44. Ambrose—present day
Ambrose—present day
D ollie took too long to answer me, resulting in my leaving work and ignoring Valaria’s calls. It took her approximately three minutes to notice I was gone from the bar—that’s a record.
But I knew Dollie would be scared walking home alone in this rain, and I couldn’t fight the urge to pretend I was just randomly driving by.
I drove seventy all the way, testing my driving skills in the worst weather I’ve ever driven in, but I needed to get to her as fast as possible.
I expected to find her closer to home, but she wasn’t even a quarter of a mile from Butterflies. The run-down dump could still be seen in the distance as I pulled up.
Then she ran from me, back in that direction.
I left my door open and the car running, lights still shining through the bleak evening. It lit the way for me to catch up.
Standing before her now, I’ve never seen her look so broken.
Tears smudge her makeup, blending with the bruise on her right cheekbone.
Her lipstick is smeared, and her dress is ripped down the middle, exposing her to the perverts nearby.
She nuzzles into me, holding me tighter than I ever thought possible.
What the fuck has happened to you?
My question is silent, but all the anger is conveyed through flaring nostrils.
“Ambrose…” One hand leaves me, drifting between us to pull her dress back up.
I help her with the straps, but avert my gaze.
Shuffling out of my soaking hoodie, I spin us away from the gawking creeps standing in Butterflies’ doorway, eager to catch a glance at her.
Taking one hand at a time, I place them into my hoodie, giving her something to wear that will hide her without the worry of her ripped dress revealing anything.
Still, I don’t dare let my eyes drop, even as my knuckles graze her skin, pulling down the hem.
Her gaze stalls on my throat as my Adam’s apple bobs, and I hope she can’t tell how she affects me.
“I’m dirty.” Her words echo in my head as I shake it.
I don’t even think of the germs. They don’t matter. Only she matters.
Letting my fingers wander around her body, they spread on her back and pull her against me. My hand weaves over her curls and settles in her hair.
I got you.
Her delicate, broken voice cracks through the sobs that wrack even my body.
“They hurt me. I went to the wrong place, and they hurt me for nothing.”
My blood runs cold.
My worst fears play out in my head. Those men still stand in the doorway, their eyes on me and my arms locked around Dollie.
All I can see is them on her, pushing her against a dirty bathroom wall, their hands between her legs, their chapped lips forcing kisses she didn’t want—a queue of those creeps waiting for a turn with her.
A wave of sickness crashes in my stomach.
Keeping our bodies close, I make enough room to tilt her chin up for her to see my words. Switching my hand from her face to mine, I touch my thumb to my chin and move my index fingers twice, asking who.
My stomach rumbles over the possibility that it was those freaks, and my thoughts are some kind of twisted premonition of the events that will put me back in prison.
It would only take her confirming it for me to drag them out here and drown them in a puddle.
That can’t have happened to Dollie.
Not my Dollie.
It didn’t.
She breathes out, “Two women in red dresses.”
Women did this… how fucking cruel.
“They said their guys were looking at me. I went to the bathroom to text Shane, and he didn’t answer.
I tried to get a ride from someone else, Annabelle, Nyx, but no one was answering.
” She stumbles over her words. “And while I was in there, they came in and hurt me for nothing. I didn’t do anything, and they ripped my dress and dragged me around the floor.
They kicked me in the stomach and…” she trails off.
She has problems with her stomach.
“They called me weak, meek, and worthless.”
You’re none of those things . Those skanks would never survive what you have, I mouth.
I pull her in a little tighter before twirling her around and pointing to my car.
“Where are you going?”
I tap my wrist and move my hand, testing her memory on sign language, as I’m using the language Mom insisted we learn more and more.
“Don’t get into trouble for me.” Her eyes roll closed, and that’s when I push her forward, encouraging her to take the first step.
Only when she’s in the car, do I turn around. The men at the door, puffing on cigarettes, pay me little attention until I’m closer. My scars catch their attention, and their gazes follow me inside. I spy the two awful-looking fucking things in red. Stringy extensions and greasy roots.
I approach the bar, edging between both women without allowing them to touch me.
The round face of a clock reads 7:02 p.m.
I told Dollie five minutes.
The big hand ticks high above the barman, who gives me a wary look, probably knowing who I am. The scars tell stories, after all.
