How the demons of my past must be rejoicing that what I’d wanted all my life...a home...love...and a family...would always be beyond my reach. “I don’t love you. If you get horny and want a fuck, you can call me. If I’m not busy with another girl—”
She choked back a sob, opened the door and got out, slamming the door before I finished. She ran into the house.
Two down. The pain in my heart felt like someone turned an alligator loose inside my body and he was going for the death roll. I was drowning in the pain. I drove away and before I even reached the stop sign at the end of her street, I had to pull over to collect myself. The Spiderman figure stared sightlessly at me in mocking reminder of what I’d lost. I put it in the glovebox and drove on to finish breaking all the hearts I needed to break.
Chapter Twenty-Five
TANA
By the weekend following Ryan taking my heart apart and then stomping on the pieces, Mom was able to return home. I was ecstatic to have her back. She was frail and she moved slowly and carefully but she was alive and she was home. The second I had her settled on the sofa with pillows and an ottoman for her feet, she dropped a bomb on me. “Your college tuition is paid for your first year. I expect you to leave at the end of August like we’d planned.”
“Mom! That’s two weeks from now. You just came home. I can’t leave. You need me. Mark needs me.”
“Oh honey, we’ll both always need you, but only because you’re a part of our family. Not because you have to fix things or save us. Leena is coming by tomorrow to take you shopping for some of the things you’ll need for your dorm.”
“But...Mom...” I started crying.
“Tana, honey. It would break my heart if you stayed.”
“If I go...and something happens...how could I live with myself for not being here?”
“You couldn’t prevent what happened even by being here.” She shifted and then settled back. “We will not live our lives waiting for what-if to happen.”
The doorbell rang and I wiped my eyes and went to answer. Mama Leena, Destiny, and several of Mom’s coworkers filed into the house bearing containers of food, flowers, balloons and gift bags. Following the group into the kitchen, I squeezed beside Mama Leena and casually asked her how Ryan was.
She tensed, then lowered her head and shook it. “That boy is in a world of hurting right now but I can’t reach him. He’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“He moved out. I don’t know where he’s staying.”
“Why would he move out?”
“Because I told him he couldn’t be in the gang and stay at my house.”
“He’s in the gang?”
Mama Leena looked at her watch. “He will be. Abraham said the jumping in is this afternoon.”
I tugged at her arm. “I’m angry with him for keeping what he knew about Mom’s shooting from me and how he talked to me the last time I saw him but that doesn’t mean I don’t care what happens to him. We have to stop it. We have to save him.”
She covered my hand with hers and refused to move. “No, Tana. You cannot force someone to make good choices. They have to realize it and want it on their own. Ryan has to find the strength to save himself.”
“I have to—”
“Let him go. That’s what you have to do and it’s the only thing you can do. When I first met Ryan, he was a mess of hurt and anger. I’ve seen him change and grow. Underneath all that swagger and mouth of his, I believe there’s a good man. But he’s got to choose to be that man. You understand?”
“I love him. I can’t let him...”
“He didn’t choose you, Tana.”
I gasped at the pain her words caused. Her eyes filled with sympathy and she hugged me. “I’m sorry, honey. I know that’s difficult to hear. But you go on about your life and maybe things will work out. The worst thing in the world you can do is stick around waiting for him to make a U-turn he might never make.”
“Hey!” Shelby walked into the kitchen carrying a cake and slid it onto the counter. “I’m coming with you and Leena tomorrow. I’m so excited to be your roommate! Think of all the parties and the boys.”
I darted my eyes at Mama Leena. Shelby’s smile faded. “Study parties and the boys will be study partners.”
Mama Leena rolled her eyes. “Don’t act like I was born last night. I’ll pick you tomorrow at 8 sharp.” She gave a long look at Shelby and then left.
“Sorry about that.” Shelby was practically bouncing. “Remember Isaiah? That cute senior who asked you out a few times?”
“Uh huh,” I said absently while tearing the plastic from a stack of paper plates.
“He’s going to be one of our neighbors. Co-ed dorms. That boy is built like a fantasy. Did we luck up or what?”
“I thought Patriot Hall was girls only.”
“They changed it this year, lucky us.” She snagged my hand and did a shimmy dance around the room. “It’s time to have fun and let loose.”
“Sure.”
She dropped my hand. “I know about Ryan and it sucks, but you have to start living again.”
“I’m trying, but I love him.” I poured us both some Coke and then added ice. “I keep going over it in my head and it doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t he have told me what he knew? He hid it for some reason. Ryan’s always been steady. As good as his word. He doesn’t talk to me the way that he did.”
“Maybe he was steady and all that because you hadn’t slept with him and then after sex, everything changed and he didn’t have to try so hard to be nice.”
Ouch. That hurt. “I don’t believe that. I wish I could talk to him, but Mama Leena doesn’t know where he’s at.”
Shelby glanced away with a guilty tinge covering her cheeks.
“Do you know?”
“Brooklyn said he’s been sleeping in the office at the garage.”
I knew what I needed to do. “Thanks. Maybe I’ll go see him. At least tell him that I’m leaving.”
“Don’t get mad at me for saying this, but are you sure he’ll even care?”
I lowered my head, letting my hair swing forward to cover the sides of my face. I wasn’t sure if he cared or not. But it wasn’t about him. I needed closure. I needed more than the ugly things he’d said to me. I needed to know the truth and I needed to walk away from him on my terms if this was really the end of our friendship and anything else that might have been.
*
RYAN
The afternoon was hot and muggy. I’d shown up for the jump in before I was supposed to. I wanted to get it over with. Sign my soul back over. Not that it mattered to me anymore. What the hell else did I have to lose that I hadn’t already lost?
There were six of us behind a shuttered fast food joint. Chanos, me, and four of the other gang members. All of them decked out in our colors. I knew the drill. The four would hit me over and over again until Chanos said it was enough. If I survived, I was in.
A couple of the guys were wary, expecting me to hit back, but I wouldn’t. This beating meant something different to me than it did to them. I saw it as punishment that didn’t even scratch the surface for paying penance for my crime of allowing my past to taint Tana’s life. I wholly deserved this and more for what had happened to Tana’s mom, for making Tana cry. For breaking her heart.
I’d cut everyone out of my life and had walked around in a numb daze. Not even running the roads until I was too tired to drive another mile had helped. The beating would be a relief. At least then I would feel something and know I was still alive. As soon as I healed from it, I planned to quit the garage so I wouldn’t put Abraham in any danger. Then my life would be like it had been before. Me trying to survive.
“You ready?” Chanos asked with a wide grin. His eyes were bright, eager. He enjoyed the violence.
I nodded and locked my arms by my sides. I deserved every one of the blows. I deserved this life. I had nothing to offer anyone except pain and heartbreak. There was no good within me. Each punch radiated through me as the coppery sent of blood filled my nose. Ragged pain stabbed me in the side, forcing me to exhale sharply. The blows struck me repeatedly until there wasn’t a spot on my body that didn’t ache. I don’t know how long it lasted. It was only when I fell to the ground, slamming my face onto the pavement, the grit digging into my cheekbone, that I realized it was over. I caught one last glimpse of the sun before I couldn’t see anything else. I closed my eyes.