house. Everything looked the same. Same scuff on the wall. Same worn-out rug on the floor. My friends in the living room, laughing over something stupid on TV.
It was wrong. All of it.
Life didn’t get to be the same when I was upside down.
I had woken up this morning with the decision to find my girl, bring her back here, and make her beg for my forgiveness—which she would, and I would give her gladly.
This morning could have been a thousand years ago. I was a different person now.
My world was controlled. I held the reins. Shit went my way because I made it so. People listened to me, deferred to me, did what I asked, what I told them to. No one walked away from me. They watched me walk when I was well and truly ready.
I wasn’t anywhere near ready to walk away from Zadie. Hadn’t I been thinking about keeping her forever?
God, who was that naive kid who thought he controlled his world?
I didn’t control shit.
Fuck Zadie for asking me to do something she damn well knew I couldn’t. Fuck her for throwing around love like it was so damn easy to turn on and off.
Julien came out of the living room, headed in the direction of the kitchen. He stumbled over his feet when he spotted me frozen by the front door.
“Uh…hey.” He approached. “Did someone die? You look like someone died.”
“Nope.”
“What’s up, man?”
I had enough presence of mind not to throw my backpack across the room. My laptop and school shit were in there. When I got over this, which I damn well would, I’d regret destroying the things important to me.
With a calm I pulled out of my deepest reserves, I set my things down, kicked off my shoes, and passed Julien to head into the kitchen. I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and drank until it was gone. By the time I crushed the bottle in my hand, Marco and Julien had both arrived.
Concerned. They were concerned about me.
Well, fuck that.
“Zadie walked.”
Julien started. Marco crossed his arms, a storm brewing on his face.
“She broke up with you?” Julien asked.
“Yep. Had a feeling it was coming when she snuck off on me.” I pulled up a seat at the table and sank down in it. “She confirmed it today.”
“And?” Marco took the seat across from me. “Is she into someone else?”
Julien grunted. “Zadie would never.”
I shrugged. “I don’t even know what Zadie would do. Thought I did. Thought I had a loyal girl. Seems like I was mistaken.”
“What the fuck did she say?” Marco demanded.
I slowly turned my head to him. My friend was indignant. Pissed off for me, and he had no idea what had happened, just that I was wronged.
“She said she loved me.”
Marco stared at me, blinking slowly. Julien leaned forward, his elbows on the table.
“Let me try to remember her words.” I pretended to think, but they were imprinted in my brain. It didn’t take much to call them up. “She said she can’t be with me while this violence has a stranglehold on me. She said maybe in a year, when I’m not doing my job anymore, if we’re both single, we can try again.”
Julien spread his hands on the table. “So, it’s the job? The job she knew you had before this started? Did she give you an ultimatum?”
I shook my head. “No. No ultimatum. She asked if I’d quit. I said no. She said it was over. That was it. I have to fucking accept this girl, who says she loves me, won’t be with me.” I scoffed at it all. “What a farce. That’s not love. That’s more of her manipulative bullshit. Telling me she loves me before she walks away? Nah. Nah, I don’t buy that.”
Marco lifted a shoulder. “If she can’t deal with violence then she was right to walk.”
My gaze whipped to him. “She doesn’t need to deal with violence. I keep my Reno business separate from my life. That doesn’t touch the people I care about. I’m careful. You and Julien aren’t a part of any of it. It could have been that way for her. But she walked, so she’ll never know.”
Marco straightened, staring at his palms on the table. “I’m sorry, man, but that’s bullshit.”
Julien slapped his arm. “Dude.”
“No, no,” I held my hand out, “I want to hear this. Go on.”
Marco lifted his head. “You’ve convinced yourself Julien and I are separate, but that’s bullshit. Everyone in that life knows our faces. They know our names. If they wanted to get to you, they could easily go through us. Hell, if the cops showed up at your door, don’t you think we’d be hauled in right along with you? It’s not like my hands are clean. I help you out all the damn time. You don’t ask. I have your back, always. But saying we’re separate? That isn’t true by any means.”
“Cognitive dissonance,” Julien murmured.
Marco nodded. “Zadie wasn’t wrong.”
My brow pulled together so tight, it felt like my skull might crack. “What the fuck?”
“That night, at the club, Julien and I were laughing at how pathetic César was. She said it was cognitive dissonance, to see him as weak and look down on him for being an addict, but stand by you when you were the supplier,” Marco explained.
“You told her she was too soft,” Julien said.
He nodded. “Hell yeah I did, and I stand by it. We both know Amir isn’t walking away from Reno and that life. Zadie was gonna see a lot of ugly if she stayed. Turned out, she saw more of it that night when César came to the house.”
My shoulders were bunched so tight, I couldn’t lower them. “Why’d you say cognitive dissonance to me?”
Marco leveled me with a steady, open stare. “Because you keep telling yourself you have two lives and they never meet. You’ve told yourself that so often, you believe it. Even when the evidence is waving red flags in your face, you stick to the story you’ve told yourself. The truth is, Julien and I are in deep with your life. Jesus, man, I helped you fuck up César and his cousin that night. How is that separate? Explain it to me.”
I had nothing to say. Even if I did, I wasn’t sure I could speak, not when the barriers I’d constructed in my mind were being swept away by the barrage of truth Marco had just dropped on me.
