The Thrill of It

Chapter Twenty

Trey

I scan her block again.

There’s a hunched-over lady carrying bags of groceries in each hand, then a dude rocking out to unheard music blasting through his oversized earphones. A young mom pushes a red stroller and dangles some kind of toy in front of her baby.

My heart hurts seeing them, so I look the other way, hunting for Harley.

Where the hell is she? She said she’d be back by now. That she’d meet me at her place at five after I finished working and she saw her mom. Now, it’s five-fifteen and I haven’t heard from her, except for one text a few hours ago with the words: It was awful.

That’s all. And now all I want to do is see my girl, and hold my girl, and let her know that no matter how awful her mom is that I’ll be there for her. I want to wrap my arms around her, let her cry on my chest if she needs to, have her soak my shirt in salty streams. I want to be her rock when everything around her is restless in the wind. I want her to know that I love her for who she is, not who I try to make her.

I nearly stumble into a tree when I hear that word in my head. Love.

Holy fuck.

Do I love Harley? Is that what this crazy feeling is in my chest, in my heart, in my head? I’ve never been in love before, never had a clue what it’s like. But maybe this is it. Maybe it’s more than feeling high. Maybe it’s feeling hope too. Because that’s what Harley is to me. Hope for a better future. Hope that the next part of my life won’t feel so dark or dangerous.

I grab my phone to try her again, when I see a short text from her. Running late. See you soon.

Then my phone rings. I don’t know the number but I answer it anyway.

“You can wait upstairs.”

It’s Kristen. She’s so no-nonsense it cracks me up. That girl is direct and here she is skipping right over greetings. Craning my neck skyward, I see her in the fifth floor window, waving down. “I have beer and Jordan is here.”

“Cool. Buzz me in.”

I save her number in my phone, then head up the steps and press hard on the door when the buzzer sounds. I wait for the second buzzer and open another door into the tiny hallway. It seems even smaller because it’s lined with boxes from UPS delivery or courier. I notice a bag from Bloomingdale’s among the boxes, and then a name on the bag written in black Sharpie.

For my Layla. 5E.

The hair on my neck stands on end and I stop in my tracks.

A wave of jealousy rolls through me. I push a hand through my hair, count to ten, walk to the end of the mailboxes, remind myself that this bag from Bloomingdale’s doesn’t change things. That it doesn’t mean anything. That Harley was with me this morning, and she told me how she felt, and I told her too. She carries my heart and I can do the same for her. I don’t need to look in the bag. I don’t need to see if Cam sent her something.

I trust her.

I trust her.

I trust her.

I repeat those three words as I walk back down the hall, focusing on the gray walls, the stairs in the corner, anything but the bag that seems to be ticking, like a bomb, a goddamn bomb that’s about to blow.

Screw mantras.

I have to defuse the fucking thing.

I pounce on it. Then I tell my frantic, jealous, angry, snake of a self to calm down. I at least need to open it carefully so no one will know I snooped. I undo the staple that clips both sides of the bag together under the handles. Then I open the bag and peer inside. There’s a box. The kind that probably holds a long dress. I wince and send a prayer somewhere to someone not listening because no one listens that this box is not what I think it is.

When I pull out the box, there’s a note card taped on the front.

I want to rip it open and tear it to shreds. Instead, I undo the tape and open the card. It feels like a filthy foul creature when I read the words.

For my baby doll tomorrow night. Mr. Stewart likes his girlfriend to dress in a subtle classy style. This dress should do the biz, and maybe even net you a nice fat extra chunk of tips. He’s that kind of man. My favorite kind – big-ass tipper for a job well done.

Who takes care of you? I do. Always.

I fall to my knees. No way. No fucking way. She’s going back to him. She’s working again. I can’t believe she duped me. I can’t believe I thought she’d changed.

“Trey?”

I raise my eyes and there she is, looking like she’s been battered in a hurricane, but I don’t care because she’s a liar.

“Are you okay?”

I clench my teeth. I can’t speak. I can’t breathe out a word. If I do, I will say something awful. Instead, I grip the note tighter, and soon I realize I’ve crumpled it up in my fist.

I open my fist. “I guess we should cancel our plans to see a movie with Jordan and Kristen tomorrow night. I see you have a prior engagement.”

I toss the note at her. She doesn’t even try to catch it. It hits her chest with a thud and falls to the ground.

“What are you talking about? Because I have had literally the worst day of my life. All I want is to see you and try to forget the things my mom said to me.”

“You’d probably have an easier time when you’re Mr. Stewart’s girlfriend tomorrow night. That might help you forget your mom and me. Oh wait, you’ve already forgotten me seeing as you’re going back to Cam.”

I point at the bag, the gleaming, beating body of evidence before our very eyes.

Irrefutable.

She bends down, opens the balled-up note, and reads quietly.

I push both hands rough through my hair, pull on it in exasperation. “You fucking told me you ended it with him.”

“I did end it! This is a mistake. I texted him the night on the subway. I’ll show you. I swear.”

She grabs for her phone from her back pocket and scrolls through her messages. She finds it quickly and jams the device at me, showing me the note saying she’s done working. I tap on the screen to open it.

