Chapter 42
Making Amends
Jon
The new apartment was a copy of the old one. Another rotten couch stained with alcohol, another yellowed blanket across the window shielding the room from prying neighbors. Standing in the dim glow of a barely functional bulb, I watched Marna frantically rummage through the bills in the gym bag.
“This isn’t enough,” she said, slamming the bag onto the ground.
“I’m trying to pay back everything you lost. But it takes time,” I said, knowing I had to be careful with my words.
Marna rose from the couch with an unsettling jiggle of her drooping breasts. I kept myself from making a face. She came right up to me, smelling like pot and whiskey, and jabbed her index finger on my chest. “Because of your friend, my brother got arrested. Because of him we lost our place. Because of him we’re down 20K!”
“Damn it, he called an ambulance because I was on the brink of dying, Marna!” I snapped, swiping away her accusatory finger. Marna slapped me across the face.
“You were fine! You were all over me, your dick hard and ready.”
I scoffed. When Paul told me what had happened that day, the memories had come flooding back. Marna giving me stuff I wasn’t familiar with, then taking my fucking clothes off against my will... Paul leaning over me and splashing water over my face, begging me to stay with him...
The next time I saw him I wanted to thank him—and chew him out for making himself a target of our local gang.
“You fucking tried to rape me, Marna,” I growled, this close to slapping her back—but she had the upper hand, and anyway, no matter what I wouldn’t lose my principles.
“Yeah right, as if I was that desperate,” Marna jeered. “If I wanted a cock I could’ve gotten one with a snap of my fingers.” She laughed with her entire body, and I hated her even more than I did before. Hated myself for putting everyone I loved in their line of sight.
I let it slide. It was useless to argue with her. “I need more time,” I said instead.
“We gave you enough time.” Marna tramped across the room and returned with a bunch of little plastic baggies. “Here.”
I stared at the bags of white powder, the pink pills I used to give my all for—and gritted my teeth. “I told you, I can only sell weed.”
“Weed brings in peanuts. We need more to get Ted out of prison.”
“I’m an addict, Marna! Fuck!” I took a step back. My hands were shaking. “You can’t hand me this and expect me not to relapse.”
“Not my problem.” A mischievous smile painted itself on her face. This was her personal payback. Not because her brother got locked up, but because I’d rejected her. “Get this sold within the next week. If not, we’ll have to pay another little visit to Paul. And this time we won’t only threaten him. We will end him.”
She pointed at the table. On it rested a handgun.
I let out a semi-controlled breath. When Paul got beat up on my street, I knew exactly who was behind it. Ever since, I’d been in contact with them, trying to make deals, but when I didn’t text back right away on that date with Emily, they threatened Paul again—and Kiki, since she was with him. I was proud of him for creaming the dude, but I wished he hadn’t raised his fists at him. Now they were angry and they wanted him to pay.
But I wouldn’t let that happen. I would protect him. He had saved me; now it was my turn to save him.
“Or...” Marna ran her finger along my jaw. “We could go say hi to your little girlfriend. Emma or something—or how you like to call her, what was it...” She stepped close to my ear and whispered, “Little German.”
I snatched the baggies from her hands and stuffed them into my pockets. “If I find out that you’ve even looked at her,” I growled, “your brother being locked up will be the least of your problems.”
Marna wiggled her brows, accepting the challenge. “Good boy. I’m expecting an update in three days.”
I had to get out of here before I let my emotions get the best of me and did something I would definitely regret.
I rushed out the door to my car. I’d been Marna’s fucking callboy for two months now. Whenever she called or texted, I had to come—no matter what my plans were. Hence missing countless opportunities to see Emily, running late to my mom’s dinner, making sure Emily never got ahold of my phone. I wanted to tell her I was dealing to pay back my debt, to keep her and Paul out of aim. But I couldn’t. It would only prove what a screw-up I was after all. And if she found out, she’d throw solutions at me to fix this. But Let’s tell Humphrey and Let’s warn Paul weren’t options.
All I had wanted for us was to be happy, like a normal couple. To keep her away from drugs and gang drama. For Paul to enjoy his last year of high school.
I pulled out the plastic baggies, looked at them in my lap. My veins twitched and screamed for a taste.
“I need a meeting,” I mumbled to myself, throwing them in the glove box. But when I looked up I spotted amber eyes through the window. Amber eyes, raven hair, cherry-red lips.
