I couldn’t reply to that. Not after she had already made up her mind. Ten years I had pined for her, and now she was turning me away because I had told her the truth about her father.
“You can stay here as long as you need, Valentina,” I said and turned around to walk to the door, hoping the whole time that she would stop me in my tracks. She didn’t, and I was gone.
Fuck it! I told myself. I needed to buy my mother milk and eggs anyway.
Chapter 12
Valentina
I was shaking in bed after Jesus left. I felt empty inside like a massive hurricane had hit the room and stripped me of all my possessions and my soul and everything. His words kept ringing in my ears. Papi had arranged the kidnapping, and he was the one who made Juan keep me prisoner. What were they going to trade me for?
I jumped out of bed and started collecting my discarded clothes off the floor. No, I didn’t believe him. Jesus was lying to me. The last words that I had lashed at him…I didn’t mean any of them. They had come spilling out of me from somewhere, from an unknown place. I shouldn’t have said those things to him. Not after everything he had done for him.
I started changing into the pajamas, my hands still shaking as I tried to smoothen the clothes over my body. The body that Jesus had touched. I could still feel his arms around me. His thrusts. My legs quivered from the soreness of the sex we had last night.
I shook my head, trying to get those thoughts out of my head. No, he was lying to me.
I was in a battle with myself. I didn’t want to believe what he had told me, Papi would never do such a thing to me. But what reason did Jesus have, to lie to me? Did he hate Papi that much? That he would try and turn me against him?
The man I knew…the boy I knew from ten years ago, would have done anything to keep me safe. I would have trusted him with my life and everything else back then. Why couldn’t I trust him again? Was I that afraid of getting hurt?
I tried to strengthen myself against him, and I slipped out of Moira’s guest room. She didn’t seem to be in the apartment, and I walked over to the living room and found her cell phone on the kitchen counter.
My mind was conflicted between calling Jesus and calling someone else. He had left his phone number with me earlier so that I could get in touch with him if I needed. I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to call him and beg him for forgiveness. The truth was that there was nobody else I wanted to trust. Why had I lashed out at him? Was it because I couldn’t fathom the thought that Papi would do something like that to me? Was it because I was taking out my anger against Papi on him?
I picked up Moira’s phone and began to dial a number.
I remembered it by heart. Paola’s phone.
I hadn’t spoken to her in ten years either. We were kids back then when she got involved with the gang. Her father had been a low-rung member, who Papi used to kick around but Paola stuck with the gang. She always had plans on manipulating one of the gang members into a relationship with her. Even as a teenager, she kept her eyes on the prize. While I was falling in love with Jesus, Paola was sleeping around with the guys in the gang, trying to decide whose baby to have so that she could secure them for life.
I knew she had her eyes on Juan, and now I wondered if she was still in town, if she was still in association with the gang. We had been friends back then, and I knew there was a possibility that she wouldn’t want to be friends anymore. But girls looked out for each other, and I wondered if there was a chance that she could help me. Either way, there was nobody else I could turn to in this town anymore, especially since Jesus had washed his hands of me too. It was a flight to fight mode for me.
The phone kept ringing, and I mumbled under my breath for her to pick up. I didn’t even know if she used the same number anymore.
“Ya,” Paola’s voice was the same…screechy and high pitched and I recognized it immediately. She sounded like she was chewing a piece of gum.
“Oh, my God! Paola…it’s Valentina,” I cried into the phone, wiping tears from my cheeks. I was relieved to hear her voice, even though I didn’t know what to expect.
“Valentina! Oh, my God!” she was bursting with energy on the other end.
“I’m so sorry we haven’t spoken in years. I just didn’t know who else to call,” I cried.
“I heard what happened to you, girl. That’s crazy! Juan is going nuts here,” Paola’s voice was suddenly hushed, and I could sense that she was locking herself up in a room somewhere, to get away from prying ears.
“Listen…where are you? Are you safe?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m safe…I can’t tell you where I am, but I want to see you. I need to find out what’s really going on,” I said and kept my eye on the door as I spoke to her. I knew that Moira or Jesus or anyone from the Rogue Rebels would not be happy to know that I had gotten in touch with someone from the gang.
“Okay, yeah, we should meet. I’m so happy that you managed to escape, girl. I was so happy when I heard that,” she said and laughed, and I could tell that her laugh was genuine. No matter how much she wanted to have a baby with some asshole from the gang, her loyalties still lay with the welfare of a friend.
“Yeah, I got lucky. I’ll call you again, and we can set up a meeting, okay? I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page,” I said to her.
“Of course, girl. These fuckers need to know that they can’t treat us like this,” she said.
We said our goodbyes and I cut the call. Speaking to Paola had made me feel a little better. Even though, the truth was that I knew I was trying to compensate for the big gaping hole that Jesus had left when he walked out half an hour ago.
Chapter 13