“Who were you yelling at?” he said, pleasant customer service patience being tested.
“Well obviously myself. What, you never had a good yell, a good cry, a good fucking mental breakdown when you’ve been pawned and screwed over by various drug cartels?” Her voice was rising sharply near the end and I could tell this wasn’t an act at all. Despite always being shit on, I was starting to feel a bit sorry for her.
The truth was, I knew Ellie didn’t do any of it to hurt me. Call me a fool, and I was, but I knew that deep down she’d do what she could to spare my pain. She cared enough about me for that. It still hurt, knowing that she believed I’d never come. I knew she never trusted anyone and I was just another lover to her who would one day break her heart and forget her name, but she should have known I wasn’t like that. I wasn’t like them. I wasn’t like everyone else. She should have known what she was to me, that the only reason we were ever separated was because we didn’t have a choice. I guess she did have a choice, though both of them were shitty ones. Her sacrifice didn’t help us much in the end. It was all for nothing.
“Miss Willis, Javier wants you to know that you’re completely safe here.”
Javier. I almost put my fucking fist through the closet door but composed myself in time. That nasty, terrible blackness wanted company. I couldn’t think about him, or her and him together, or how she could still do that to me, even if she never did it on purpose. I hated, hated, how easily he was able to win her back over, to make her doubt herself, to coerce her into doing such things. Sex was sex and I understood that. What I couldn’t understand was his power over her. Or maybe I didn’t want to. She was better than that. I believed it. I knew it.
“How am I safe?” she asked snidely, adjusting herself on the bed. “Because I just had drinks with Travis Raines and I didn’t feel the slightest bit safe.”
“You are safe here,” he said, gesturing to the room. “He has people stationed all over now. There are two men just beyond the courtyard, on the other side of the river. If anyone comes in through there, they will find them. There are people at the front of the hotel too and of course I am here. You can call me at all hours of the night. You are protected, wherever you are.”
What Enrico, what Javier, was really trying to tell her was that she was stuck, held prisoner in her hotel. There was no way she could run off with me and Gus tonight or any other night. She was protected from one man and a captive to the next.
“Well, I guess that should make me feel safe,” she said. “Until tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes, Travis wants to take me out for dinner. 6PM.”
“I see. I will let Javier know.”
“You can tell Javier that I don’t want to do it.”
Pause. He walked over to the other side of the room. “I will tell him that. I do not know what his answer will be.”
“His order you mean.”
“Yes, his order. I’m sorry if I come across a bit unfriendly, but I have to follow them and that may mean making you go out for the dinner tomorrow. Do you understand?”
The girl couldn’t seem to go anywhere without someone threatening her.
“I understand,” she said with a dejected sigh. “Listen, Enrico, can you do me a favor and get me another drink?”
He walked over to the mini bar and opened the door. “Tequila is all gone.”
“Then I’ll take the bourbon.”
“You Americans like to mix it up.” He tossed the bottle to her and she caught it.
“I like to keep my liver on its toes.”
“Well, good night, Miss Willis.” Enrico walked over to the door. My breathing started to slow in relief. “I hope you can sleep well knowing how safe you are.”
She cracked open the bottle of JD and drank it back before she said, “Good night.”
The door closed. She waited a few tense moments before she went up and locked it. Then she went around to check the patio door again and closed the curtain to that. She came back to the bed and lay down, her legs dangling off the edge. I could see the start of the cherry blossom tattoo snaking its way up her calf. It looked a bit rough and for one crazy second I became concerned that she wasn’t moisturizing it enough.
She went into the bathroom, apparently forgetting that I was there. I wouldn’t have put it past her. Then she came out, undressed, her top and skirt sliding to the floor and pooling around her ankles, reminding me of the obsidian shape of my dreams, then pulled on a t-shirt, turned off the main light, then the lamp and climbed into bed. Darkness.