Chapter 9
THE TESKEY brOTHERS, COLORS
Celie gave me a key to her walk-up years ago.
I turned it into a threat. A weapon. A backstage pass to barge in whenever I need to unload my bullshit.
But the second the door swings open,
I regret ever coming here.
Celie looks like roadkill.
Her eyes are puffy, bloodshot,
a post-sob haze hanging heavy on her face—
evidence she’s been crying all night.
Her cheeks are tear-streaked and salt-ruined.
Her hair turned into her stress ball.
She stands there, dead-eyed.
Fuck.
So much for talking about Andrew.
Behind her, it's worse.
There's a Kleenex pyramid in the middle of the floor, a snowfall of used tissues blanketing every surface, quilts and pillows piled high on the couch, stacks of plates, cups, wine glasses all around, barricading her misery.
This is code red.
This is we’re-past-the-point-of-saving-her bad.
And she’s staring at me,
eyes glassy,
zombie-mode.
Absolutely not.
I take one step back.
Then another.
If I back away slow,
she won’t notice I was ever here.
Then I groan because—
shit, I love her.
I close the door behind me and
throw myself into the room.
“Celie—”
I fling my purse on the counter.
“I manually worshipped six and a half inches of dick last month.
“With my hand.”
She says and does nothing.
I shrug, nonchalant.
“Six. And a half. Inches. Celie.
“Six and a fuckin’ half.
“Never bragged about it.
“That’s a full two inches above my contractual limit. And I still did it. No hand cramp. Solo mission. Praise be.”
Still nothing.
“And now? My heart’s fuckin’ around on me—that lyin’ bitch. No joke—my stupid heart cheated and caught STFs.
“Sexually transmitted feelings.”
I point to myself, pushing out a laugh.
“Me. Allison Taylor.
“Which gives me six and a half reasons to be freakin' the fuck out right now.”
She stares, still dead in the eyes.
None of it penetrated her Drake-fucked brain.
I clap in her face.
“Nope. Uh-uh. Snap outta it, bro. You don’t get to check out right now. I been sittin' on this one for a month while you been too busy cryin' over Drake’s ass.”
Because if I don’t finally talk about Andrew,
I’ll scream.
“I am owed, Celie. You had your turn.”
Her mascara-streaked raccoon eyes blink at me.
I slap my hand on her kitchen counter.
“I need a turn, Celie!
“I came here for a fuckin’ turn.
“I’m cashin’ in.
“Hundred degree spiral.
“Saw him last night.
“This needs immediate attention.”
Her lip wobbles.
I squint at her.
Her nose twitches.
I take a cautious step back.
Her face scrunches.
Oh, God, it’s happening.
She’s going to cry again.
The glossy-eyed, quivering-lipped,
pre-sob breakdown gearing up at full force.
“Oh, hell no. Don’t you dare.
“Fight it, Celie. C’mon, girl.”
She squeezes her fists,
sucking in a panicked breath.
Her nostrils flare so aggressively
I think she’s about to take flight.
And then her entire torso spasms,
a violent twitch.
As if her soul tripped over something
and faceplanted back into her body.
I look at her. Horrified. Yet slightly fascinated.
She holds her breath,
cutting off her own oxygen.
Her body stammers under itself,
face turning red.
Then she gasps as if her sadness was holding her head underwater, chin wobbling so aggressively from trapped tears I’m afraid her jaw will detach from her skull and roll under the fridge.
“Celie,” I say,
genuinely afraid for both of us now.
She flexes her fists again,
ready to fight her own heartbreak.
Her eyes snap to mine. Desperate. Pleading.
Tears pooling in the rims.
“Don’t,” she croaks. “I’m fine.”
She is the opposite of fine.
She’s enif.
I scan her head to toe.
“Fuckin’ A, woman. Pull it together.”
She sniffs,
wipes her nose,
then drops the bomb—
“He agreed to meet me at the park bench.”
I freeze.
I’ve been standing here, but I still freeze.
I’m not moving more than I was not moving before.
Then a laugh sputters out of me.
I’m watching her, expecting her to laugh too.
…Any second now.
Except she doesn’t.
My laugh fades.
My face goes one hundred percent deadpan.
“You outta your goddamn mind?!”
She sniffs, dabbing at her face.
“I texted Drake.
“I asked him to meet me. So we could talk.
“And he said yes.”
I don’t want to slap her.
But I feel like this is the part where I’m legally required to.
Nothing brutal.
Just one good slap to re-boot her brain.
“Yeah, genius move. Real fuckin’ smart. No, really.” I can’t even fake a smile. “You just made it unbelievably easy for him to hurt you again.”
She slumps, shoulders sagging,
eyes full of false hope.
“Allie,” she whispers,
my name cracking.
“I need your help.”
Fuck.
I'm her ride-or-die.
But we both lack common sense around dick,
so yeah—die.
I roll my eyes.
I cross my arms.
I tap my foot.
“I hate you.”
My hands are already moving.