“Oops,” I say when I see the message is in draft mode. “Looks like you forgot to send it. Guess that was a Freudian slip.”

Then I walk the fuck out before I say something I will regret for the rest of my life, even though the word is forming in my throat, on my tongue, on my lips. But I can’t, I won’t, I refuse to give that word voice, even if she’s acting like one right now.

Harley

I stare at the window in the door, unable to move, even though he’s long gone.

I close my eyes briefly, wondering if this is the end of my penance, if this is how I finally escape my past. If this is the moment when I am finally good again with the universe, when I have paid back all that I have done. Maybe this is my final amends.

Losing him. Losing Trey.

But was I really that bad?

Yes.

The answer is always yes.

I will always pay for what I did because I sold myself. I can try to hedge it, I can sugarcoat it by calling myself an escort, by having laid down limits, but in the end, I did what I did. I chose what I chose. And unlike the girls my mother covers for her articles, I wasn’t forced, I wasn’t coerced. I willingly walked men like dogs, dirty talked them, and told them lies about lingerie. Then I took the money and laughed with my pimp.

My man.

My Cam.

I collapse in a cross-legged heap on the floor, the dirty, faded, yellowed, linoleum floor of this apartment building, and I clutch the bag Cam sent me, my arms wrapped around it, a life preserver in the shitstorm of my day, my life. I hold it tightly and re-read the note, lingering on the last lines.

Who takes care of you?

That’s right. Who does?

Has there ever been any question? Has there every been any other answer but Cam? He is the only person who has ever been here for me. Who doesn’t cringe or sneer or judge my past. Cam accepts me for who I am. Cam loves me for me. And he doesn’t even try to fuck me, or fuck with me. He is the only person I can ever rely on. When my world spins wildly into the sewer, he alone can pluck me out.

He is the choice in my life. I chose him once, I can choose him again. Joanne has urged me to take ownership of my actions. I damn well will take ownership of this one.

Of this choice I’m making that is mine and mine alone.

I reach into the bag, open the box, and gasp when I see a long, flowy dress in the color of champagne. It’s gorgeous and it’s nothing a whore would wear.

I run my tired hands over the dress – it is the only thing beautiful in my ugly life. I can’t rely on my mother. I am wrung dry from her, worn out and tattered from her cruel words. Nor can I lean on Trey. I thought I was falling in love, but he walked out without giving me a chance to explain.

I rest my cheek against the soft chiffon. This. This is all I can depend on.

Power. Control. Manipulation.

Because there is no such thing as love. Love is a fiction, a fable, an ode spun by poets and drunks, a fantastical tale told across one thousand and one nights. It is the genie in the bottle, it is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it’s the lie designed to seduce you.

My almost-now-ex-boyfriend doesn’t love me, my father never did, and the woman who raised me didn’t want a daughter. She wanted a sister, a confidante, a friend.

And she wound up with a whore.

This is who I am.

I discard my soft side, my loving side, my vulnerable side. With my chin held high and my dress in hand, I march up the stairs.

I am, and always will be, a working girl.

“Where’s Trey? What happened?” Kristen asks when I unlock the door to the apartment. She’s draped over Jordan and they’re watching a Mark Wahlberg flick on her laptop. She’s compromising and it’s fascinating seeing what a boy and girl do as they come together. Fascinating like a science experiment I’m observing through a microscope. Because that’s all this closeness, this kind of compromise, will ever be to me. Something to take note of from a distance, to jot down on lined paper. But not to live. “Trey was supposed to come up thirty minutes ago. Did he get lost in the basement?”

I shake my head. “He left,” I say in a dead voice, then I head to my room and flop face first on my bed. I could cry, I could curl up in a ball, I could bang my fists into the bedspread until they turn blue.

But there’s nothing left in me. I have been drained of emotions, and maybe I never even had any in the first place. Maybe I’m missing the gene that lets you feel for real.

Seconds later, I hear my door creak open.

“Hey,” Kristen says in a soft voice. She pads over to my bed, sits down and pets my hair. “You okay?”

“I wouldn’t really use that word to describe what I’m feeling right now,” I say in a muffled tone into the bedspread.

“What’s going on? Want to tell me?”

I flip over, stare up at Kristen and shrug. “Where to start? Imagine your worst-case scenario. Double that. Multiply it by ten. And add one thousand.”

“Oh, sweetie.” She squeezes my arm. “What happened? Tell me what happened. I want to know.”

“You go watch your movie. I’ll be fine.”

“No. Jordan can wait. You’re more important. I don’t even like this movie.” Then she calls out to Jordan, telling him to finish it on his own. He shouts back a victorious yes, and I hear the volume rise again on the film.

“Talk to me,” she says. “You let me in the other night when you told me. Now I’m in. Let me be in. Let me help you.”

I choke up because her words might be the kindest ones I’ve ever heard. Then I suck back the tears, and I tell her about my shitty day. When I’m done, she gives me the biggest hug a girl could get.

I may not know love, but I am starting to grasp the concept of friendship.

This is the only thing I know to be true.