Bitter Angel (31 page)

“You’ll call us when you get there?” Heather asks.

“Of course.”

Nilah plops back on her bed, returning to her normal perky, jerky self. “And you’ll invite us over when you’re settled?”

I chuckle knowing she cares as much about shopping as she does seeing me. “Yup.”

“Kay then.” She folds her legs underneath her, satisfied that she’ll see me soon. She acts like my leaving is no big deal, but I see the barely there sadness in her averted gaze.

Heather hoists my biggest duffel on her shoulder, and I take the other along with a giant laundry bag.

“I’ll tell Neiman Marcus you said hello,” I tell Nilah on my way out the door.

She shoots her hand in the air. “Ooh, ooh, and Saks. Let Saks know I’m coming.”

I chuckle again.
Oh, Nilah.

Heather and I walk out to where Jay has parked the rental truck. My dad’s car is idling next to it. Dad is standing beside Jay, hands folded across his chest. They appear to be deep in conversation. When they see me coming, they jog forward and take our bags.

Jay pokes around my dad’s trunk, giving me the time he knows I need to say goodbye. I’ll probably see them in a few weeks, but I’d be acting the same way if I was staying and Jay was the one leaving.

“C’mere,” Heather says, wanting me close but not to hug me. She puts her hands on my stomach, something she’s done many times in these past few months.

It’s a comfort maneuver. She holds them there and looks me straight in the eye. I know what she feels. I’ve felt it a thousand times myself. The globby scar about the size of a quarter and the pencil-thin lines that intersect it.

“You know what they said,” she reassures me. “You’ll talk to some specialists. When you’re ready. Don’t give up hope.”

I can’t help the tears that squeeze out of the corners of my eyes. Nodding, I wipe them away with the back of my hand. “I know.”

“You’ll find your own way,” she says.

“Yup.”

I will find my own way, but I haven’t been able to stop mourning the loss of something I never had. I never got to say yes or no. I never got to choose.

That day when I woke up in the hospital, a Doctor Bensari, the one who performed my surgery, stopped by my room. He showed me the scans and explained the extent of my injuries. Like Humpty Dumpty, I was mostly put back together, puzzle pieces in all the right places, with maybe some gaps in areas. The damage was extensive, including major destruction to my uterus and one of my fallopian tubes from the skewed angle where the bullet entered my body. He said the percentage was “extruhmely high that you wheel never hawv sheeldren.” He was Indian and recalling the tinny sound of his voice makes me
extruhmely
annoyed.

That didn’t make the news any less devastating.

I thought of kids no more than the next nineteen year old, but never did I peer into Jay’s and my future and not see a family.

Dr. Not-So-Sorry went on to explain that with the damage and the scar tissue, my womb would more than likely not be a viable place for a fetus to grow. “But theer are alwhays speshuhleests,” he said.

I’ve clung to those words, damn accent and all, ever since.

It’s not like I want to have a kid tomorrow. I just want to know that I have the option. Heather knows that. She knows I’ve been mourning. One thing about therapy is they peddle the mantra left and right to “be open and share with those around you. They love you. They want
to help and comfort you.”

I’ve been pretty good about sharing. Although, I honestly wonder, with my big mouth, if I really had a choice on that.

Jay says it’s no big deal. We can adopt, and maybe we will. But I heard him crying when he thought I was asleep. I felt his fingers touching the gauze on my belly with a heartbreaking loss and ache in his eyes when he thought I wasn’t looking. He thought he’d hidden it, but I saw.

I hug her. “I’m gonna be a doctor anyhow. I’ll have, like, A-listers on my case. The crème de la crème.”

She laughs. “Yeah, you will.” We pull away, arms touching a moment longer. “You know you can call me. Two a.m. if you need to.”

“Ditto.” I do a one-shoulder shrug and wrinkle my nose. “If Nilah’s driving you bonkers, I take late sessions. It’ll cost you extra though.”

She gives me her most serious distressed look. “Think I’m gonna need to find part-time work then. With you gone, Nilah is going to cut my fuse in half.”

“Honey, Nilah’s a full-time job all on her own.”

We giggle. She’s really not that bad. We’ve just always had fun joking about her behind her back. It makes her brattiness more bearable. Truly, she has the most beautiful compassion I’ve ever seen in a person. It just tends to be overshadowed by her shallow act.

I sigh and glance back at Jay. He and my dad are still making small talk, but I can tell they’re anxious to get on the road.

“I’ll call you when we get there. When we’re settled, we’ll art it up.” I’m talking about the famous Art Institute of Chicago, of course.

Heather does a goofy dance. “Ohmigosh, can’t wait!”

She loves art. I love it because Jay loves it, and I love Jay’s work. But Heather
loves it
loves it.

Jay gets into the driver’s side of the rental truck, and I hop into the passenger side. Heather and I wave at each other until we’re down the road and I can’t see her anymore.

I lean my head sideways and watch Jay drive, the careful precise position of his hands on the ten and two as he steers. It’s such a silly little thing, yet
—be still my heart
—I don’t think I’ll ever
get tired of staring at him.

“You feeling okay?” he asks.

I push back that damn stubborn curl that’s already fallen into his eyes, and then I flash back to when I wondered if I’d ever do this again. I smile. “Better than okay.”

“Got your earplugs?” he teases.

I pat my pocket and laugh because there are really earplugs in my jeans pocket.

