I convince my mom not to worry because I’m going to Clive’s and that Thomas will be waiting for us at school and yada, yada, yada, even though now with my dad away my mom and Anthony keep saying, “be careful, be careful,” and if they ever had a clue that the crash on the West Side Highway…
“It’s game change time,” Anthony says, “and Dad has enemies.”
Clive has to stay after school and retake the history test he missed when he overslept. “Wait for me in the library,” he says.
Only it’s beautiful out and it’s daylight and other kids are around and so are parents and I could use some distraction, so I decide to walk uptown and look in the stores. I text him.
Text me when you’re done. Going out for air.
I walk west toward Madison, checking the street both ways because my radar is in high gear, but no one is around and nothing sets off my internal panic meter. I stop at the ice cream truck because the mac and cheese for lunch was gross and I threw most of it out so I’m fainting from starvation. I wait in line and finally get a chocolate éclair bar because they’re out of the strawberry shortcake, my number-one fave. I head down the street, peeling off the paper, then start thinking about Michael and the chocolate ice cream sandwiches and how he looked and what that was like and how it went nowhere and crash-landed, and I look everywhere but he has not magically appeared.
Just thinking about him is depressing and a waste of time so I try to push those thoughts away and focus on what kind of cashmere cardigans I should look for and what colors I need and want and settle on dark green and camel to match what I have. But I’m distracted by an asshole in an SUV who guns the engine and goes flying down the street and—hello—didn’t he see the sign that says slow because there’s a school on this block, and, like, where is the cop on the corner when you need him, and then the asshole slams the brakes hard and stops with a screech.
And I get chills.
I turn around to figure out what’s going on, and, shit, my ice cream falls from my hand and splatters all over the street, and I open my mouth but then look up when a door slams on the SUV and somebody gets out of the front seat, and I stop because he looks vaguely familiar, only I can’t place him.
Then he crosses the street to my side and walks toward me.
And. My. Insides. Tighten.
He comes up close and then closer so he’s walking next to me, keeping pace. Step by step. This freaks me out. A small smile on his pock-marked face.
“Hi, Gia,” he says, like my name is a dirty word.
Adrenaline shoots through me. I try to hide the fear that rears up. I pivot abruptly and speed walk back to school. To safety. It’s not far. I’m almost there, less than one block.
Be calm, a voice inside me says. Don’t show him you’re scared. I’m trying. To look calm. And not afraid. Trying to hold back from breaking into a run.
An eighth of a block more. I can make it.
He reaches out suddenly and grabs me roughly on the upper arm, dragging me toward the street.
“Let’s go for a ride, Gia. Sal couldn’t get you. But I can.”
“No!” I yell, yanking my arm free. He grabs it again and I freak and scream, “Let go of me!”
Where the hell is everybody? I look around frantically. The street is deserted now. My body jerks alive with panic. I fixate on being strong. I have to get away. It’s life or death.
Boxing. Fighting. All of Dante’s lessons flash in my brain. All the practice. The drills. It’s like he’s next to me and has prepared me for this.
Jab, Gia! I slam his jaw as hard as I can with my left.
Surprise them, Gia. I jab again.
It stuns him. He freezes. His grip loosens. But before I can reach out and punch him again and again and again the way I’m supposed to, he recovers.
This isn’t Dante’s basement anymore, where it’s just me and the bag. He has the advantage now. He’s bigger and stronger. He comes back at me and yanks my arm so hard I lose balance. I’m thrown to the street and fall back. My shoulder hits the pavement hard, then I slam my head, and it stuns me and I forget, I forget to be tough. I forget to pretend, and the strength leaches out of me. I want to cry. I need help. I hurt everywhere.
I lie there overcome. Then he’s crouching over me and grabbing my arms to pull me to my feet.
My head. It throbs. Blood rushing in my ears makes me deaf. Everything starts to go around and around. I stare up at the bright blue sky. My dad. His sliver of sky. All he sees. All he has. He’s lost almost everything he has to lose.
And that. Can’t. Happen. To me.
