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Chapter Ten
Nicole
Running Scared
Vito’s card burned my pocket all the way home. When I pulled up to the house, I slipped it in the glove compartment and carried the groceries inside. Vito had spent nearly two hundred dollars on groceries and told me not to worry about paying him back. However, I promised to pay him back as soon as I got the money.
Desi watched as I unloaded the car and put every item in the cabinets and refrigerator before he said, “Now, I’m going to ask this, and it’s best if you tell me the truth the first time. Who bought all of this shit?”
I could feel the life leave my body. Desi was notorious for rhetorical questions. He hardly asked a question he didn’t already know the answer to.
I continued to move about the kitchen, cleaning up. “I told you I was going to ask my parents for the money.”
“Yeah, but you see, I just got off the phone with your mother. She said you never made it over there.” He took a step closer to me. “So, I’m going to ask you one more time. Who bought all of this shit?”
Desi speaking to my mother was a shocker. They weren’t on good terms, so I didn’t anticipate him calling her. I didn’t get a chance to reply before he pounced. His question was the last thing I remembered. The beating was brutal. He hurt me so bad that I blacked out at some point during the assault.
When I woke up, my eyes fluttered open to a blurry room. I lay there for a few minutes trying to focus my vision, realizing I couldn’t hear anything. The house was deathly silent.
Laying as still as a plank, I moved my eyes around the room. I was in Desi’s bed. Why wasn’t he snoring or making any kind of sleeping sounds? He lay in the bed beside me in complete peace. Was he dead?
My imagination went wild: maybe he thought he killed me, then killed himself. That would have been too noble of him. Desi wasn’t noble.
I peeled myself from the bed and tiptoed from our bedroom, leaving a still Desi in his spot asleep. I ran through the house as quickly as my stiff legs would take me in search of my keys. I found them on the kitchen counter and rushed out the front door. I didn’t even bother to close it. I just ran to my car as fast as I could go.
At the first gas station I saw, I stopped and went inside. I had left my phone and all of my belongings at Desi’s house in an attempt to get away from him. It was now or never, do or die.
“Can I use your phone?” I asked the clerk.
“We can’t let anyone dial out, but I can call for you. What’s the number you want to call?” the clerk replied, picking up the store’s phone.
Good question.
Would I call the police and file a report? Should I call a local shelter to see if they had any open beds? I could call my parents and plead for them to take me back in.
I decided against all of those options. I had no one besides Desi. Everyone I knew had either abandoned me, or I had abandoned them for him. Only one other person told me to call if I needed them. I only knew him from the grocery store, though. I wasn’t even sure this would be a better situation than the one I was in, but I was about to see if Vito was true to his word. I needed somewhere to go until I got back on my feet. Calling him was my only option.
I told the clerk, “I’ll be right back.” I ambled to my car to get Vito’s card out of my glove compartment. I went back into the store and handed the card to the clerk. “Call this number for me, please.”
She dialed the number and handed me the phone. “It’s ringing now.”
“Hello,” Vito’s sleeping voice sounded on the line.
“Vito?”
“Nicole, what’s going on?”
“I need you.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the gas station down the street from my house. I need somewhere to go.”
“You have somewhere to go.” He rattled off his address and told me, “Come straight here, and I’ll take care of everything else.”
