Chapter 4 #2
“Fuck off, Deck. If that’s how you want to play it, I’m out of here.”
When I turned to leave, but Decker grabbed my arm and stopped me. “Wait.”
He dropped his hand and didn’t make any move to touch me again. And like a damn glutton, I stood there waiting… Hoping—for what? I sure as hell didn’t know.
“Decker,” I repeated his name, willing him to hear the earnestness in my voice. The want I had in my heart.
“I know it’s no excuse, but you have no idea how hard it is for me to stand here,” he breathed out, like it pained him to admit that.
“Me too.” My heart ached at the two words I spoke.
“You saw Regi.” It was a statement, not a question.
Relief flashed through me that Decker had also seen our girl. “Yes. I thought… I was seeing things. Guess I wasn’t. Did you keep in touch with her?”
He shook his head. “No.” There was so much emotion in that single word, that it cut me deep. “You?”
“No.” This whole time, I thought I was the one left out. But I was wrong. None of us kept in touch.
“I thought… This entire time, I thought you and her…” Decker turned away, as though he too was affected by the news.
Relief hit hard, tangled with sorrow and the images I’d painted in my head of Regina and Decker living life without me. But the truth was worse—we’d each been alone in this miserable world, and that somber thought made me tear up.
“God, Deck. After all this time, you two pop back into my life—on the same night. It’s too damn coincidental. I don’t know what to think. It must be double whammy day,” I admitted, turning away and swiping at my wet eyes.
“Double whammy day?” With a soft snort of laughter, Decker faced me again with a smile so genuine it melted my trepidation. “Look at you. I don’t ever remember you looking this beefed up back then. You look good, K.” He pointed up and down my body.
I wanted to preen at his compliment—at the familiar nickname only he had called me. But this wasn’t the place to get reacquainted with my best friend. “Why don’t we get out of here. There has to be a place where we can get something to eat. I’m starving.”
“I don’t think so, K,” he said mindfully.
“All together again, in one city, after all this time? You’re right.
This is too coincidental for my liking. I doubt the three of us being here was by chance.
” The semi-easy banter Decker had spouted moments ago was gone, and replaced with a cold, hard resolve.
“You came for a fight. I came for a mark. And Regi was here… Why?”
That question hung in the air like a stationary pendulum, waiting for the right answer to bump it into motion again, and that answer suddenly clicked in my head. “She lives in Chicago.”
“Most likely,” Decker chimed in, his agreement raising a red flag.
“Who would organize something this elaborate, just to bring the three of us together?”
And yet, if I thought about it hard enough, with the situation that had separated us so long ago, I could accept that sliver of coincidence, and that we were here together purely by chance.
Sirens in the distance cut off my thoughts. We both went stock still and listened. While I looked to my left, Decker scanned toward the right.
“Go,” Decker ordered with finality, reaching into his zipped-up hoodie and pulling out a handgun.
“The cops won’t look here,” I rushed out with certainty. Yet, I couldn’t ignore the niggling fear in the back of my head since being released from prison years ago was pushing me to run.
“You don’t know that. Take off and I’ll call you in a few days.”
“But I just got you back,” I protested, not wanting to lose sight of him again. “You don’t even know my number.”
“You don’t have me back.” Decker stared at me for a long moment, his icy glare sending shivers down my spine.
“But—”
“Fucking go, before the past repeats itself, and this time your ass will end up in jail,” he growled.
A chill ran along my skin at the horrible repercussions I had once endured, the part of my life Decker didn’t know about, yet I didn’t move.
“Decker—” My words were cut off when he aimed the handgun at me. I felt the blood drain from my face, leaving me shocked and then angry. I grabbed hold of my rage and said through gritted teeth, “You point a gun at my face? Where’s the Deck?—”
“I’m not that Decker anymore. The sooner you get that through your head, the better. Now, get the fuck out of here.”
I wasn’t afraid of the gun in Decker’s hand or the man standing in front of me. No. What I feared most was never seeing my best friend again. “Why do I get the feeling this is the last time I’ll see you—promise me, Deck, you disappear on me for good.”
“I make no promises. Now go, before the cops find another body.” Decker closed the gap and the end of the barrel pressed into my forehead. “Now go.”
Clearly, this Decker Moss wasn’t the boy I knew. That guy was gone. The sooner I accepted that fact, the better. “Fine.”
“Good,” he spat back with disdain.
I took off, and without bothering a glance back to see if Decker was still there, I somehow knew he was already gone.
I pulled out my cell phone, located where Teke’s Toyota was parked, and ran the three blocks west from where I was.
With the keys in my hand, I was ten feet away from the rusty, piece of shit Corolla, when a guy jumped out from behind a truck and tackled me to the ground.
The asshole was on top of me, rendering my hands useless as his knees anchored them to the broken concrete sidewalk.
“Give me the fucking keys,” the guy growled, a knife at my throat. On any given day, I would have handed over Teke’s keys to his piece of shit. Tonight, I was too pissed off at Decker to think straight, and I let my anger at him fuel the fire that coursed through my veins.
The point of his blade nicked my neck, and my only reaction was to attack.
With all the energy I could marshal, I freed my right hand and punched upward, knocking the guy off of me. The tip of the knife cut deeper into my neck as he fell away, but I didn’t give a shit. I wasn’t feeling any pain. Only rage.
I rotated my body and punched out again, and the bastard dropped the knife as he flew backward. Before he was able to react, I was in a crouch position, ready to launch myself at him. The guy must have had a few working brain cells, because he took off without stopping to grab the knife.
Before I got into another confrontation with some other bastard, I picked up the knife and slid into Teke’s car.
I took off in the direction of the cheap motel we were staying at just outside the city limits.
I wondered if Teke had found his own way back to the motel—and then remembered I didn’t give a shit.
I wasn’t sure how bad the cut on my neck was, but I could feel the blood trickling down onto my collarbone. I ran a finger along the neckline of my black t-shirt and it came away wet. But I kept on driving.
As I drove on Route 64, my thoughts slid again to Decker. “Jesus.” I hit the steering wheel as anger and confusion rolled around in my gut. How dare he point a gun in my face? He knew better, especially since he’d seen how my father and Teke had treated me.
Maybe my memory of Decker had been pasteurized by the years of being alone, locked up for what Teke had done.
How I hadn’t heard a word—not one fucking word, from Regina or Decker while I was in prison for those two miserable years…
My heart would never fully heal from their betrayals and I promised myself that I would never let anyone in. Never again.
I closed my eyes for a second, as heartbreak sliced through me like a jagged blade. After the years I’d spent stitching my life back together, my chest was ripped open again and the old-familiar ache was back.
So much time had passed since then, that these old, warped feelings shouldn’t still be congealing in my heart.
I’ve told myself at least a million times that neither Decker nor Regina was ever mine, and that I had to let them go.
Tonight, I learned that they were never together.
Now I wondered if all my memories were skewed. Delusions.
As I drove, I kept mulling over Decker’s words. My head kept was reminding me that it would be best to walk away, but my stubborn heart refused—it desperately tried to convince me that I would see him again.
But what of Regina?