My heart raced, my palms tingled, and my mind worked overtime. The son of a bitch had been waiting for me! I had nothing in this nasty-ass place to even defend myself with.
He pulled my head back further, and I looked at him from the side of my eye. “You’re not all that pretty—that nose—but there’s something about you…” He licked a wet trail from my chin to my ear, and I had to stifle the urge to vomit. His spit stunk. “Your body, though. I’ll have some fun breaking it in.”
Words. They kept soaring through my thoughts. I wanted to threaten him, to tell him that if he touched me, I would kill him. But in the moment, they were meaningless, flying because they held no weight.
He was right about one thing, though.
My body.
It was going to fight, even if this was the last fight we’d ever know. I started fighting him then, not caring what I did, but doing it anyway. We seemed to hit one wall, the stove, and then he rammed my head into another wall, this one closest to the window.
He let go for a second, breathing heavy (the lazy prick probably couldn’t even climb a flight of stairs without wheezing), and we did a sort of bob and weave dance around each other. I was hell bent on making it to the door. Screaming wouldn’t help, but it was a chance to outrun him. I had him there, but he had me here. Caged like an animal.
He came at me again, and I tried to go around, but tripped over my flip-flops. As soon as I went down, he grabbed me by the legs and pulled me further away from the door. He wheezed from the struggle, and I made some smartass remark about him not having to usually fight for his food. The girls down the hall paid him in sex all of the time, but they were more like corpses after they had hits of drugs.
Snot dripped out of his nose. His cheeks were bright red. His palms were hot, burning through my jeans, and his white tank was full of stinky, unhealthy sweat. I was able to get one leg loose and kicked out at him. I hit his knee and he groaned. My toes came completely through one shoe from the impact, but I was able to rise and make it to the door. Just as my hand went to turn the knob, he grabbed me by my hair again, yanking me back.
He swung me around, wild with anger, and put my head through the wall. Before I could even recover, he spun me around again and then slapped the shit out of me. He made direct contact with my nose before he went in for my eye. I barely registered the pain, only that I needed to get out.
I knew death was coming for me soon, but not like this. Not with this asshole taking me apart before he decided to kill me for the rats to have. That was probably how he fed them. I clawed and kicked and made noises that sounded inhuman, trying to muster the energy to continue to fight. I knew from the outside it probably sounded like we were having wild sex, because he was making nasty noises, too.
Somehow we made it to the window, and I had a feeling he was going to put my head through it. Maybe he decided fighting with me was not worth it. He’d just end my life and be done with it.
“All right!” I shouted, hardly recognizing the sound of my own voice. It was full of grit, but sounded so worn down. “All right! I’ll do it.” He stopped the motion, but his hold didn’t lessen. “I’ll…I’ll do whatever you want me to.”
The apartment was scalding—no air conditioning—and the only awareness I had of my injuries were the stings from sweat slipping into them. His hot breath flowed over me, like the heat of a million fires blistering my skin.
Slowly, without any struggle, I let him turn me to face him. He let my arms go, and as his mouth came against mine, the sweat from his hair splashing across my face, I reached behind me and grabbed Vera from the windowsill.
I hit him with as much strength as I could, smashing her small pot against his head. The pottery held together against his temple until I moved my hand and pieces of it crumbled to the floor. I was dimly aware of the stunned look on his face before snatching Journey, a piece of the terra-cotta pottery, and my flip-flops, and running as fast I could to the anonymity of the overcrowded streets.
4
Mariposa
As the sun came up, I gave the waitress a slim tip at the all-night diner I sat at. She was nice enough to let me stay the night, continually filling my cup, so I didn’t have to sleep on the street. She even brought me a piece of apple pie that tasted like it was over two weeks old, but since I hadn’t had anything for a while, it was the best thing in the world.
Maybe she felt sorry for me because I was all busted up. Bloody nose, puffy eye and lip, pieces of wall stuck in my hair. A bruise would soon come up on my forehead. It was sore to the touch and swollen. Even though it would only draw more attention, I set my hair back with the butterfly clip in my bag to get it off of my face.
Vera. She had saved my life. The thought made my eyes water, but I sniffed up the emotions, refusing to let a tear fall. Crying got you nowhere. It helped nothing.
After stepping outside, I stuck my tennis shoes in my bag and slipped on my dollar pair of flip-flops. The size of these were perfect, but I didn’t wear them often because, one, I didn’t want to ruin them, and two, they caused severe blisters between my big and second toe. But they protected my feet and I was glad to have them.
I was glad to have Journey back, too. I spent most of the night writing things down between the pages. I even drew a picture of Vera and her pot to remember her by. The rest of the time I colored in my children’s coloring book. There was something really relaxing about coloring all of those princesses and bringing them to life.
A guy walking down the street bumped me and pushed me back a step. He had earphones in and wasn’t paying attention, but the hit made me feel the fight from last night.
It was going to be a long day.
Not having anywhere to go, or anyone to see, I let my feet take me in whatever direction they wanted to go. I took the ferry to Staten Island, and after walking around for a bit, I made my way back. A few markets/a stroll by Broadway/getting lost in the crowds at Time Square-later, I was back at the five-star restaurant, Macchiavello’s.
Dinner rush. There must’ve been a dress code, because not one person was dressed in jeans. Rich perfumes and fine colognes lingered from down the street. It sort of masked the fact that New York was scalding and the dumpsters were baking. Sweat coated my skin, and I felt crusted in it. Hopefully, the rich scents would mask my scent, too.
This time I didn’t stare in the window but kept my distance. I leaned against the wall, watching as people came and went. I was bored out of my mind, so I toyed with the idea of going to the library. Sometimes I hung out there and read all day. But my feet were hurting (all of me was, actually), and the thought of sitting down for a bit and coloring seemed more appealing. Then I’d go to the shelter before they ran out of beds.
After taking out my supplies, I started to color a picture of a young girl with a cloak on talking to a mean wolf. Some time passed by, because the weather started to feel a little cooler. Setting my blue color down to dab at an itchy spot on my injured nose, I happened to look up.
My eyes narrowed on the same scenario from the day before. Smart Mouth hustled to open the door to the restaurant for the guy in the suit, but instead of going in, he watched me. I lifted one eye, not able to open the other the entire way.
It was hard to look away. When he looked at me, I felt trapped, cornered, not able to move an inch. But in an odd way, it didn’t bother me as much as it should. I realized then that I didn’t feel judged by him because he was judging me, but because I was judging myself in his presence, wondering how I measured up.