Of Hustle and Heart (19 page)

CHAPTER 34

ZACARIAS

S
he grabs a pillar of cracked marble from my nightstand and bashes it into the side of my face. I stumble backward as Whitney comes toward me again, hitting me so hard that the pillar breaks into threes. As she swings, I block her, grabbing her arm and pushing her away.

The pain is immense. I will myself to remain conscious. But I’m convinced she’s broken my face. She runs when I lurch for her, but I reach out and grab the hem of her top. She knocks my hand away and smacks me on the other side of my face.

“You son of a bitch!” She snatches away, stretching her top out. “You lying bastard!”

“I didn’t lie! I told you what happened.”

“No! You are a
liar
. And you’re not some sweet, soft-spoken guy.”

“I never said I was, Whit. You wanted me to be that guy.” She tries to take another swing at me, but I knock her hand away. “I’m sorry.” I don’t regret cheating, though I feel that as her fiancé, I owe her an apology. I want someone else. I’m not sorry for confessing. Especially if that’s all it takes for her to leave. This time when she makes a run for my bedroom door, I allow her to go. I need to be sure. And as it turns out, Whitney leaving is what I want.

Later, I patch my face the best I can and call in to Rico’s. I tell my staff I won’t be coming in today and ask the hostess to transfer me to a manager.

When enough time passes, and the aches have settled into every measure of my body, I dig my keys from my pocket and go straight to my car. I consider going to my mother’s house but realize what a bad idea it’d be to let her see me like this. I pull out of the parking lot, but I don’t get far. I pull over at the next Chevron station. I go in and buy five packs of travel-size Tylenol and a bottle of water. On my way back to my car, I tear open four of the five packs and down them in one swallow. John can get me stronger pain meds than this over-the-counter shit. I call him; he picks up on the first ring.

“Hey, brother. What’s up?” His voice is low and casual.

“Nothing…Can you get me some pills? I need ’em ASAP.”

“Pills? What kind of pills? What for?”

“For pain. My head is killing me.”

“So pop some Tylenol.”

“I did. I need something stronger.”

“For a headache?” His voice fades into silence from the other end. I visualize him worried and confused, his eyebrows furrowed. Sometimes I forget John’s my big brother, with his nonchalance about life and his careless ways.

“Don’t worry about me,” I clarify. “I’m good.” My jawbone pops, and I flinch, sucking in air between my teeth. “Can you get me something or not?”

“What happened?” he asks calmly.

I hesitate to respond. “Whitney and I had a fight. I cheated. She did not take it well.”

“
You
cheated on Whitney? Is she still pregnant?”

“Yeah.”

“So what…her loony ass beat the hell outta you? That is so sad,” he says with a laugh.

“Well, I’m not going to fuckin’ hit her, John.”

“Yeah, I know.” He gathers himself. His laughter ceases. “So what happened to the hoe you fucked around with? Whitney beat her ass too?”

“I don’t fuck around with hoes, bro, and I would never let Whitney touch her.”

“Hold on. You shittin’ me, right?” He sounds surprised to hear such conviction in my voice regarding someone he knows nothing about. “Who is this chick?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” He laughs. “Whitney has had your balls in the palm of her hand for two years, causing all kinda problems.
Now
you wanna cheat?”

“Why is this shit so amusing to you?” I ask. “I’m fucked up over here. She bashed my face in with her shitty home décor. Can you get my shit or not?”

“Hey! Calm the fuck down, and watch how you talk to me, bro.” I quickly come to my senses. I don’t want to fight with John. “I’m not the one who gave yo stupid ass a concussion. You should’ve let Whitney go two years ago.”

He agrees to bring me the meds but makes no promise of when he’ll come. As I drive home, I look at my face in the rearview mirror. It’s disfigured; my skin is a freaked-up bluish gray, and my eyes are swollen. The right side of my jaw has tripled in size, with reddish-purple gashes along my chin. I wonder if she could’ve stopped on her own or if the assault would have been fatal if I hadn’t restrained her. My mother will never forgive this. She won’t see past the damage done to her son’s handsome face. I decide not to see her until the bruises go away and there are no signs of injury left.

After an hour and half, I go back into the Chevron. I buy the strongest beer I can find and six more packs of Tylenol. Then I go home to wait for my brother.

Around nine o’clock, John walks through the front door. By now, I’ve heavily self-medicated with weak pills and even weaker booze. The pills and beer have dulled some of the throbbing, but I still have a beast of a migraine. I’m at war with myself and fucked up about all kinds of shit. The acquaintance rape of a minor—a teenage girl whom I’ve developed an addiction to—is, at this point, the most significant moment in my life. I drunk-text Zina a few times and call her twice. She doesn’t respond, and I pass out soon after.

