Chapter Fourteen
At some point, I’d stopped looking over my shoulder when I rode my bike home.
The apartment was empty, as it was most days. I dropped my purse on the couch and went to my room to change, as was my habit. Then, I collapsed into a nap, as was also habitual lately.
Soon enough, my depression lull continued as I dragged myself out of bed and to the TV, hungry but too apathetic to give a shit.
Must’ve been maintenance. With no aplomb, I opened the door—
Cliff. On my doorstep.
I was too stunned to breathe, much less slam the door. By the time I got my bearings, he was already shoving his way inside. “Hey, hey!” he said when I tried to shut the door. “I’m not here for funny business. I just wanna talk, okay? Can we do that?”
No, I cried internally, but I’d forgotten how to scream. He pushed me; I fell, and the door slammed behind him.
He held up defensive hands as I scrambled back, still on the floor. “You’re so dramatic,” Cliff said, planting himself between me and the front door. “I’m so sick of your ‘hard to get’ bullshit.”
I frantically shook my head, pulse pounding in my ears. “Please just go.”
“Terra, here’s the thing. I accept that you got yourself a dyke girlfriend. I wish you’d picked a hotter one, but if you want to get railed by some ugly-ass butch dyke, that’s your business. She is rich, and that’s where I need your help.”
I remained frozen. A fawn caught in the headlights.
Cliff made no move forward. “Look, my life’s not been going too well.
I’m on probation after a call from my coach, and I have a feeling your girlfriend has everything to do with it.
But I can let it go if you and her do a little something for me.
There’s this guy—Ray. I owe him money. If she can pay off the debt, we’re square.
I’ll even get over you, okay?” He shrugged.
“Try to, at least. You’re not easy to forget, and neither is that pussy. ” He winced. “But I need money.”
The threat was apparent. But so was his gross misunderstanding of my relationship status. “I don’t have access to Alex’s money,” I said slowly, hating how my voice quivered. Maybe I should’ve kept that stupid necklace. “How much money do you need?”
“The better question is ‘how much money is she willing to give for me to leave you alone?’”
Fear threatened to choke me. I could only breathe in bursts. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” I managed. “Maybe I can help, but like I said, I don’t have access to—”
“Well, damn. Did you two break up?”
My silence was apparently answer enough.
Cliff seethed out a sigh, glaring now like the predator he was. “Look, I’m in deep shit. Here’s what’s going to happen instead: you’re going to come with me. You fuck the guy to soften him up, I get more time to pay, and everyone’s happy. Deal?”
My lip trembled. Damn my tears; they fell silently.
“Oh, don’t give me that crying shit,” Cliff continued. “It’s not like you weren’t a whore when I met you.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I just stared through blurred vision, wishing this nightmare would end.
And it could, it could…. This was what saying no brought, wasn’t it?
Say yes, and it’s done.
“Look, I’m not leaving your apartment without you,” he said. “You’ve got a mom, right? It’d be pretty messed up if she got home while I was still here.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“What was that?”
I tasted bile. I tasted blood. I couldn’t breathe, but I spoke, nevertheless. “Yes, I’ll come with you.”
“That’s what I like to hear. I’ll even drive you home after, okay?”
I sobbed as he wrenched me to my feet. When I tried to reach for my purse—and, by extension, my phone—he pulled me back. “You don’t need that.”
I prayed for someone, anyone, to see him shove me out the door, to call for help.
But although it was a beautiful evening, no one was here. No one was home.
He pushed me into his passenger seat.
Cliff drove until the sun set and darkness cloaked both the sky and my resolve.
I remained silent, curled up in the front seat. The same couldn’t be said for him.
“Listen, Terra….”
There might’ve been remorse in his trailing words. I said nothing, letting him wallow.
“I-I’m not proud of any of this,” he continued. “I mean, I’d rather it be me you agreed to sleep with.”
I felt his eyes, no longer on the road. I willed him to crash. Even so, I kept track of the street signs. Maybe it was stupid; maybe it was hope.
“And, hell…if you did, I could rethink this. You know I’d never actually force you. I really am a nice guy.”
Cliff’s delusions ran deep, but he was far from the only man I’d met to think the same way. I kept my gaze out the window, refusing to give him the satisfaction of my attention.
But I stiffened when his hand settled on my thigh.