“Let’s go,” he hisses. “Get up, you bitch.” He yanks my arm again, nearly pulling it from the socket. I come to life and reach under the leg of his pants and dig my nails into his skin and then pull hard at his ankle to make him fall, to break his grip.
It works.
He stumbles and falls to his knees, but he manages to get up and he’s over me again, breathing hard, angrier now, furious that I hurt him, furious that I made him fall. He tries to grab me again. He yanks my hair. Only now I can’t fight as hard. I hurt all over. My whole body has turned to deadweight.
I see my dad yelling no. Telling me to fight. To be strong. To win. I’m going to faint. Everything’s getting fuzzier. Stay awake, stay awake, my brain is yelling. Get up. My brain? Or my dad?
Somewhere outside myself, an arm reaches over me. I’m trapped on the ground. I push against it, but it doesn’t move.
Then there are voices. People are around me. Kids from school or people from the street?
“It’s Gia,” a voice says.
“Jesus,” says another.
Then a voice from above me yells. “Get back! Get back! Police! Stop!”
I’m trying to focus only on a figure leaning over me. Who is it?
“Are you okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper.
I don’t know what’s happening anymore.
Then there’s a hard click. The safety. A gun.
My eyes open wide.
Then again. “Are you all right? Talk to me.”
Then I know. I am.
“Did you get him?”
“He got away.”
He leans away, not hovering over me anymore. He pulls out a pen and scribbles down numbers. The plate. I lie there as he calls it in. “Can you get up?” he asks, turning back to me.
Only when I focus, I see that it isn’t him. It’s another cop, somebody I’ve never seen before.
“I called an ambulance,” he says. “They’ll take you to the hospital.”
“No, I’m okay.”
“It looks like you hit your head pretty hard.”
Am I conscious or not? I can’t tell. And then I hear the siren and feel them lift me up and carry me onto the gurney.
Then everything goes black.
When I open my eyes I’m in a curtained-off room. “I’m okay, I’m fine,” I say.
A doctor nods as a nurse is taking my blood pressure and then cleaning what must be a cut on my head because the gauze looks bloody.
“You can go as soon as your mom comes,” she says. “The MRI was normal.”
And then the curtain parts and I see…Michael.
“Gia,” he says, walking toward me.
“We’ll be finished in a minute,” the nurse says.
“It’s okay,” I say.
Michael steps toward me and touches my shoulder.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I heard it come over the radio,” he says. “I got here as fast as I could. How are you?”
“Not ready for my close-up.”
He shakes his head. “You look good to me.”
Michael sits with me while we wait for my mom. He reaches out and takes my hand, and out of nowhere, my tears start and don’t stop. Fear, relief, shock? He reaches into his pocket and hands me a tissue. I expect to hear why are you crying? Or don’t cry, you’re safe. But he doesn’t say either of those things. He leans toward me and takes me in his arms, pressing me against his chest.
“I know, baby, I know,” he says over and over, and those words go beyond what just happened to me and they comfort both of us because of everything we’ve gone through and all the months of not being together and finally losing my dad.
“I’m sorry, Gia…for everything.”
I never thought I’d hear that. I never thought I’d feel what I am feeling now and all I know for sure is that no matter what, I don’t want Michael to let go of me because I am so scared and so mixed up about my dad and all the things he did and I want to forget the past, all of it. I bury my face in his neck.
“I wish I could take you home,” he says.
That’s not what I want to hear. I thought things were different finally, but they’re not. I’m just blind and stupid because he obviously still blames me, and I’m just so weary of all the back and forth and the bullshit and his fear of getting close to me because of who I am even though he knows I can’t change that and I don’t even want to.
“Don’t keep saying that, Michael. I don’t want you to take me home.”
He shakes his head. “My home, Gia.”
And I’m like, what did he say? I look at him again and I know it wasn’t my imagination.
He said it. My home.
Does this mean he accepts me for who I am? Or at least he wants to try?
Never before have I moved from despair to ecstasy in a split second. How can a two letter pronoun do all that?
My.
A single word that can change everything.
“Let’s start over, Michael.”
“Fresh start,” he says with his half smile.