When I wake up, John’s sitting in his chair, holding one of my beers and staring at me. From the look on his face, I can tell my appearance pisses him off. I roll over, remembering my train wreck of pain. I moan, barely able to sit up.

“Wake the fuck up,” John says.

I try to sit up but find myself slouching helplessly back onto the couch. I open one of my swollen eyes. A bottle of Percocet is lying on the table.

“My girlfriend beat the fuck outta me,” I groan.

“I see that. Looks like she was trying to kill you. She did that for cheating?”

I nod. “I deserved it, John.” I reach for the pill bottle. “This girl, she…is
so
fucking beautiful to me, so real. I’ve never felt anything like her.”

John takes a swig of his beer. “And worth a concussion? How do you know her?”

“She comes into Rico’s.” I twist the top of the bottle of Percocet, not willing to say much more, and dump two pills into the palm of my hand.

“You better not
ever
let Ma see you all fucked up like this.”

“I know. I won’t.”

“And if she does, you better not tell her who did it.”

I nod.

“So this girl who might cost you your kid…what’s her name?”

“What? Wait…”

“You heard me. I don’t see you and Whitney coming back from this. She’s vindictive, violent.” He gestures toward my bruises and scars.

“Whitney is what I deserve, not what I want. I’m not losing my kid.” My speech slurs. I’m inebriated, dazed. I feel like I’m floating. “Zina will forgive me. She’ll be good with my kid.”

He frowns, and his eyes narrow. “Zina. That her name?”

I nod. “I fucked up with her so bad, John.” I sit up, reaching for John’s beer. He moves it from my grasp and slams it down on the end table next to his chair.

“Boy, why are you so fucking whiney over women?” He sits back, shaking his head. “Who taught you that shit? You can’t suck this much ass. Fuck.”

I pass out for a long while, a depleted pile of guilt and grandeur. When I wake up, John is gone, and Whitney has not returned to the apartment. The pill-and-booze haze has faded into a sanctioning hangover, though I’m still feeling the floating effects of the Percocet. I’m high; I feel indestructible.

Every blow Whitney chucked my way felt like the punishment Zina was entitled to give. I care deeply for this girl I violated, whose trust I betrayed. Coming to terms with this is the most sobering experience. I envision her reporting the assault, though I pray she doesn’t. My life would be ruined because I wanted her too much. I’d be known as a rapist.

In the darkness, I get up from the sofa, fighting my way through the pills and beer. I walk into the kitchen and grab a towel from the kitchen drawer. I fill it with ice cubes and press the icy bulk against my face.

I’m ready to leave the life I’d been living. I no longer want to share it with a woman who fills me with such contempt, a woman who lacks the ability to forgive me when I make mistakes. While I stand in the kitchen, I hear the lock on the front door turn. Seconds later, the door opens. I look around the bar. Through the dark, I see the moonlight reflecting off Whitney’s white top.

Shit.

I watch her as she creeps back into the apartment and heads to the bedroom.

“What are you doing?” I call out from behind her, startling her. “Why have you come back?” She looks at me. “Leave.” I walk out of the kitchen toward the living room.

“Wait, Zack, no…I don’t want that.”

“You murdered my fucking face! Leave.” I point to the front door.

“You fucking cheated on me!”

“So you try to bash my skull in? You’re crazy as shit.”

“I overreacted. God, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not doing this. I’m tired.”

“Not doing what?”

“You! I’m done! I have
no
intention of being with you.” The harshness of my tone cuts deeper than any gashes she left on me. “You need to get over it.” She’s in shock, not moving, lip quivering. I watch the anger build in her face.

“When we’re married—”

“We’re not getting married. I’m not yours.”

“What about the baby?” she snaps.

I should’ve seen it coming, but I’ve been blind for a while now. My eyes narrow. “Don’t play with me about my kid.”

“What about the baby?” I step closer. “I will sue you for full custody,” she says.

“Bullshit! You’re not getting full custody.”

“Don’t screw with me,” she says as she steps into my face. “You
won’t
win.”

“Whitney, I don’t
want
to screw with you.” I shrug. “I don’t
want
to win. I just wanna break up. Isn’t that obvious? I
fucked
someone else after our engagement party, the most
beautiful
girl
ever
. How could it be any clearer?” She stares at me, anger and tears rippling through her eyes. “I’ve been missing her like crazy ever since.”

CHAPTER 35

ZINA

T
he flashbacks come as dreams, and they start the same night it happened. I wake up sweating, clutching my stomach because I feel him inside me. That is the worst part. That I can still feel him. God.

It takes a while for me to fall asleep. Night after night, I lay in bed clutching my phone, watching the minutes and hours tick by. I’m unable to think about anything but Zack and how he could leave me so confused and terrified all in one aching thrust. As a brand-new hobby, I cry every night after the third or fourth flashback grips me. The images are too much for me to see. They repeat nightly and don’t stop until I get out of bed for school. Every morning, I roll over to the edge of my full-size bed and lie there until I hear one of the twins go into the bathroom and shut the door.

