able to put his arms around his son instead.
“How is she?” I forced myself to ask the question, even though I dreaded the answer.
“She’s resting,” he said as he stepped back. “C’mon. Let’s walk while we talk.”
As he led me to the elevator, he told me what’d happened. “She was starting dinner when she had to sit down because she was having a hard time getting her breath. She’d been sitting there for a couple minutes before I came in and asked if she was okay. You know Mama. She’s always fine. Except she said she didn’t feel right.”
That alone was enough to explain why he looked so ragged. I’d seen Nana Naz handle an entire church dinner while she had a kidney stone.
“I wanted to call for an ambulance, but she kept saying she just needed to rest, but then she fainted and that was it. I called 911. She came to on the way here, but she was disoriented, groggy. I was worried she’d had a stroke. Her dad passed from one when she was twelve.”
I hadn’t known that. “Was it one?”
We stepped off the elevator onto the ICU floor, and he continued, “No, thank the Lord. The doctors ran all these tests and said they think it was a combination of being dehydrated and her blood pressure dropping. They’re keeping her here at least until tomorrow because they’re having a hard time getting it back up.”
That was good to hear, but it didn’t make me less worried. Nana Naz wasn’t really old, but she wasn’t young either. And she’d had a stressful year. Hell, she’d had a stressful life, losing her only child, helping raise her grandson, and then losing him too.
“I thought about calling you and telling you that you didn’t need to come.” Israel stopped next to what I assumed was the door to Nana Naz’s room. “But, honestly, I wasn’t sure I could get through the rest of tonight and tomorrow alone.”
I knew what it cost him to admit that, which meant he was even more freaked out than I’d realized.
“I never should’ve left,” I said, shaking my head. “I promised Leo I’d take care of you both, and I can’t do that from six hours away.”
Israel gave me a hard look. “Where would the two of you be if my son hadn’t died?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Both of you planned to make a full career in the army, right? Even if you boys ever decided to get married, neither of you planned to leave the service this early.”
“Right,” I agreed. “Yeah, we’d still be in the army.”
“In that case, you could’ve been on the other side of the country or the other side of the world, and I’d be right here.” Israel put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m grateful to have you here, but I don’t want you thinking that this means you have to stay in San Ramon for the rest of mine or Mama’s lives. I’d tell Leo the same thing.”
The fact that I knew he’d have done just that didn’t make me feel any better, but I didn’t argue with him. I wasn’t here to prove a point.
Nana Naz was sleeping when we went into the room, and while she looked peaceful, she also looked frail with an IV in her arm and an oxygen tube in her nose. I’d always thought of her as some unstoppable force. Invincible.
People always talk about how teenagers think nothing can touch them, but I think most forget that when we’re young, we think all the stable people in our lives will be there all the time. The loss of a mother I didn’t really remember and my time in the army had changed both mindsets pretty fast, but the reality of Nana Naz’s mortality hadn’t really hit me until that moment.
“The doctor said her oxygen is pretty low too,” Israel said quietly as we made our way to the chairs next to her bed. “He asked me if she was a smoker, and all I could think was that day she caught you and Leo smoking.”
I smiled at the memory, surprised at how little it hurt to think of it. Leo and I were in sixth grade when, for a reason I couldn’t remember, I decided the two of us should steal a pack of cigarettes from these racist high school kids who never missed a chance to get after Leo. Once we’d taken the cigarettes, I’d gotten the bright idea that we should smoke a couple, just to show the world how tough and grown-up we were.
Nana Naz had caught us and smacked us both upside the backs of our heads. Then she’d made us tell Israel and my parents. She hadn’t, however, made us apologize to the guys we’d stolen them from. About that, she’d merely said that we should’ve let the air out of their bike tires too.
“None of it had been Leo’s idea,” I admitted. “Not taking them and not smoking them. I know what he said, but it’d all been me.”
“We knew.” Israel chuckled. “Most of the time when you boys got in trouble, it was your idea, and he went along with it.”
I grimaced at the memory. “I still have no idea why you never told him not to hang around with me.”