Julien folded his arms on his chest. “I sat in your room with her that night. She was shaking so hard, I thought she might crack a tooth. That level of terror can’t be faked. I see why she walked. I’m sorry she did it, but I see why.”
My head was roaring. The cracks in my skull weren’t there to let the light in. No, those bitches were ushering in the pain. And it wasn’t just there. My chest and gut felt like they’d been pummeled with brass knuckles.
“You can see why?” I’d gone dead calm. If I moved too fast, my head would snap off. “You understand why my girl left me? Is that what the fuck you’re saying to me?”
“I’m saying she was scared,” Julien replied just as calmly. “You didn’t see the height of her terror, but I did. She’s only my friend, and I don’t want her to ever have to go through that again. She’s a lot more than a friend to you. You care about her, want her safe. She wasn’t safe with you that night, and the reality is, you can’t promise to keep her safe. We all know it.”
“Fuck,” I grunted.
Julien went on, even though I really wanted him to shut up. Needed him to shut up.
“I don’t see this as being disloyal to you, Amir. I get why it feels that way, but I don’t think it is. To me, it’s her putting herself first. Knowing what she can handle and what she can’t. Asking to try again in a year, when you’re done, tells me she walked strictly because of your job, not because she doesn’t want you.” He ran his hand through the side of his hair. “Zadie’s a good girl. Not the right girl for you, though.”
“I decide that.” My fist came down heavy on the table. “I get to decide who’s the girl for me.”
Julien held up his hands. “I’m not trying to decide anything. I’m going to miss the hell out of her, and I really liked seeing how good she made you feel. But fuck, man, I think it’s pretty obvious, given the current situation, you two were a mismatch. We all know you’re never quitting on Reno. You told her that. There’s no path forward for you two.”
If I’d let his words absorb, I would have detonated and Julien would have been caught in my explosion. So, I didn’t take them in. I stared at him, at the view out the window to the backyard, inhaled the faint scent of burnt toast from the morning, soaked up the warm sun streaming through the glass, and rolled everything he said into a ball, tucking it in the back of my mind for when I could handle thinking about the truth in it all.
Marco got up from the table, opened the cabinet that housed the liquor, pulled down a bottle of tequila, and grabbed three shot glasses. He sat down, filled the glasses, and passed them around.
He held his up. “You heard our thoughts. Now, it’s time to turn it all off.”
Yeah. Turning it all off sounded like exactly what I needed. I tossed back the shot, reveling in the burn of my throat, and slammed my glass down. “More.”
He filled my glass. I swallowed it. “More.”
The same. “More.”
The burn barely made a dent after that one. “More.”
He kept pouring. I kept drinking.
Until finally, finally, midnight came, and with it, all the bright faded, and so did I.
It took three days for me to crawl out of my hole. Three days of going to class half drunk and mostly hungover. Nights of drinking until the light was blotted out and all I was left with was black.
On Thursday, Marco poured the fresh bottle of tequila down the drain. “Enough.”
“I say when it’s enough.” But I had no power behind my protest. First, because I felt like shit warmed over. Second, because he was right. Getting obliterated three days in a row was really fucking enough.
“Smoke a blunt if you need some relief. Your liver will thank you,” he said.
“I don’t need relief.” I just didn’t want to think. Thinking meant making decisions. I wasn’t really ready to do that.
He propped himself against the fridge and crossed his arms. I was bent over the island, cupping my head in my hands.
“Ready to talk it out?” he asked.
“Nah.”
“All right. I have shit to do. Just telling you I’m here if that’s what you want.”
I lifted my head. Marco was walking out of the kitchen. “There isn’t anything to talk about, right? I have to get out.”
He stopped midstride. “What?”
“I have to get out.” I pounded the heel of my hand against my forehead, still foggy from the past three days of fucking myself up. “You were right. I’ve wrapped myself in my own bullshit so tight, I believed it, even when it was obviously untrue. I’m taking chances with you, with Julien. I’ve got Krasinski doubting me and my future because of my connections to Reno’s business. I’ve got junkies breaking into my house. I’ve got my girl—” I shook my head. I wasn’t going there. Not right now.
“Can you get out?” Marco asked.
I closed my eyes, exhaled through my nose. “He’s not going to be pleased. I’ll have to empty out a lot of my savings to appease him.” I opened my eyes and focused on Marco. “Tell me, brother to brother, is this the right move?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Without a doubt. If he lets you go, this’ll be the best move you’ve made in a long, long time.”
Zadie had been the best move I’d made in a long, long time. But I told myself this particular move, getting out of my promise to Reno a year early, couldn’t be about her. It had to be about me, my future, and my two best friends who were my brothers.
When this was done, when I got free and clear of the stranglehold of violence—maybe she was right, maybe that was what it was—I’d go to her. She’d be back at my side where she belonged, and she’d never fucking leave again. But I needed to be clean, without any ties, before I did that. I wouldn’t give her any room to protest, since I wasn’t going to accept any.
“He’ll let me go. I might have to fight. I’ll definitely have to pay. But he’ll let me go.”
He might let me go crawling and bloody, but I didn’t care. As long as the chains were broken, it’d be worth it.
