“Fuck you.” I lost it hearing the name a second time. “I’m not going to that dirty motherfucker. Never again. Do you hear me? I got away from him. It wasn’t easy. There is no way I’m going back… and you can’t make me.”
He shoved me back into the chair, and in my head, I screamed, but no sound came out. I hated this part of myself. The broken part that forgot how to function.
Why couldn’t I be normal and flee or fight like everyone else?
Instead, I fawned or froze like a goddamn gazelle for the slaughter.
Jay’s nose scraped mine and spittle flew between us as he caged me in that chair, his hands on either side of the armrest.
His words bled together and boomed at times.
“Your boyfriend and his friends say this is how it is now. So, this is how the fuck it is going to be. You picked him. Not me, sweetheart. You want to play in the dirt with bikers, now look at you... Filthy. Ruined with no place to go.”
I couldn’t stop blinking, but at least my thoughts had stilled.
“My–my boy–boyfriend?”
“Well, was. He was your man. I guess that is the better way to say it. They don’t want to see you again. They want you gone. Off to Flynn you go. Bye, bye now.”
I shot off the chair and hit my knees with a thud, my arms snared his trashcan and I heaved, unable to hear the name a third time.
Jay jerked his foot back and kicked the can, sending it flying across the room. I stumbled backwards with a shriek, and spidered my way toward the door.
“You get your ass down to The Oasis by midnight, or else don’t bother looking for a job in this town. Hear me? They’re gonna tell everyone else you’re not employable. So, you best be listening!” he roared, as I found my feet and fled.
Tears streaked my cheeks as I darted into traffic over a symphony of horns and curses. I barely noticed. I should have just stopped and called Anthony, but I was so off-kilter and inwardly battered that I just needed sanctuary. I needed to get to the safety of my own room and figure all of this out.
My vision blurred and I dropped the keys on the steps as I struggled to get it together. I needed to be right in order to work the door. It was hard enough.
“Are you high?” Tindra’s voice cut through my inner panic, and I jerked my head up and stopped flipping keys. She was seething, but it wasn’t her that caught my attention, it was the shattered glass behind her.
I didn’t need a key, the glass wall that had been beside the door was gone.
“Wh–?” I didn’t have time to spit the question out, before she flew out the broken area and shoved me back down the steps.
I landed on the grass rather than the sidewalk, thank God.
My heart hammered in my chest as I scrambled to get up before she made it off the porch. She stopped at the top step and pointed down at me, “You’re fucking done here. Get your shit and get the fuck out. I’m not dealing with this drama.”
“Wh–what the fuck, Tin-Tin?” I sobbed, bewildered.
“That’s what I was saying while your boyfriend and his thugs tore the hell out of my apartment.”
The keys slid from my hand, and I slowly started toward her, leaving them to lay in the dirt. Had he really been here?
Was it possible?
“Anthony wouldn’t–”
“Shut the fuck up.” Tindra snapped. “He dicked you down once or twice and now you know him, that it? Well, I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but he did. They probably have it on camera.”
Her gaze lifted to the opposite side of the road. The houses there were decent, and she was right, someone probably did have a camera.
I sighed and shot upstairs, unsure exactly what to believe.
The front door was cracked where it met the frame, leaving me to believe someone had kicked at it. Splinters of wood lay on the floor inside. The coffee table had been flipped; it’s glass top was shattered all over the kitchen. The sofa cushions were everywhere and the upholstered part where my back usually rested was slashed open and destroyed.
“This is bad,” Etta whispered, from her doorway.