“You’ve always had a good heart, Eoin,” Israel said. My face must’ve showed my thoughts on that particular statement because he smiled. “You know that Angel and I were high school sweethearts, but I bet you don’t know that we almost didn’t make it.” He looked at Nana Naz, a faraway expression on his face as he thought of her daughter, his late wife. “Six weeks before our high school graduation, a friend of mine, a boy I’d known since birth, was killed in a drive-by shooting. Cops dismissed it as gang-related violence and never really did much to find out what really happened. Thing was, Nate wasn’t in a gang. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the wrong thing with the wrong colored skin. We both were. I was just the lucky one who didn’t get hit.” He glanced at me. “As you can imagine, I didn’t handle it too well.”
He understood, I realized. He knew what it was like to have a friend killed right in front of him. And it was even worse for him. Yeah, Leo and I had been helping people in Iraq when we’d been ambushed, but we’d still been in the army, in an area where people weren’t too happy with what we were doing. Israel and his friend had just been teenagers, minding their own business.
“I was angry with the world. Started doing stupid stuff. Broke windows, graffitied walls, all the things angry people do when they don’t get justice.” A ghost of a smile appeared. “Angel dumped me because of it, said she wasn’t going to be with a man who acted like a boy.”
I’d always heard that Angel had been like her mom, and that definitely sounded like something Nana Naz would’ve said.
“She’s the one who straightened me out.” He gestured toward Nana Naz. “She told me that if I didn’t straighten up, then I’d end up being the sort of black man who made the justice system not care, and that would be a waste. She marched me over to each and every place I’d vandalized, made me apologize, and promise to pay for everything. Then she took me to the police station and had me confess there too. I paid everyone back, did fifty hours of community service, and I’ve been on the straight and narrow ever since.”
I didn’t know what to say, but he wasn’t done yet.
“That’s why we didn’t discourage Leo from hanging out with you. We told him he needed to be the kind of friend who made better choices and was a good influence, but we never thought you were a bad kid. You just needed some help to believe it yourself. Sometimes, we can have the best family in the world, but it takes someone outside the family believing in you that makes a difference.”
I honestly wasn’t sure I believed it now, but I thanked him anyway. Whatever the reason, misguided or not, their decision had played a large role in why I wasn’t in prison or worse. Without Leo, I doubted I ever would’ve completely straightened up, no matter how great my family was or how much they loved me. Israel was right. I’d needed it from somewhere else too.
He reached over and ruffled my hair the way he had when I’d been that brat who’d stolen cigarettes. “Now, while we’re here for who knows how long, how about you tell me what’s got you so troubled.”
“Am I that easy to read?”
He shrugged. “I know
a thing or two about being in love.”
Love?
I shook my head. “It’s not love, but it is a girl.” I sighed. “I barely know her, but I can’t stop thinking about her.”
A wide grin split Israel’s face, and the flash of memory that came with it was bittersweet. Last time I’d seen that smile had been right before things had gone as wrong as anything could. I didn’t have to worry about getting lost in the past, though. Leo had gotten his stubborn streak from both his dad and his grandmother, and Israel wasn’t going to let things be.
“Hate to tell you, son, but that probably means it’s love.”
“You’re not going to let this rest until I tell you the whole story, are you?”
He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere soon.”
So, I told him. Everything. From the first moment I’d seen her on that ransom video to Freedom showing up at the agency right before he’d called. When I finished, I shut up and let him process. It was a lot, especially since he already had plenty of other shit going on in his head. If he hadn’t insisted, I never would’ve laid all that on him, but I could see part of why he wanted to hear it. It might’ve been a lot, but it was a great distraction.
“I’m guessing you haven’t talked to your parents or siblings about this.”
“No, why?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Because they would’ve told you the same thing I’m going to tell you…stop being an idiot.”
I barked a laugh, but it wasn’t a happy one. He wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t talked to anyone in my family about it because they would’ve said exactly that. To stop being an idiot.
And I would’ve said the same thing to them that I was going to say to Israel.
“It doesn’t matter. I fucked up too many times.”
Well, I might not have worded it exactly that way with everyone, but the sentiment would’ve been the same.
“We all do,” Israel countered. “But, if she’s worth it, you go after the girl.”