“What do you need?”
She sniffles, wiping her eyes on the sleeves I explicitly told her not to ruin.
Then, in a cracked, post-cry voice—
“Hoodlum Shit.”
My head drops,
dead center of my shoulders,
staring at her.
A fuck no from head to toe.
I hold up a finger. “Don’t.”
Her stare deepens. “What?”
My glare locks with hers.
“We swore we’d never go back.”
“I know.”
“Celie, we promised.” I lean in, heat rising under my skin. “We already slipped up once. We slashed an innocent tire! And I made a vow. A literal, blood-pact-on-a-cocktail-napkin vow. Do you understand what you’re asking me to do right now?”
She nods.
I pinch the bridge of my nose to stop the oncoming aneurysm. “No. No, absolutely not. We left the game.
“Hoodrat & Hooligan? Retired.
“Jerseys? Hung.
“Burner phones? Tossed into the Hudson.
“We promised we were gonna be mature, responsible adult women with taxes and boundaries and skincare routines. We—”
Her face turns tragic.
The sad-eyed pout special.
Bronx edition.
How does she always make me the asshole for thinking logically?
But maybe it’s what I need right now, too.
Something to distract me.
Something loud enough to drown him out.
Because for a month,
he’s possessed my every thought.
Like I’m not the worst thing that’s going to happen to him.
The night in the basement wasn’t supposed to follow me home.
It was supposed to be a wild-and-free,
let-go-without-consequence moment.
We’re all allowed one Blur Hour.
That night at Type was supposed to be mine.
Then he waited at Type.
Night after night.
For twenty-eight nights.
For me.
Like I'm something good.
Then I walked back into the bookstore.
Then we sat there for hours
talking about everything,
except what happened in the basement,
convinced if we didn’t mention it,
it wouldn’t ruin us.
Now I keep reaching for my phone,
waiting for his text.
Now I'm dragging him into a mess he knows nothing about, as if he won’t be disgusted once he finds out about me.
As if there’s no Baby Contract, and I don’t have a full-blown, medically concerning orgasm addiction that I built my entire life around, with rules to keep me from spiraling into hell.
As if I’m fucking normal.
And maybe the problem is I keep pretending.
I need to remind myself who I am.
Why my walls exist in the first place.
Why I built them
page by bloody fucking page.
Before this thing with Andrew goes any further. Before believing there’s a version of this where neither one of us gets hurt.
Helping Celie sort through the rubble of her love life might help.
Might remind me why I don’t do feelings.
Or relationships.
Or any of this shit.
I look at my best friend,
all red-eyed and desperate and dimples.
She wipes her nose and grins.
She knows I’ll do it.
“Goddammit.”
I snatch my purse off the counter.
“I’ll go find my Hooligan jersey.”
// 8:32 PM — WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK — GREENWICH VILLAGE, NYC //
Washington Square smells like weed, dosas crisping, and Chanel No. 5.
The cold wind's piercing through my hoodie
and I’m being stared down by the mob-boss of pigeons—three feet away, chest puffed, wings tight, head cocked.
Like he’s here to collect,
with eyes that’ve seen things.
He’s not asking.
He’s waiting,
like I owe him the last piece of my pretzel in exchange for protection.
I scoff. “You have no idea who I am, do you?”
He blinks.
He does the two-step shuffle.
He narrows his eyes.
“Try me, bird. I’ll salt you, fry you, then lick the grease off my fingers.”
I rip off another bite.
He doesn’t flinch.
Celie’s staring into a faraway land as if she’s about to be executed at dawn, last meal and all. Her pupils are two black holes wide enough to suck up planets. Her breathing’s shallow, exhaling pure panic. But she’s radiant—leather pants molded to her curves, dark silky curls, eyelids glittering.
She turns to me,
her eyes blinking painfully slow.
“Yo… I think I OD’d.”
I check the time on my cell.
13% battery.
8:34 p.m.
Drake’s four minutes late.
Andrew still hasn’t texted me.
I only gave him my number
and never took his.
It was safer that way.
If he wants me, he’ll have to text me.
Not the other way around.
Because I don’t chase.
What I do is sit here and check my phone every minute like a psychopath.
But whatever.
I’m fine. It’s fine.
Everything’s fine.
I used to wonder how it would feel
to have someone break me down
and put me back together in the same breath.
Clearly, I must’ve been out of my damn mind.
Turns out, that kind of breath steals more than it gives back.
Now my lungs are being strangled by violin strings echoing their final note, singing:
vulnerability is violent,
reckless,
and never worth it.
How it builds you up
just to watch you unravel.
How monogamy
is a beautifully wrapped trap.
This is why I don’t do intimacy.
This is why I do contracts and orgasms.
And I don’t know what’s worse:
waiting for his text,
feeling pathetic about waiting for his text,
or knowing he lived through twenty-eight nights of this agony, and I’m already wanting to burn my skin off after one.
I drop the phone in my lap,
borderline pissed off at it,
then turn,