I fear a lot of things now. Speaking my mind is one of them. The fear is the part that eats me alive, the thing that twists my guts into chewy licorice. This is how Zack stays with me, pulling me apart and eating whatever bits he likes. I’m trapped, walled off from everyone who cares for me, because I don’t understand what happened to me and why. It’s been four days since I met Zack in the stables. And every night since, I’ve dreamed about him. The dreams are hard to gauge, making it harder to understand how I should be feeling. Some nights he appears the good guy he was in the beginning: doting on me, the way a grown man in love would; and other nights, he’s only a brute on top of me, doing things to my body that I refuse to willingly allow. He leaves bruises, pains in my stomach and between my legs. In the dreams he’s rough, snatching my clothes away along with any comfort or admiration I once had for him.

And then there’s Shannon, who has been asking every day for me to go to prom with him, causing tension between Beatrice and her shitty-ass fugazi clique to build between Bee, Rocky, and me.

For the last three days, I haven’t been able to shake him at school. He’s all over me, and I can’t even bare standing too close to him. When he brushes up against me in the hallway on purpose, my body tenses. I almost take off running in the opposite direction.

The flashbacks are anguish, and violate me as well, coming whenever they want. They cause my hands to tremble so much in class that I have to drop my pen or pencil on my desk until it passes. Shannon’s noticed me dropping stuff in class too many times for it to be an accident. When he asks about it, I tell him I’m stressed about finals and graduating.

“Oh, okay,” he says.

I look at him. I fidget too much, stammering my answers and cringing because he tries to look into my eyes. I’m absolutely unable to allow him to see me, so I look down at his shoes and notice how long his feet look in comparison to mine. He touches me for the first time in weeks, since the night of his final playoff game when we kissed for the first time.

“So you decided yet?” He reaches down and grabs my forearm. I stop myself from snatching away. I breathe deeply, our skin-to-skin contact forces a well of unwanted sentiment, and my arms are shaking. I can hardly speak; I know he’s talking about prom. I hadn’t given him an answer for the entire week. When I told Blanca at her locker last week that I wasn’t going, she flipped out. I don’t want to say no to Shannon and have her flip on me again. I usually ignore her, talk my shit, and do what I want to do regardless of what anyone says. Now I fold like a note. I don’t want to fight anyone. He took my fight away.

“Yeah.” I force a smile. “We can go.” I’m scared as shit to go anywhere with Shannon. Fear was never something I’d felt around him. I shake my head, frowning. I almost cry in front of him. Without a doubt, I’m not well.

I never thought I’d see the day when the hustling dope would make me feel better or my bloodlust for Corey and Bryan’s murder would fall dead like the two of them did. Straight up, I still hate Mr. Mercedes with venomous passion, but Corey and Bryan don’t have to navigate this shit world anymore. They’re not suffering, and my little brothers are healing. Yeah, it’s taking a while, but from time to time I see them laughing and hanging out with other kids in our neighborhood, so I’ve stopped begging Tony to kill the murdering motherfucker. I won’t tell him about Zack. I’m tired of being a special case. I want to live, so I’m willing to take whatever comes along with that. Even my rape.

For days I’ve avoided everyone after school. I run straight to my car and drive around Houston, hitting as many licks as I can until the sun starts to dip. Under the most embarrassing scrutiny of Antonio de la Vega, I’ve promised that after I sell the drugs I have left, I’ll hang up my D-girl status. So far, with my licks alone, Blanca and I have accumulated about $1900 in the last four days. It scares me that we’re making so much money. Uncle Tony’s concern and protection is a must.

Hustling, not letting my PTSD win, and getting through prom and graduation without more of me dying inside have all been hard as fuck. And Zack makes it hard to get through anything. He continues to call and text me. His messages are so sweet, so teary, that it pisses me the fuck off, and I want to scream and cry.

His first text:
It wasn’t just sex. I want to be with you
.

His second:
Don’t shut down on me.

His third
:
What we did wasn’t bad. It can’t be rape if you love the person.

I feel my bloodlust returning every time I read his dribble. Eventually, I get so fucked-up angry, I heave my phone into my bedroom mirror, smashing them both. Fuck that date-raping piece of shit!

The plans are set. We have three weeks to go, including finals week. The entire student body of Albert Chesney High School performs locker cleanout, digging through a nine-month mound of textbooks and tossing notebooks, trash, and lost sweaters from this past winter. On top of that, seniors like me scramble to pay off dues.

We book hotel rooms and car rentals and dig deep within ourselves to pass every final and turn in every textbook, while blabbering about a prom experience we’ll never forget.