Kiki yanked open the passenger door. “What the fuck, Jon!” she yelled, and I was positive the entire neighborhood heard it.
“Kiki, shut up.” I pulled her into the car. “What are you doing here?”
She crossed her arms. “I followed you because I wanted to talk to you. I can’t believe you’re at it again. I thought you were doing better!”
“I am doing better!” Why did everyone always think the worst of me? I hadn’t relapsed. Not even once. No matter the thousands of times I was tempted to do it.
“Then what’s all that?” Kiki pointed at the glove box.
I sighed, letting my eyes fall closed. There was no way out of this, no way other than telling her the truth. “How much time do you have?”
Kiki met me at my place after I told her that we shouldn’t have this conversation in a car filled with drugs. Behind the locked basement door, she quietly listened to me on the couch before breaking down in tears. “You haven’t told anyone this?” she said between sobs. I passed her a tissue from the coffee table.
“My family knows parts of it, but the whole story... no.”
She looked at me, not with pity but with pain scattered in her eyes. I scooched over, letting her sob into my chest. Exactly this reaction was why I didn’t want to tell anyone.
“I’m so sorry, Jon,” she sniffled.
“Don’t be. It’s fine,” I said, and she hugged me tighter.
“How is it fine? Finally everything was going well for you, and then...” A huge sob interrupted her.
“It’s fine, Kiki. Really.” I didn’t want her to shed a single more tear over me.
She sighed deeply, dabbing away her tears with the tissue. “She deserves to know the truth.”
I looked down at my fingers and cracked my knuckles. “No. It’s better for her this way.”
Kiki shot onto her feet and pointed a finger at me. “It’s not! You know that!”
I raised my palms. “No need to get all upset.”
“No need?!” Her arms flew to her head. “Jon, what you’re doing isn’t selfless, it’s absolutely selfish!”
I stood up myself. I had thought it through, and this was the only way to keep her out of this mess. “You think I’m okay with this? I’m dying every second I’m not with her. Do you think that’s what I want?” I roared back.
“You’re not even giving her a choice! She isn’t that fragile little girl she was when she landed in Boonville. Emily is strong, and she deserves to know what’s going on.”
“Fuck!” I went over to my punching bag and hit it with all I had, yelling. But then the yells turned into sobs. Kiki waited patiently on the couch, knowing better than to try to comfort me.
Eventually I dropped to my knees. “I don’t know what the best thing to do is...”
“You do know, Jon. I know you do.”
The next day, I knocked at the Shields’ house with fucking flowers in my hands. Kiki’s words had got me thinking. Emily was strong. I wanted to protect her but I couldn’t do it this time.
Paul opened the door with a confused look. “Why now?” he asked, staring at the pitiful bunch of daisies I had picked because I was too broke to get her a real bouquet.
I shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
It was easier than saying: Because my ex-girlfriend, who’s now your girlfriend, caught me with drugs, forced me to tell her everything and opened my eyes to being a coward.
Paul rolled his eyes. “Well, she’s at work now.”
“But it’s Wednesday.”
“She took on more shifts after you dumped her to distract herself.” He said it with epic scorn, but I didn’t blame him for it.
“Okay,” I said, not moving, because there was something else on my mind. “Those people who were after you. Have you heard from them again?”
Paul stared at me, analyzing my features, but I knew how to keep a poker face. “No, it’s been quiet,” he finally said.
“Good.” I walked back down the stairs.
“Jon, wait!”
“Yeah?” I didn’t look back.
“If you need a friend, I’m still here.”
I pulled in a breath. I didn’t want him to be the one offering the olive branch—I should be the one who made things right. I just needed a bit more time.
“Okay,” I said and kept walking, knowing I was being an asshole again. But I wasn’t ready to have that conversation with him just yet.
I picked up a few things at Walmart. I needed a new pen, and my little black book was filled until the very last page. When I walked past a row of taco shells I couldn’t help picking some up. Then I headed to the cashier. The daisies were already drooping their heads over my fist.
I found her immediately. She was smiling again. She looked beautiful, despite the dark circles under her eyes and the greasy ponytail...
Kiki was right: I had done wrong, deciding what was best for Emily. I had done it again. I had failed her because I wasn’t brave enough.