Old Jay would’ve asked if I had my forty-five stashed and ready. New Jay just asks about earplugs. On the bright side though, his therapy has done wonders for improving his assertiveness, which has done wonders for his self-esteem. Which has done wonders for our sex life—say
hello
to the ass grab, wink wink.

Therapy has also done wonders for my bossiness…Totally kidding. No amount of therapy is that good.

I do have an irrational fear of needles now though. Well, maybe it’s not so irrational. They had to sedate me recently when a nurse tried to administer a regularly scheduled tetanus shot.

I said some pretty stupid stuff while sedated, Jay told me. Something about wanting all Americans to have the right to brush their teeth. When Jay told me that was already legal, I asked him why he hadn’t brushed his then because his breath was rank.

Recalling how he told me makes me grin.

Then I see Jay move, and the smirky smile falls off my face as he drops a hand from the steering wheel and gently curves it behind my back. To my other souvenir. A much uglier one, and strangely, a much more painful one. Emotionally. It was when Alpha was torturing me that I really thought I was going to lose Jay.

Jay knows this. As I mentioned, I’ve been secretive about almost nothing, which I’m sure is why I’m as normal as I am right now. Still, when he touches it, I want to fall apart all over again.

I’ve come to learn how difficult it must’ve been to let me touch his scar, the big one on his chest from his dad. It’s for that reason alone that I’ve worked really hard to not flinch when he touches it. It’s not just a reminder that I almost lost him. It’s a symbol that we survived.

We. As a team.

We’re a matched set. I’ve always felt that I was meant to make his scars go away. Now he does the same for me.

A few weeks after I was back at home, healing, I asked him about that night and what went wrong. He told me their big plan that went belly-up after Nelson and James caught on at the club that something was in the air. They sequestered Frank in the bathroom and let him have it. Jay was supposed to keep the boys from leaving with girls, but once he realized Trigger wasn’t with them, he took off. He called Frank’s roommate to check in on me only to find that I was MIA. That I had been for a few hours. Then he called Detective Howard, got his voicemail. That was when he went looking for me at Harrison Road.

He dialed 911 as he was going into the building, explained the situation, and barreled down every floor until he heard me screaming. The phone was in his pocket, so the operator heard everything and dispatched the police. Of course, once word got out across the frequency that there was a kerfuffle at an apartment building on Harrison Road, all hell broke loose, and at the forefront of the battle lines was Detective Howard.

He came through for us.

He’s also been our number one informant through this whole thing. He keeps our spirits up and believing that we’ll win. I can only hope. It’s all I have left.

Though one thing remains a mystery. Well, two things actually. I know how Alpha knew it was me in the alley, but I don’t think we’ll ever find out how he knew Jay was in the building and that he was looking for me. Alpha seemed to have a sixth sense with those things. Contacts for his contacts. Jay was more than likely being followed.

And ‘it’ never happened again—the time-traveling thing or whatever it was. Although, my belief that what happened was real has never waned. When I was at home these past few months, many a morning was spent calming me down after Mom, Dad, and sometimes Jay convinced me what day it was, reminding me why I was home, and retelling me bits of the story. It’s more than disorienting when something like that upends your life. I questioned every day for a while.

Not as much now. I’m trying to let it go as a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I still wonder though if tomorrow or next week or next month will be the day when time rewinds, and I’ll have to worry about losing someone new or risking my life again.

It’s over
, I remind myself. Then I do the mental exercises that the therapist taught us to set it aside. I dwell on our life
now.

Jay still doesn’t discuss his own dream or experience or whatever it was. More so because it reminds him of what he did to me. I’ve long since forgiven him. He knows, but he tortures himself sometimes. We’re working on that.

I relax into his touch as he lightly rubs my disfigured skin with his thumb. Then I settle in for the ride and thank the Big Man upstairs for all the looking out He’s done for me lately. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.

I’m still no hero. Just a girl who did what she had to. Who took a risk, won big, lost a little. It was totally worth it, and I don’t regret a thing. Other than maybe my poor planning skills. Needless to say, I won’t be signing on with the FBI or CIA anytime soon.

Either way, I think my future as a bitter angel is officially a thing of the past. I think I’ll get a chance at those wings after all
.

First, I have to thank God. He owns my heartbeats. He is my sun, my moon, my stars. The air, the grass, and the creator of all the pretty butterflies I love to chase. I couldn’t write one word without Him. I thank Him everyday for giving me this really cool creative outlet.

To my sister, Anna, who read the first draft of this and came back to me with a giant grin and said, “Don’t change one word.” I definitely changed a word. Or two. Or a thousand. But you mean the world to me, kid. You were the first one that showed me my stories were worth anything. You were my biggest cheerleader and my constant sounding board. These characters would not exist without you.

To my husband, Dan. You always believed I could. Thank you for being my financial super hero throughout the years. You’re my best friend. I can’t imagine my life without you or my smiley little boy. You two are my world.

To my early betas: Dory Brenner, Fariza Alam, Tia Rahman, Jessica Burke, and Jeannie Masters. You all rock on a hard core level. A special shout out to Fariza who called herself my “die hard fan”. I’m still LOLing over that one.

To my later betas: Tina Westhoven, Monika Torrence, Jessica Reid, Jennifer Benson, Jamie Zishka, Leigh Parrish. My grandma, Joy Hunt; my editor-in-training, Kara Torrence; proofreader, Luisa Hansen; and editor, Jovana Shirley. Your extra encouragement was exactly what I needed to push me out into the world. And, Grandma, big cheek smooches.