Random (Going the Distance) (14 page)

“You were with her?”

“Yep.”

He pulls me tighter, presses kisses on my brow, the top of my head.

I look up at him finally. “I swear I’m not a crazy person.”

“I already know that.” He strokes my cheek and bends in to kiss me. It’s tender and thoughtful. He pulls away only slightly and brushes his nose across mine. “Where did you come from?”

I touch his face, feeling too much emotion raging through me. It’s so big it nearly hurts, in my ribs and my throat. “Where did you?”

Softly, he kisses me. “I have to go to work soon.”

“I figured.”

“When can I see you again?”

I have to wash clothes and get my house clean and keep looking for work. “Call me.”

“Ok.” He sits up, pulling me with him. “I haven’t scared you off, have I?”

“No.” I say it earnestly, looking right into his eyes. I’m sure it will end badly, that he’s going to shatter me into a million pieces, but there’s no turning back now. “Have
I
scared
you
?”

“No.” He says it with gravity, and brushes my hair back from my face with his palm. “Not in the way you mean.”

I wait, but he doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t pursue it.

It’s only when I get back to my house that I realize I never saw the drawings he did of me. Or the other paintings. I tell myself he has a good reason, but it haunts me. Is he hiding something? And if he is, what is it?

Chapter TWELVE

I
t’s the middle of the night when I wake suddenly. For a long minute I lie in the darkness, trying to figure out what woke me. A streetlight in the alley shines through the window and everything looks normal. Did I have a dream?

Weight shifts on my bed, and I bolt up, scrambling backward as I make out a shadowy shape against the darker night. “Get out!” I’m scrambling for my phone, on the night table, but I can’t find it.

“Shh, baby. It’s only me.”

Rick. I let go of a breath. “What are you
doing
here?”

“I just needed to see you.” He moves up, and I pull my knees closer to me. “I know you’re mad at me, but we have something good. I miss you. I can’t even think straight.” His hands fall on my feet, tentatively.

I shift, but the table is blocking my way off the bed. My senses are on high alert, and while I’m trying to think of the best thing to say I’m looking for an escape route. The bed is in the corner of the tiny room, and the dresser is at the end. If I jump up—

He reaches for my knee, and now I can smell the alcohol on his breath. “Jess, I love you. Like crazy-love you.”

I put my hand on the back of his, appeasing. “Rick, I know. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to break your heart.”

“If you’re sorry, let’s get back together and this will be over with.”

I shake my head slowly.
Where is my phone?
“I can’t, Rick.”

He jumps up, flinging his body into the middle of the room. “It’s that guy, isn’t it? The one who was here the other day?”

“No.” I flip on the lamp, but the phone isn’t on the table.

It’s in his hand.

That sends a bolt of terror through my body, though I’m not sure why. He’s never hurt me. He loves me.

I stand up. “Let me make you some coffee.” With more confidence than I’m feeling, I start to push by him.

He grabs me around the waist. “No coffee. I just want you.” He’s a tall guy, very thin, but strong. His bloodshot eyes take in the tank top and panties that are all I wore to bed. He touches my breast boldly. “This is mine, you know that.”

I wiggle out of his grip, my mouth suddenly filled with the coppery taste of fear. “No. I belong to
me
.”

Shoving him away, I head for the door of the bedroom, but he grabs my braid and yanks me back, hard enough that it brings tears to my eyes and jerks me off my feet. My elbow slams into the edge of the dresser on the way down, and it hurts like somebody jumped on it. I land sideways, banging my shoulder on the floor. I see his shoe, then his hands are on my body, hauling me up.

In that second I’m thinking about all the stories you see on the news about some drunk guy who broke into his estranged girlfriend or wife’s house and killed her.

He pushes me backward onto the bed and falls on top of me. “Don’t fight me, Jess. Don’t.”

He kisses me, shoving his tongue in my mouth, grinding his pelvis between my legs, though I can tell he isn’t even hard. He’s too drunk. I’ve never really seen him this drunk, crazy drunk.

Think!

Even as I’m trying to figure a way out, he’s pulling my tank off my shoulders, hands pawing me, then his mouth. When he starts to pull my panties down I don’t care if it’s smart or not, he’s not going to do this. I start fighting back, moving my body as much as I can, pushing at him, writhing to get away.