After the prom, it’s a party at Hotel ZaZa, courtesy of the sneaky Blanca de la Vega.

“I know you won’t want to stay at prom too long, so we can just have a little party of our own.”

I look up from the manicurist. “What party? Who’s gonna be there?”

“Just our friends. No one else. We’ll leave around ten or ten thirty, ten forty-five—something like that. I booked a suite for us.”

I can’t tell Blanca I don’t want to go, but I’m panicking. “Thanks, friend.” I smile; she beams.

“Well, I know you don’t really want to go, so I won’t make you stay all night,” she says, waving her hand through the air as if she’s doing me favor. “You sure you don’t want to stay, though?”

The manicurist instructs me to dip my fingers into a small bowl. “I don’t mind it, now that I’m in already.” I shift my weight in the vibrating massage chair, moving closer to my manicurist’s tray of sterilized tools. I promptly do as she instructs.

Zina, it’s Tony. I’m just calling to check on you, see where you are. I’m assuming you’re at home getting ready for this party tonight, which is good. Call me back and let me know you’re at home and not in the streets.

I don’t call him back. I get dressed for my prom with my mom’s help. Alex and Andrew hover over us, making the most inane and annoying comments and asking too many questions.

“Why’d you pick that dress?” Andrew asks.

“What’s that in your hair?” Alex asks.

“Who paid for your dress?” It’s Alex again, who I could’ve kicked in the shin for shedding unwanted light on the subject of my felonious dealings.

The design of my dress was artistry, the print reminding me of an abstract finger painting, blending jaded images of forest leaves and a unique garden of muted lavenders, mauves, and pinks against a creamy backdrop. I spent a good two days carrying the fabric swatches around in my planner until I decided which of the three I’d wear.

The cool, but heavy, printed silk charmeuse cost $130 per yard, plus $416 for dressmaking fees. To afford it, my hustle became fierce. I sold top-shit marijuana to the pothead dope fiends and bootlegs to the old and rusty crowd—those too settled down to party, with teenaged kids of their own.

My mama doesn’t say much while she helps get me dressed, but I catch her reflection in the mirror as she casts a suspicious eye my way. She runs her hands up and down the skirt of my dress, admiring its beauty, frowning.

“Did Antonio help you pay for your dress?” Her look tells me my answer better be yes. My face flushes as I nod.

“Yeah,” I say quickly, nervous as fuck, realizing she still puts fear in my heart.

“Hold it in,” she says, and I hold my breath while she zips. “Aww, this is what your wedding day will be like.” She grins.

Please.

“Ma, calm down. I’m seventeen. And this is just me going to prom.”

I run my hand along my stomach and waist; the angles of my dress shape them gloriously. A weak smile pulls at my lips before sadness grabs hold of me, strangling any pride I might have left.

“Seventeen only for a couple more hours,” she says quietly. “My only girl, my first child, I can’t believe how fast you have grown up.” She shakes her head, her wistful gaze moving from my reflection to the twins. “I don’t know where I was when this happened.”

For real, Shannon is every teenage girl’s wet dream. He looks remarkable in a tux, so gorgeous I have to shake my head and hide my blush as he walks into my house.

I still don’t want to go…

When my mama opens the door, she’s happier to see him than I am. She does the overextended welcoming bit—inviting him in, offering him a drink, grinning the whole time, and eyeing me as if I have brought home a pro athlete. She and Phillip sit him down and talk to him about school and college plans, where he lives, and what we’ll be doing after the prom. At one point, Shannon grabs my hand. It seems like an absentminded gesture, which surprises me. It occurs to me that it’s second nature to him. And he doesn’t realize we’re holding hands until I twist my hand out of his. He looks at me, and I clear my throat. My mama is watching. She never misses a thing. I’m sure she notices how I avoid looking at Shannon and how quickly I remove my hand from his. She cuts her eyes at him, her misplaced suspicion casting a shadow. I take control of the situation, quickly turning to Shannon and threading my arm through his. I scoot closer to him so he can feel me next to him. Being pressed so close casts a bit of anxiety that I hide with a smile.

“We can go now,” I say, tugging at his arm. My mama gets to her feet as I do.

“Zina.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Watch yourself,” she says and turns to Shannon. “You too.”

The Florentine Gardens ballroom, the venue for Chesney’s Senior Prom, looks like a glossy ad from
Debutante’s Debut
magazine. What the décor lacks in subtlety it more than makes up for in sophisticated extravagance. The tables are covered with white silk tablecloths and set with the most expensive-looking dinnerware I’ve ever seen. Opulent chandeliers glow over our heads, and candles have been lit in every corner of the room. I don’t feel like myself as Shannon holds my hand and pulls me along behind him as we enter the ballroom.