CHAPTER 22 #2
The ring-back tone droned into my ear—once, twice, three times.
I was just about to pull the phone away, expecting the cold automated voicemail script again, when the line suddenly clicked.
The ambient static of an open connection filled the speaker, but there was no greeting.
No swagger. No easy "Yo, what’s up, Angela? "
"Miley?" I spoke into the phone, my voice cracking slightly under the weight of my nerves. "Miley, is that you?"
A long, ragged exhalation filtered through the line, followed by a sound that completely fractured my soul. It was a low, hollow wheeze—the sound of someone whose throat had been scraped raw from hours of continuous weeping.
"Angela..."
Her voice didn't even sound human. It was stripped of every ounce of its usual rich, resonant color, replaced by a fragile, papery thinness that sounded like it would break if the wind blew too hard. "Angela... she’s gone. They... they couldn't save her."
A cold sweat broke out across my collarbone.
I leaned forward, gripping the edge of my mattress so hard my knuckles turned white.
"Miley, I saw the news last night. I saw you at the hospital on the broadcast. Oh my god, I am so sorry.
I couldn't believe it... we were literally just walking in the park yesterday.
Everything was so perfect. How... how are you holding up? Where are you right now?"
"I'm at Kelly's spot," she whispered, her voice hitching as she fought back a fresh surge of tears.
I could hear the faint, muffled sound of traffic filtering through a window on her end, juxtaposed against her agonizing grief.
"Downtown. I couldn't go back to my place, Angela.
I couldn't... I couldn't look at the doors.
I couldn't look at her things. Helisa’s security brought me here last night after the police cleared us from St. Luke's. Kelly and Gabriel... they’re here with me. "
"Do you want me to come over?" The question left my mouth before my introverted, cautious brain could stop it.
Going to a strange apartment, stepping into an intense, highly charged emotional sanctuary filled with people I had never met—it was everything my psychology normally recoiled from.
I hated intrusion. I hated being the outsider in a room full of tight-knit friends.
But my feelings for Miley were a powerful, undeniable gravity that completely overrode my fear.
"I can get my mom’s car. I can be there in forty minutes, Miley. Just tell me if you need me."
There was a long pause on the line, the silence heavy and thick. For a second, I worried I had overstepped, that I was an outsider inserting myself into a private family tragedy.
"Please," Miley choked out, the word dropping like a heavy tear onto the microphone. "Please come, Angela. I... I really need to see a face that isn't... that isn't covered in blood. I’ll text you the address."
The line went dead. Two seconds later, an address banner flashed on my screen: an apartment complex on the lower east side of downtown Manhattan.
I didn't waste a single breath. I bolted out of my room and into the kitchen, where my mom was sitting at the table, a mug of coffee steaming between her hands. She took one look at my pale, determined face and the car keys I was already reaching for on the counter.
"She answered?" Monica asked softly.
"Yeah. She’s downtown at a friend’s place. She asked me to come over," I said, my voice tight as I slipped my feet into my sneakers. "Can I borrow the sedan, Mom? I need to get to her."
Monica didn't hesitate. She stood up, walking over to wrap her arms around me in a tight, brief hug.
"Take the car, Angela. Drive carefully. And listen to me—don't try to fix it. You can't fix this kind of pain. Just sit with her. Let her know she’s safe with you. That’s the greatest gift an introvert can give someone—the willingness to just share the quiet. "
"I will," I whispered against her shoulder.
Five minutes later, I was behind the wheel of my mom’s old silver sedan, the engine roaring to life with a familiar, metallic vibration.
The drive across the city was an absolute gauntlet for my senses.
The morning rush-hour traffic was brutal, a deafening symphony of blaring horns, screeching yellow cabs, and the aggressive, relentless pulse of Manhattan life moving forward as if a beautiful girl hadn't just been murdered on its sidewalks.
My hands were slick with sweat against the steering wheel, my chest tightening with every mile that brought me closer to the downtown exit.
What am I going to say to them? I thought, my mind racing as I dodged a delivery truck. Kelly and Gabriel were there. They saw it. I’m just the girl from the park. Am I invading their space?
But every time the panic threatened to make me turn the car around and retreat back into the safety of my bedroom, I pictured Miley’s hollow, broken eyes on the television screen.
