Best of 2017

“Excuse me?”

She glanced over at me but quickly looked away and kept walking.

“Excuse me? I’m looking for someone.”

“If you’re smart, a pretty girl like you would get the fuck out of here.” She glanced at me once more, a black eye now visible under the washed-out streetlamp.

I rolled up the window, making sure the doors were locked. There was one second where panic settled deep in me. My throat closed up, and my heart started to make this warlike tempo in my chest, the pain strangulating.

I closed my eyes, gripped the steering wheel, and tried to breathe through the fear. When I opened my eyes, I was exactly where I had been five seconds ago.

There was a flash of headlights, and I glanced in my rearview mirror, seeing a shiny dark SUV pull up behind me. That panic grew tenfold. It was probably nothing, or maybe it was something. Didn’t know, but what I did know without a doubt was that if I didn’t figure out what in the hell I was going to do, I’d be dead.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MY MIND WAS FILLED with white noise, this static that consumed me. I stared down at the empty coffee cup, the insulated Styrofoam fragile in my hand. Before I knew what I was doing, I had it crushed in my palm, my fingers digging into the slightly raised exterior.

“Excuse me?”

I lifted my head, feeling like there was this rush of waves around me, filling my ears, making noise muted, blurred. The lady in front of me had this confused look on her face, or maybe it was fear. She looked at me like I’d grown two heads.

“Are you going to make my coffee?”

I swallowed, my hands shaking. Why the hell was I even at work?

“Take fifteen,” Cambria said, pushing me toward the back.

I blinked, my vision blurry. I was crying.

I found myself walking into the room, stopping, standing there, looking around but not taking anything in. I felt lost, so lost my mind was a jumble of images and words, sounds of what happened around me. But just as promptly I turned and went out of the back room and right to a table.

I sat in one of the empty booths, wanting to leave, to get away from all of this, from everything, but I needed the money.

God, I could have laughed at that fact. I had a shitload of money back at my apartment, but still I was broke, wondering how I would survive.

I scrubbed my hand over my face, over my hair, wanting to rip the strands out. At least the pain would have given me something else to focus on. The flat screen that hung in the corner showed the news. That’s all that was on, every day, all day. I stared at the muted screen, the news anchor saying something, but the volume was so low I couldn’t hear anything. I watched her mouth move, stared at her perfectly placed and made-up face, and wanted to scream. I was frustrated, my mind and body feeling like it was wrapped around itself, like it was this tangled mess inside of me with no hope of becoming right again.

And then the screen switched to a neighborhood, one I recognized because I’d just been there the other day. I sat up straighter, staring at the shitty complex where Marshall lived. The apartment building was the focal point, and the people standing around were more interested in the fact that a camera was there than the body that was being wheeled out on a stretcher. I obviously couldn’t see who they were taking away, but I didn’t need to see to know it was Marshall. The image of him flashed on the screen. The news anchor was back on, the little square to the upper-right side of her showing the guy I didn’t really know, but who I felt responsible for at this moment.

He looked lost in the picture, his eyes red-rimmed, his face ashen. His death had to be something vicious, something truly newsworthy if they were taking time to report on it. Hell, his neighborhood probably had a high violence and death rate, so whatever had happened to Marshall had to be pretty bad for them to give it the time of day.

I’d killed him. He’d told me about Ricky, tried to help me, and because I’d opened my mouth, his death was on my hands. I found myself standing, went over to where the TV was mounted, and craned my neck back. I stared at the picture of him, everything moving in slow motion, the world around me spinning, then promptly speeding up.

I don’t know what made me look out the window, but before I knew what I was doing, I stared out at the passing world before me. The only thing separating me from it was glass and steel. There, sitting like an idling devil, or maybe the Grim Reaper, was a black SUV. The black SUV I’d seen at Marshall’s place.

I couldn’t see who sat in the passenger’s or driver’s seat; the windows were too tinted, too dark with violence and death. But I knew they were there for me. I knew they were there to incite fear, promise.

I had to decide what I was going to do. Now.

THE MUSIC FILLED MY HEAD, the crush of bodies, the heat…all of it had this calm settling over me. Maybe I was a fool, an idiot for coming to the club, for not locking myself up, trying to hide, maybe even escaping the city. But all these people made me feel safer. These strangers made me feel like I was already hidden, a dot of color in the middle of a rainbow.

