Sophia left for work early the next morning, and I took care of Suzy. I brought her soup and ice water in bed, making sure she didn’t get up for anything. I was so thankful that she allowed me to stay with them. I wanted to help them in every way possible. They had given me a roof over my head when I needed it most and had nowhere else to turn.
Suzy, Sophia, and I slowly fell into a pattern. I often cooked dinner, and the three of us ate together. Some evenings we played cards and watched movies. We became a threesome, not sexually, but in friendship.
Suzy gave us our privacy, but we included her as much as possible. Sometimes she’d lay on the bed with us and talk. Sophia and I were both older, and she used the opportunity to pick our brains about love and life. Why she chose us to ask, I’ll never understand. Sophia and I had failed miserably before finding each other. We could only offer her advice on what not to do. She became like a little sister, filled with questions, looking to me for answers.
I spent the next month applying to every place imaginable—job application after fucking job application. What a pain in the ass. Every single one wanted to know about my criminal record, and I answered honestly, but I knew I was doomed as soon as I hit send. I wished I could grab this shitty black cloud following me around and piss on it.
The holidays were closing in fast, and all I wanted was a drink. Every day was a struggle for me. It called to me. Every fucking day, it called to me. I needed to work, and the idleness of my life had become mind-numbing.
So much in my life was up in the air. Would I be able to stay in Florida with Sophia? I couldn’t return to New Orleans without a job in place. I tried to live in the present and not worry about the future as Sophia had asked.
She told me, “Everything has a way of working out in the end.” I loved her for her optimism, but I knew the realities.
31
Sophia
Nola Bound
Tom calledto tell Kayden the company would be closing down the apartment by the end of the month and that if he wanted his things, we needed to go there soon.
We left for New Orleans immediately. Sadness filled us as we drove to New Orleans. It would be a good-bye trip. Dread filled me the closer we got. I’d fallen in love with this city. It had become part of us.
I parked the car in the parking lot, and we sat for a moment. This was where we began. The love, passion, and crazy journey we’d experienced together.
Kayden looked around the parking lot, surveying the cars. “I don’t see my truck, Sophia. It’s missing,” he said. I covered my eyes with my hands, and my stomach felt uneasy. “It must have been towed. I’ll call them when we get inside.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” I said through my palms, feeling awful for him.
Kayden peeled my hands off my face. “Shit happens. I’ll get it back. Come on,” he said as he reached for the handle, and I did the same.
I held his hand as we approached the apartment. He paused before placing the key in the door. The apartment looked exactly like it did when we left in October, minus some personal effects and the television in the living room. A fold-up chair was propped against the wall, and some trash was strewn across the kitchen table.
I walked away from Kayden, turning the corner to his room. I stopped in the hallway. His bedroom door was open, and the door frame had been damaged. Someone had pried the door open. My heart sank as I walked through the door. “Your TV is missing!”
“What?” he asked as he rounded the corner behind me. Kayden came to a halt, staring blankly and not saying a word. The flat screen television no longer sat on his dresser beside his Blu-ray player. That was missing too, along with all of his movies. I heard rustling behind me as Kayden disappeared into his walk-in closet. “Motherfucker,” he said.
I could hear things crashing to the floor. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“All my fucking tools are gone. Everything is gone.”
I wrapped my arms around him. “It can’t all be gone.”
“I’m okay. I told you I have a fucking black cloud following my ass around.”
I grabbed his face, looking into his eyes, and kissed him. Not a lust-filled kiss but one filled with love and understanding. “We’ll figure it out. We need to call the police,” I said.
We searched his bedroom, taking inventory of everything that remained. It only took us a couple minutes to figure out that everything of value had vanished.
I felt responsible. I made him return to Florida with me. If he’d stayed in New Orleans, he’d still have his things. Though, we might not have survived as a couple if he did. I didn’t think I could be any sadder than I was when we were driving here, but I never could have imagined this—Merry Christmas and Happy fucking New Year.
Kayden placed a call to the police to report a burglary. The kitchen had been stripped. The bathroom was cleared of everything except one towel and a partially used body wash, and his bedroom was ransacked. Even his jar of change had disappeared.
The police officers wrote down all the missing items and asked basic questions. They would file a report but didn’t bother to take fingerprints from the doors or surfaces in the room. They gave us a copy of the report number in case Kayden needed it later. They said that his property had probably been sold off by now, and there was not much hope of recovering it.
He had nothing left but me.
“What do you want to do, Sophia?” he asked.
