I groan and press my head against my seat. “I’m crying. I’m drunk. And my boyfriend or baby daddy or whatever the hell he is supposed to be was with another girl so for the love of God, can we please leave!” My voice is shrill in the car and I don’t even care. I can’t—my chest heaves and I begin to hyperventilate.
“Are you okay?”
No. I am not okay. I’m pretty sure that’s obvious right now, but I don’t say that.
“Open the door,” Emilio shouts, knocking on the window, startling me as he tries to pry the door open with brute force. Good luck with that. “Mariposa, please. Talk to me.”
My upper lip curls at that single word. I am not his butterfly. I am not his anything. I turn to face him and suck in a shaking breath. “Leave me alone!” I scream loud enough for him to hear me.
His hand is still holding the door handle as if he can stop the car from leaving. His nostrils flare and he gives one firm shake of his head. “We need to talk. You can’t just run away from—”
“Fuck you, Emilio!” I flip him off. I don’t care that it’s childish. He deserves it. “Leave me the hell alone.” Angry tears spill down my cheeks and I hate myself for them. Hate that I can’t lock up my emotions right now. “Why can’t I stop freaking crying,” I complain out loud, and Jae squeezes my knee.
“It’s okay,” he says.
Emilio shouts, “Dammit, Bibiana. Nothing happened!”
I want to believe him. Believe he would never throw what we have away, but I know what I saw, and I refuse to let him make a fool out of me. How long has this been going on? Did he ever stop seeing her? Has he been fooling around with her behind my back this entire time?
“Drive Jae.”
“Are you sure? If you need to talk to him—”
“Just drive!”
His face is tight with worry, but he nods and puts the car in reverse, backing out of Kasey’s driveway.
“Bibi, please—” Emilio’s voice cracks.
I can’t look at him. Not when it feels like my entire world is crashing down around me. They say when you lose the one you love, your heart breaks. But it isn’t only my heart that hurts. My chest aches, my breaths are ragged and shallow. I didn’t realize just how much I cared about him before, but the weight of my feelings slam into me like a Mac truck and I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack if I have to look at him even a second longer.
Is this what he wanted? To hurt me? To see me fall apart? To know he owned my heart and then throw it away?
Emilio chases us out of the driveway, panic written all over his face. “Don’t do this! It’s a misunderstanding. A fucking misunderstanding,” he shouts. But I’m done listening.
Jae peels down the street, finally putting some much-needed distance between us. I see Emilio come to a stop in the rearview mirror, arms at his sides and a hopeless expression on his face as he stands in the middle of the street. I stare at him as his figure gets smaller and smaller. The hole in my chest growing wider and wider.
We turn a corner, and as soon as he’s out of sight, the tears come faster. Angry, hurt, confused sobs wrack my body, making my chest heave and my shoulders shake.
I bury my face in my hands, a keening sound escaping my lips. Jae pulls over on the side of the road and I hear him unbuckle both our seatbelts before shoving his seat back as far as it will go and dragging me into his lap. His arms wrap around me and he holds me tight in a fierce embrace. “It’s going to be okay,” he tells me, but I have no reason to believe him. No part of what happened tonight feels like it will ever be okay.
“You’ve been drinking, B. Things might look different in the morning,” he tells me.
I don’t bother responding. He wasn’t there. He doesn’t know anything.
I don’t know how long we sit there on the side of the road, but eventually my sobs subside, leaving behind a gaping pit in my chest. “I’m sorry,” I tell him when I can form words again. “I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I just—”
“Don’t apologize. I’m here. For whatever you need. I’ll always be here, okay?”
I nod against his chest, taking a few precious seconds to pull myself together before I lift my head from his chest and climb over the center console, taking my seat again. I wipe the tears from my face and suck in a shuddering breath. Get it together, I tell myself and decide here and now that I will be fine. I’ve been through a lot. I’m strong. I’m independent. And I can do this on my own. I’ve already proven that. I don’t need Emilio to be whole. Brick by brick I will put myself back together. I won’t become my mother. I won’t settle for a man who doesn’t really love me.
Thirty
She won’t take my calls. I know she moved in with Jae, but I don’t know where the fuck that even is. She picked Luis up this morning. Dominique called to let me know she showed up at his place, but I wasn’t able to make it there fast enough to intercept her and Monique refused to tell him what time she was coming for me to plan ahead. Fuck. I should have just showed up at seven this morning and waited. That would have been the smart thing to do. The creeper-stalker thing too, but I could live with that.
The girls are locking down hard. Even Allie is vague-booking shit. Telling me to give Bibiana space. That she just needs time to think.
No, the fuck she doesn’t because all she’s doing is thinking about shit that never fucking happened. Giving her time and space right now is not going to help me in the least. It’s only going to make shit worse.