I didn’t need to see Ricky to know he was in that dark SUV, that he was watching me, waiting for me to do something, anything that would give him an excuse to react. Or maybe he was just taunting me, torturing me with the promise of what my future really held.

I stood in the center of the room and turned around slowly, taking in the sights and smells that surrounded me. I felt like I could hide in plain sight, like nothing could touch me. There was strength in numbers, right?

Stupid. None of these assholes would look your way if you needed help.

I closed my eyes and breathed in and out slowly. Sweat, stale beer, the promise of sex in the air, all of it filled my head, made me dizzy. The music was loud, the vibrations settling into my body, twisting me up, making me sway like I was in the ocean and the current was trying to take me under, to make me its bitch. I had no money on me, couldn’t even get a drink to numb my emotions. I could have gone to the trouble of asking some poor asshole here to buy me a drink, ply him with the false promise of sex for a bottle of beer, but even that seemed like too much work. Just being here, the crush of bodies making me move back and forth, was enough to placate me.

It was enough to make me feel a modicum of safety.

Up until I step out of these doors and am forced to go back to my shitty apartment.

“Dance with me.” The voice came through like a whip to my back. I didn’t even turn around, didn’t even look at whoever was offering his company. I just pushed my way through and walked toward the bar.

There were people milling around, throwing out their drink orders. The three bartenders worked fast, concentration etched on their faces. I glanced up to where several security cameras pointed to the patrons, taking in every little move, every hand being lifted. Who was on the other end? Who watched everyone from the safety of a padded chair and an eagle eye?

Did I even care?

“Let me buy you a drink.”

I glanced to my left, my head feeling like it weighed a ton as I turned it. The guy sitting next to me looked nice, with a light gray button-down shirt, his tie loosened and his hair slicked off to the side. He was clearly a businessman, maybe coming to the club to unwind after a stressful day of mergers. I looked down at his hand, saw the gold wedding band, and lifted my gaze back to his face. He didn’t look the least bit ashamed that he was here, trying to pick up some random girl while his wife was probably at home with his kids.

I didn’t even bother responding. Being here wasn’t helping me, not like I’d hoped. I’d wanted to be surrounded by people, to feel like I was nothing among a sea of everything. Instead I felt suffocated, like my own thoughts, my own needs were taking me further into the recesses of a place I’d never be able to claw myself back up from.

But going “home” wasn’t an option. I needed fresh air, needed to breathe. I needed to still be close enough to something, to someone instead of surrounded by nothing. I pus

hed my way past the deadbeat husband, through the heavy crush of bodies gyrating on the dance floor, and finally made it outside. I sucked in a deep lungful of air. A few people were smoking to the side, the stench of cigarette smoke cloying, suffocating. I moved past them, turned the corner of the building, and found myself in a semi-quiet, pretty dark alley.

I had some privacy, some breathing room, but stayed close enough to the corner of the building to feel like I wasn’t alone and foolish for coming out here. When I sat on the curb, the smell of piss, vomit, and stale beer filled my head, making me want to gag. But I didn’t move. I felt this tingle of reality deep inside me, this problem that I’d never solve making me its prisoner. I could hear people around the corner, their laughter, their drunkenness causing them to be carefree.

I stared at the alleyway before me, the darkness creeping around, promising absolution, nothingness. That’s what I wanted, to just be swallowed whole.

This alley wasn’t where my problems stemmed from, just the one where the mystery man had taken control and “saved” me with a gun and unconcern. No, my problems had started when I was born into a world that didn’t want me, when I was introduced into a life that already hated me.

I looked up and into the “eye” of the security camera pointed at me.

I pushed the tears away with angry swipes to my cheeks. I wouldn’t cry for anything, for anyone, least of all myself. I’d gotten into this mess, and I’d figure out a way to get out of it.

Leaving. Running. That was my only option. They might find me, probably would if I was being honest, but they’d just take me here, now, anyway. Running would at least not make me a victim. It would make me a fighter, and that’s how I’d survive.

Until they catch up with me, which they will eventually.

I scrubbed a hand over my face, so tired. I hung my head, closed my eyes, and just let the deep bass of the music come through whenever the front door was opened. The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stood on end. I lifted my head and saw large black boots in my vision. I couldn’t see the man who stood in front of me clearly, the shadows were too thick, but for some inexplicable reason I knew I’d seen him before.

That night in the alley. He was with the man in the suit.