She had asked for me. She had reached through her own wreckage to pull me in.
I swallowed the lump of anxiety in my throat, pressed my foot against the gas, and drove straight into the heart of her darkness.
***
The hallway of the downtown apartment building smelled of stale cooking spices and old radiator fluid, a suffocating, industrial scent that matched the heavy dread pooling in my stomach.
I stood in front of Apartment 4B, my hand hovering inches away from the chipped wood of the door.
I could hear muted, frantic voices from the inside—sharp, breathless fragments of conversation that made my pulse hammer against my ribs.
I took one final, stabilizing breath, stepped completely out of my introverted shell, and knocked.
The door swung open almost instantly.
It was Miley. She was wearing an oversized grey fleece hoodie that completely swallowed her frame, the cuffs pulled tightly over her hands.
The contrast between this moment and our walk in the park was devastating.
Her face was swollen, her skin blotchy and tear-stained, her beautiful eyes clouded with a deep, glassy exhaustion.
The moment her gaze locked onto mine, her lower lip trembled. She didn't say a word. She just stepped forward, her entire body collapsing into me like a building losing its foundation.
I caught her instinctively, my arms wrapping around her waist, pulling her tight against my chest. She was shaking violently, her face burying into the crook of my neck as a low, ragged sob tore from her throat.
I held her with everything I had, my fingers digging into the soft fleece of her hoodie, letting her anchor her entire weight against me.
The scent of her—usually a vibrant mix of expensive perfume and fresh cocoa butter—was entirely overshadowed by the sharp, metallic smell of stale sweat and hospital antiseptic.
"I’ve got you," I whispered into her braids, my own eyes burning with tears as I rocked her gently in the doorway. "Miley, I’m here. I’ve got you."
After a long, unbroken minute, she gently pulled back, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her hoodie, her eyes looking down at the floor in a quiet, heavy shame. "Thanks for coming, Angela. Come inside. Let me... let me introduce you to the crew."
I followed her into the small, dim living room.
The shades were drawn tight, casting the space into a permanent twilight.
Sitting on a worn leather sofa was a young black woman with her hair tied in a messy bun, her face pale and her eyes completely bloodshot.
That had to be Kelly. Standing by the window, his arms crossed over his chest, was a tall, athletic guy whose denim jacket was noticeably missing, his white t-shirt sporting faint, dark smears near the collar. Gabriel.
The air in the room was physically thick, charged with the residual electricity of pure, unadulterated trauma. It felt like stepping into an active combat zone after the bombs had dropped.
"Guys," Miley said, her voice cracked as she gestured toward me. "This is Angela. The girl I was telling you about... from the park."
Gabriel offered a slow, somber nod, his eyes hollow but respectful. "Hey, Angela. Thanks for showing up for her. She needs all the love she can get right now, real talk."
Kelly just wiped a fresh tear from her cheek, her voice trembling as she looked at me from the sofa. "Pull up a chair, Angela. Sorry the place is a mess... we haven't exactly been thinking about housekeeping."
"Please, don't worry about that," I said softly, navigating the small space with an awkward, quiet grace before pulling a wooden folding chair close to Miley’s side.
I sat down, my eyes tracking the visible exhaustion radiating off the three of them.
"I don't mean to intrude... I just wanted to make sure Miley was safe. "
"You aren't intruding," Gabriel said, his voice dropping into a deep, raspy register as he leaned heavily against the wall.
"We’re just trying to make sense of the madness.
We were right there, Angela. Me, Kelly, and Terra...
we were all inside the Starbucks, kicking it at the corner table.
Terra had just ordered her coffee and she was sitting with us, completely glowing, telling us all about how her and Miley were really hitting it off. And then... the doors just burst open."
"It happened so fast," Kelly interrupted, a sharp, hysterical gasp escaping her lips as she buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking violently.
"Malik walked in with his boys, straight up aggressive, and marched right to our table.
He looked at Terra and ordered her, 'Let's go, we're taking a walk.
' You could see the terror in her eyes, Angela, but she didn't want me and Gabriel getting hurt or caught up in his mess.
So she stood up and stepped out of the store with them to keep us safe. "