“Oh, come on, you frigid bitch.” He removed his hand with a huff. “It’s not like I haven’t touched you before.”
My jaw clenched, lest it quiver. My head pounded from dehydration. Thankfully, I had no more tears left for him.
“This is what you deserve, leading on a nice guy like me. I really liked you, you know. I swear you had the tightest pussy, which is impressive given what a whore you turned out to be.”
I kept my glower to the road, my fear steadily fading into something hot and bitter.
“I’d have treated you right, you know? And what sucks is…Fuck it, I still like you, Terra. I’ll even forgive you for sleeping with Ray for me. If you’d just give me a chance, I could be good for you. What’s even wrong with me? Not man enough for a dyke like you?”
My nails dug into my arm, threatening to break skin. I’d heard worse. I’d heard it when they’d held a gun to El’s head.
“You know what, fuck it.”
Cliff signaled to turn. I sat up as he pulled into a dark parking lot, empty from what I could see, though the flicking streetlights were useless at their job. We were in a slum part of town, far worse than where I lived. My heart rate spiked when he put the car in park.
“I can’t do this,” he said. “Ray’s not a good guy. He’d have probably tied you up in his basement or something.”
My breath caught. I stared Cliff straight in the eye, determined to channel rage.
“So don’t make me do this, okay?” he pled. “I don’t get why you think you hate me. I love you, Terra. We’ll fuck here in the car. I’ll take you home after.”
He was officially out of his damn mind. But the car was now in park. I swallowed and forced myself to nod. “Kiss me first,” I said, though my stomach churned at the thought.
But it all fell together so easily: Cliff leaned in, he shut his eyes—
And I grabbed the door handle and leaped out of the car.
“Dammit, you bitch!”
His footsteps sounded behind me, faster than mine. This man was a football star; I was a tiny idiot.
I felt his presence. He grabbed my arm. I spun around.
I all but heard Alex’s voice in my ear: “Break their nose and run the hell away.”
She’d taught me to pull power from my stance and put my whole body into a punch. Start with my foot, up through my back and arm, and finally my fist. Cliff had accidentally put me in the perfect position. I balled my fist, aiming with my pointer finger knuckle.
Crack.
The crunch could’ve been my hand or his nose. Maybe both. Didn’t matter.
Cliff buckled down, crying out as his hands flew to his face.
I didn’t linger to figure out if the blood on my fist was his or mine. I ran through the parking lot, fueled by pure adrenaline. To the alleyway beside it, where I climbed the fence, ignoring the ache in my hand as I swung my leg over—
And collapsed onto the pavement behind it.
I couldn’t rest, even as I groaned. I forced myself to rise from the cold pavement and stumbled onward, the lights of a distant drug store spurring me forward.
I didn’t have a phone, but they would.
Soon, I shambled through the automatic doors, a mess but respectable enough to get a, “Hello, welcome in!”
I reached into my pocket habitually, hoping for perhaps a spare dollar or two, only to touch ratted paper.
I withdrew and stared at Alex’s business card—having clearly gone through the wash but still legible.
A sign. A miracle, even. Besides, I had no shame left. My jaw trembled. “Let me take care of you,” she’d said.
I walked up to the woman behind the counter. “I’m so sorry to bother you, but can I use your phone?”
Apparently, I was pathetic enough for the cashier to look concerned. She gestured for me to join her behind the counter.
I dialed the number. It rang. And rang. And rang….
“Hello?”
My breath caught, suddenly choked with tears. “Alex, I—”
“Terra?”
I gasped a pained breath. My hand steadily began to throb. “It’s Terra, yeah. Alex, I need help. I think my mom might be in danger. I-I don’t know what to do.”
The voice over the phone immediately darkened. “I’ll take care of it. Where are you?”
I looked at the cashier. “Where am I?”
She answered. I repeated the address into the phone. “I don’t have my wallet or phone or anything.”
“It’s okay. I’ll have someone come get you.”
Someone. Not Alex. I gulped, tears welling in my eyes. “Okay.”
“Just hang tight. It’s going to be okay.”
She hung up. I trembled as I placed the phone onto the receiver. “Thank you,” I whispered to the cashier.
She replied by pulling out a stool from under the counter. “I’ll get you a water bottle,” the cashier said, though she hesitated before leaving her station. “Do you need to call the police?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. Only if a guy comes in with a broken nose.”
She nodded warily as she left.