He says, “Yeah, baby.”

I can feel him getting hard, and I shove him as hard as I can. “No, Rick. Stop it!”

He grabs my wrists in one hand and pins me with his body, dry humping me, shoving his tongue down my throat. His dick is harder by the second, hurting me, and it makes my heart race with panic. If I can’t get free, he will rape me. I move my head sideways and his tongue slobbers all the way to my ear. He tears at my shirt, and I hear it rip, cutting into my underarm where it resists. He mauls my breast, reaching between us to tear at my panties, sticking his fingers in me. It
hurts.

“Argh! Rick, stop. This isn’t us. This isn’t you.” I’m writhing, moving every part of my body, but his weight is more than I can budge. “Stop, stop, stop! Please!”

Something on his jean jacket is digging into my right breast, and he’s grinding into me. My phone is in his hand, hurting my wrist, and I can’t breathe. He’s ready to shove his dick into me. I can feel it on my leg, feel his hands trying to get it in.

I start screaming, pushing, bucking. “Help! Help! Help!” I scream at the top of my voice, which isn’t the easiest thing to do with 175 pounds squashing you. He rears back, slapping a hand to his ear, giving me just enough room to be able to shove him and scramble out from under him.

He grabs my arm and yanks me down again, then hauls back and hits me hard. The phone catches the edge of my lip. I taste blood in my mouth, but for a second I really can’t think at all. Tears sting my eyes as I stare up at him.

“Oh, Jesus, Jess,” Rick says, staring at me. He bends over me, crying. Kissing the blood. He pulls my torn shirt up over my chest, but of course it won’t stay. “I’m sorry. This isn’t what I wanted. I wanted to hold you, to feel better.”

I push him off me, and this time he lets me go. I pull the shirt over me, covering myself as well as I can. Blood spills over my tongue, and I’m panting like a dog. “Get out!”

He gets to his feet, defeated. “Jess, please—”

“No! No!” I scream it at him. “Go! Get!” I grab for the phone, but he yanks it back, and before I can do anything to stop him, he slams it hard on the floor and then crushes it beneath the heel of his boot. Twice. He glares at me mulishly, and he’s panting, too. I wonder how I ever loved him.

“That was my mom’s phone.”

“Yeah, well, you won’t be getting any calls now, will you?”

“Get out!” I point. My hands are shaking with rage and a hundred other emotions. “I
never
want to see you again!”

He reaches out, his eyes sad, and for one second I think of all the time we spent together. Sometimes it was so much fun, and he was the first guy who ever really loved me. But this is craziness.

“I don’t love you anymore, Rick. I’m sorry, but I just don’t. It’s over. Over for good. You can’t come back here ever again.”

A flare of red light comes into the house, and there’s a sudden fierce banging on the front door. “Police! Open up!”

Rick looks at the door, looks at me. “Fuck. I’m in so much trouble.” He gives me a dark, dark look, like he’d love to break me into kindling, and I shrink back. “Fuck! You have totally fucked up my life.”

The banging comes again, and I start to dash toward it. Rick grabs my arm hard. “I’ll make you pay.”

I shake his hand off and run for the door, hauling it open, not even caring that I’m barely covered. I’m sure they’ve seen worse. “He broke in.”

The cop takes one look at me, the only thing on my body a torn tank top, and pushes inside. Rick just raises his hands in surrender, his hate-filled gaze fixed on me. The first cop comes in and arrests him while I stand with my arms trying to cover myself a little. There’s a sweater on the chair and I put it on, tugging it down to cover my naked crotch.

It’s so humiliating.

The second cop bends closer to look at me. “Do you need to go to the hospital, miss?”

I shake my head. “He didn’t do anything but this.” I gesture at the bleeding lip.

“Why don’t we get you something to put on and then take care of that cut? Then I’ll get your statement.”

Electra shows up at the door. Her hair is stiff and standing out from her hand, and she’s wearing plaid pajama bottoms with a t-shirt. “I heard you yelling,” she says.

“Thank you.” The shaking in my limbs starts again, and I really can’t stand up. I sink down on my couch as they take Rick out of my house, wondering how I will ever feel safe again.

