A broken sob reached me.“T, I…I know you have a date this afternoon, but is there any chance I can see you? It’s important.”
My mind began churning. I met Bella two years ago at a bar, and she asked me out, but obviously, I declined. Instead of being embarrassedthatI’d rejected her, we’d spent the night talking and had hit it off. Not one day had gone by sincethenthatwe hadn’t spoken.
I found outthatshe’d moved to Henderson a week before we met. She’d escaped an alcoholic father who regularly beat her. Unfortunately, Bella had missed most of her school years and struggled to read, write, or do basic math. It meant she had trouble holding down a job, no matter how hard she tried.
Employers could be fickle assholes; they didn’t tend to carethatsomeone was trying to improve their lives; all theycared about was ensuring their employees made them money. Bella fell victim tothattime and time again. As did my dad.
He’d worked for Morley and McScroodge Properties for the last thirteen years, and despite how unhappy he was there, and despite how much they bled him dry for his labor, he at least had a jobthatcovered the household bills.
“Yeah, of course,”I replied, my muscles protesting as I stood.“Usual place in thirty minutes?”
“Yeah. Thanks, T. And I’m sorry, I know you’ve been looking forward to your date with Mike.”
“It’s all good,”I said, ignoring the flash of disappointment. I had been looking forward to the date; we’d been trying to get together for weeks now.“I’ll see you soon.”
I hung up and tapped out a message to Mike asking him to postpone, my mind racing the whole time with what Bella’s news was.
Henderson Heights was one of my favorite places in the world. I’d lost count of the times I’d driven up here, andjuststared out at the view across the town. The first time I brought Bella up here, she poured her heart out, sobbing as she opened up about the abuse she’d suffered.
We’d spent countless days and nights here, parked in my van, sitting there talking about everything. Our hopes and dreams. Our fears and worries. For the time we were there, it was as if nothing affected us;thatwe were the masters of the town, looking down on all those who looked down at us.
Today,thatfeeling was replaced by the crack in my heart.
“I’m sorry, T,”Bella said, swiping her tears away.“I don’t have any other choice.”
I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her closer into my side and kissing the top of her head.“It’s okay, babe. I get it. I’mjustgoing to miss you so fucking much.”
A pained silence surrounded us as I repeated in my head what she’d told me a few minutes earlier. She’d received an eviction notice giving her twenty-four hours to pack her stuff up and vacate the property owned by my dad’s boss, Ben McScroodge.
I’d never met the man, and I doubted he knew who I was; yet Bella’s eviction felt like a personal attack. Over the years, I’d lost precious time with my dad because he’d have to spend evening after evening working late, trying to get through the demands McScroodge put on him without any additional pay. And now, I was losing my best friend because of him.
“Is therereallyno other way?”I asked, pushing the words past the lump in my throat as I stroked Bella’s arm.
She pulled out of my grasp, wiping her eyes.“I wish there was, T. But Donal has literally badmouthed me to everyone in the city. I should never have gone forthatjob at Mosaics. No one will ever give me a chance now.”
I rubbed my thumb in calming circles against her arm, internally cursing her old boss, Donal. He’d given Bella a job at the restaurant,eventhough she didn’t have any waitressing experience, and when she refused to fuck him, he’d started messing up her orders and doing shit so customers complained.
After he sacked her a few months ago, Bella had been rejected from job application after job application. She’d struggled to pay the rent on her apartment for the last few weeks, and my dad had tried to hide it from McScroodge, but it looked like her time had run out.
“I can loan you the money. I’ve got enough savings to cover a few months‘ rent,”I said, shifting to look at her.
“Absolutely not,”Bella replied, grabbing my hand.“Thatmoney is for a deposit on your own place. Besides, if no one in Henderson gives me a chance, there’s no way I could pay you the money back.”
“I don’t care-”
“Well, I do,”she interrupted, squeezing my hand.“T, you and I both know how hard you’ve worked forthatmoney. That’s your future.”
“Okay, how about we rent together? I can cover the first few months’ rent, so you have time to get a job, and-”
Bella cut my desperate words off by placing a hand on my arm.“T, you and I both knowthatMcScroodge owns half the properties in the city. The one I was renting was the cheapest; there is no way we could afford a two-bed place,evenif I had a job.”She sighed heavily, making my heart constrict tighter.“I hatethatI have to leave, but what choice do I have? I don’t want to wind up like Barbara and Danielle.”
“Who are they?”
Bella wiped another tear away.“Barbara was in her sixties when McFuckFace evicted her last winter. Do you remember how cold it was? She couldn’t afford anywhere else, so she had to live on the streets. She lasted a week before hypothermia killed her.”
I nodded, vaguely remembering an article in the news about a woman’s body found in the snow.“And Danielle?”I asked, not sure why I wanted to know.
“He doubled her rent, which she couldn’t afford. She started selling herself for sex to pay the increase, but she got into an argument with her pimp and wound up with her throat slit.”