Pulling my trusty blade from its second home in my pocket, I notice instantly how the quieter of the two women gets edgy. Her posture sags, and she shifts away slightly, picking at her cuticle, which makes me sick. My glare of judgment forces her to turn her back on her friend.
I move to the other side of her, and a fake bravado crosses her face, the matching smile lingering.
My lips stay low, a contrast to the permanent happiness that I do not fucking feel etched into my face.
My T-shirt clings to my shoulders as they tense. I rotate my arm, and her gaze drops to my history of self-harm.
Stabbing the blade into my arm, the woman before me is the one to flinch.
Frozen, the color drains from her face as I scrape away my flesh, spelling out a message in my skin with the tiny blade.
YOU HURT MY GIRL.
“I didn’t mean to,” the woman’s lip trembles, and she steps back into her friend, who also watches me with an unmoving gaze.
Every set of eyes in this damn place watch me.
The blade moves to my other arm.
Cut deeper this time, or Dollie will die.
I acknowledge the voice and give in to its command, scraping another message that has blood dripping down my arm and pooling on the already dirty carpet.
Swiping at the blood reveals a new message, and the woman reads it for me.
“That wasn’t very nice.”
Still so serious, I shake my head.
“I’ll do better,” the woman promises, looking weak and meek and so fucking worthless in her tatty red dress that clings to her shapeless thighs. She falls away from me, caught by a guy in the crowd with just one tooth.
I point to it, then my missing one, tapping the empty space with my blade. It’s a clear indication that I want it, but not that I want it lost in the dirty carpet, because I wouldn’t physically touch anything that belongs to him.
He raises dirty hands in defense, and I laugh, batting the cowering man away.
Twisting back, I face the woman who can’t take her eyes off me. The second our eyes meet, she bolts to the bathroom. I follow, and before the door can slam shut, I slink inside.
Her cries and pleas only fuel my anger when I spot a clump of pink curls on the floor.
Something takes over me, and I charge at the cubicle door. The wood threatens me with another splinter, and I ignore it and her pitiful cries that keep on and on, begging, “Please stop.”
I don’t stop, can’t stop.
“What the fuck do you want!”
Tiny screws hit the floor as the lock breaks away, and I squeeze myself into the tiny cubicle with her. My height fills the space, giving her nowhere to go, and she sinks down to the dirt where she belongs.
Her hands—hands that hurt Dollie—reach for my pants, and I kick them away, not touching her but warning her not to touch me.
The little blade in my hand feels heavier as I trace her jawline with it.
“What do you want?” The pathetic woman cowers a little lower.
Knowing she won’t dare move, I give her my back and use my blade to carve a message into the door for her. Letters fan out against the stab marks, but the words are still easy to read.
I step back from my engraving on the cubicle door, letting her see the words.
AN APOLOGY FOR HURTING MY GIRL.
When her eyes find me again, my phone is already out and aiming at her, waiting.
It takes her all of three seconds to muster out the words, “ I’m so very sorry ,” while she’s down on her knees, sitting in someone else’s piss.
Wiping my feet on the grubby carpet on the way out, I smile back at the barman who’s watched the whole incident play out because I know he won’t call the cops over something so trivial.
He won’t risk getting shut down. Valaria knows this place has no license, the delivery guys like to talk, and so does she.
7:06 p.m., the clock reads behind him.
I still have one minute to get back to the car.
As I slump into my seat and shut out the rain, Dollie’s eyes drop from whatever it is about my face that constantly calls her attention, to my arm and the bloody mess I’ve made of it.
Turning off my radio, she whispers, “You’re bleeding. Did they hurt you?”
I’d laugh, but the innocent look she gives me swipes at my facial expressions.
I mouth, I’m fine . And leave it at that.
Needing to change the subject fast because she’s in my hoodie and I’m exposed, I hand her my phone, the video already on the screen. I hope it’ll keep her eyes away from my arm and the tattoo that sits below the drying blood.
She will recognize that clover.
That thought disappears when the woman in red’s squeaky voice blares in the car, the quick apology over in seconds. My wiper blades are the only noise when Dollie exits the video and drops my phone into her lap.
She doesn’t talk on the journey home, refusing to trust me with her distress.
Her hand moves constantly to her stomach, and the other clutches my hoodie, using it for comfort.
She isn’t okay.
And it’s a feeling that torments me because I know walking into that bar and hurting myself for a reaction wasn’t enough.
I didn’t do enough for her.