* * *

I grab some yoga pants and a t-shirt from the bedroom, get some ice for my lip, and the cop takes my statement while Rick is in the back of the cop car. Then they’re gone, and it’s just me and Electra. “I’ll stay on the couch, child,” she says. “Let me go get a blanket.”

I shake my head. “That’s all right. I’ll be okay.”

“No, you’re shook up, and I’ll sleep here with you. Tomorrow we’ll get the locks changed.” She eyes the windows. “He wouldn’t be able to get in through the windows.”

I let my head fall into my hands. “This sucks. I’m so tired of my life being so fucked up.” I shake my head. “I haven’t even got the whole rent. I don’t know if I’m going to get a check from Billy’s, and the unemployment hasn’t started , and now I have to get a new phone and new locks and…” It’s so overwhelming I can’t even cry. “It’s not fair! I didn’t
do
anything!”

“Whoever told you life was fair was lying. We’ll call the landlord together tomorrow and talk to him about changing the lock on his dime. You can tell him about the problem with the check. You have any of the rent?”

“A little more than half.”

She grunts. “Tell him it’s a little less than half and keep some for yourself.”

That strikes me as funny, and I laugh.

“Got to look after yourself first.”

She’s not touchy-feely in the slightest, but her strength and steadiness are easy to believe in. “It’s a good plan.” I stand up. “Get a blanket and I’ll make the tea.”

While I’m waiting for the water to boil, I look at my phone, hoping that it might be salvageable, but it’s dead. The battery is broken, the face is shattered, and so is the keyboard. All that rage coming down on it—it didn’t have a chance. I hold the pieces in my hand, thinking of my mother chatting away to her friends while she bustled around the house, dusting and picking up, plumping pillows and tossing out Henry’s crap. She did it cheerfully so he never got mad. Of course, she could have burned everything he owned and he wouldn’t have cared.

I can’t bring myself to just throw the phone away, so I put it on the table in the kitchen. Electra comes back just as I’m pouring the water over Sleepytime tea bags. “Want sugar?” I ask.

“A little bit.” She tosses a blanket and pillow on my couch, and I feel a little guilty, but, honestly, I’m glad for her company.

She sits down at the little table. “You’ve made this real nice, Jess. I like the plants and flowers. What are those, African violets?”

There is a row of them on the sill of the high, long kitchen window. “Yeah. I saw some slips—that’s what they call a single leaf—at the greenhouse and looked up on the internet how to start them.” I don’t tell her that I got my leaves by pinching them off a couple of plants at the grocery store. It wasn’t exactly honest, but it wasn’t like it hurt the plants any. “I started them in vermiculite and they grew.”

“You have a true green thumb. My grandmother was like that, too. Could grow anything she wanted, up to and including all the food we ate.”

I settle across from her. “Was that in California?”

“Oh, no. I grew up in Mississippi, just outside of Jackson. It was college that took me to Oakland. Berkeley. I won a scholarship. My family was so proud of me.” She pats her hair, as if it will do any good. “I was proud of myself. Nobody in our family ever got beyond high school but me.”

“Mine, either.” I think about what Tyler said on our hike. “This guy told me today that you can get a degree in reading. Or rather, English, which is the same thing.”

“Is that what you’d study? Reading?”

“Maybe.” I look at the pink and purple violets on the windowsill. “Or plants, maybe.”

“You want to go to school, Jess?”

I shrug, looking away to hide the truth of my fierce
yes.

“I could probably help you figure it out if you wanted some help.”

I look at her, and this is the thing that makes tears come to my eyes. “You are really kind to me.”

“My mama died when I was seventeen,” she said. Her eyes are the color of dark amber, full of regret and truth. “Hard to go wrong too far if your mama’s got your back. Easy to go astray if she’s gone.”

“Did you go astray?”

“I did. That scholarship was lost within a year and I found myself a crazy man, and it was a long time before I got my head straight.” She looked into the past, over my shoulder. “When I ended up with the Panthers I got myself back on track.”

In the middle of the night I can ask the question I’ve always wanted to. “Weren’t the Black Panthers violent?”

She gives me a sad smile. “Only in defense. Y’all have forgotten what it was like then.”

“I don’t think I ever knew.”

“You probably don’t.” She drains her tea and stands up to put the cup in the sink. “I might have some books around you can read if you really want to. But that’s for another time. Right now you need to get yourself to bed. You look pale as a piece of bread.”