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I can’t even bring myself to react. Not a look. Not a blink. Definitely not a grunt of hello.
Go fuck yourself is what I say in my head.
And then I find myself pounding on Marco’s door. Not because I need a shoulder to cry on. Fuck that. But because I’d love somebody’s face to pound, and chances are good Marco’s got someone he needs to send a message to—from the don.
“Hey, what’s up?” Marco asks, pulling the door wide and studying my face.
I don’t say anything, just stalk in without seeing him or his place.
“You got anybody to send a message to?”
Marco gives me a wary look. “You need to put the hurt on someone?”
“Yeah.”
Marco shoves his hands in his pockets and angles his body half away from mine, like he doesn’t want to bear the full weight of my focus if it’s directed at him. “Hannah?”
Some of the blur in my vision clears at having my problem named.
“I don’t want to talk about her,” I snarl because, like I said, I’m out for blood right now.
“You guys seemed super tight the other night. You’ve been inseparable. What happened?”
In a flash, I slam his back against a wall, my forearm choking off his windpipe. “Stop asking me about her.”
I think he hisses something like cocksucker through his bared teeth.
“It’s over, and you’re never going to speak her name again.”
He pinches his lips and grinds his teeth together while I continue to cut off his air flow. Finally he punches me in the ribs. Twice.
Hard.
I loosen my grip on the second punch because it knocks the wind out of me.
“Peace, Mando.” Marco’s hands are in the air when I lift my head. “Chill, man.”
I want to punch his teeth out so badly, but I also love him too much to do it.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Leo appears in the living room.
Marco side steps, keeping his shoulders squared to me like a boxer circling his opponent. “Mando wants to kill someone. I’m trying to keep that guy from being me.”
Aw, fuck it. I take a swing at him. He ducks and plows into me, knocking me onto my back. In a moment, both he and Leo are sitting on me, holding me down.
“Girl problems,” Marco says to Leo.
“Fuck you,” I snarl, fighting to get free.
“Chill the fuck out, man. We’re on your side. You want blood, we’ll go get some. Just talk to me first,” Marco says.
I lift my head and smack the back of it down on the wooden floorboard. Smack it again.
“She kick you out?”
I smack it harder. “When I tell you to not talk about her, I mean it,” I rage. I can’t seem to get free of my two cousins, who are determined to hold me down.
“What the fuck is going on?” Leo demands.
“His girl,” Marco non-explains. He looks at me. “What happened? You piss her off?”
The rage seeps out of me, and I’m back to being the hollow man. Worse than ever, though. I try to swallow, trying to shuffle through the jumble of images in my mind.
The pregnancy test.
Hannah’s pinched face. Her tears.
I’m cracking. I can’t do this anymore.
“I pushed her away,” I croak, sickened by the realization.
Marco’s expression shows nothing. We both have perfected our masks. “You can’t fix it?”
“No,” I rasp. “I can’t be what she needs. An entire gang wants me dead. I’m a goddamn danger to her.”
Marco continues to look at me passively. “So we fix that.”
I stare back. If that problem were gone, could I be what Hannah needed?
The sickness in my stomach resurfaces.
Not even fucking close.
I’m nothing. I’ve got nothing to offer. I don’t even know who the fuck I am anymore. I have no life, nothing.
I close my eyes, all the remaining fight leaving my body. “No.”
“No?” Marco demands, challenge in his voice.
“No,” I say firmly. “I can’t be that guy for her.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Marco says, climbing off me. Leo follows. He clasps palms with me and hauls me to my feet. “The Mando I know figures shit out when he wants something.”
I stare at him. Resentment burns in my gut. Now that I’m feeling emotions again, I’d like to set the whole fucking city on fire. “The Mando you know is dead,” I tell him and walk out the door.
“Hold up, man. You still want to pound someone’s face in?”
I stop. Crack my knuckles. “Fuck, yeah.”
“Let’s go. I have a visit to pay.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hannah
I go to my parent’s house for Sunday dinner. I thought about canceling, but I’m actually hoping my mom will somehow know the right thing to say to fix me. She’s good like that sometimes.
I cried for five days straight. I can’t stop the waterworks to save my life. I’ve always been a crier, and I know the hormones don’t help, but it’s ridiculous.
