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“Oh, um, I need to do some laundry and go to the grocery store.”
“I’ll take you to the store.”
Panic rushes through me. He absolutely cannot take me to the store. I don’t know how I know it, but he will not be happy with me buying a new jar of peanut butter and packets of ramen.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say quickly. “The store isn’t far. I can walk.”
“I said I’ll take you, and I will, no arguments.”
Crap, crap, crap. I shouldn’t have mentioned going to the store. How the heck am I going to get out of it now? I’m so screwed. I can already feel his disappointment, and he doesn’t even know how little I plan to buy.
The rest of the ride to my apartment is quiet as I run through every possible way to get out of him taking me to the store. I’ll just text him tomorrow and tell him I’ve decided not to go. He’ll never know that I walked and that I’m living on peanut butter and ramen. I don’t like the idea of lying to him, but there isn’t any other way. I’m too embarrassed for him to find out about my financial situation.
I don’t protest when Jude insists on walking me up to my apartment again. I know he won’t take no for an answer, so there isn’t a point in arguing. He’s bossy, and the part of me that craves having someone to take care of me revels in how special it makes me feel to have him doing it.
I frown when I see that my door is open, and the clean white paint has the word whore spray painted across it in bright red. Panic and fear turn my blood ice-cold. I immediately know it was Arturo and his boys. He staked some kind of claim on me six months ago when he moved in and hasn’t stopped trying to get me to sleep with him since. He saw me with Jude, and this is his way of punishing me. Jude notices my door and lets out a feral-sounding growl before pushing me behind him.
“Stay here,” he commands.
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I don’t want to see what Arturo did to my apartment. I don’t have much, but I worked hard for what I do have. Jude is only gone for a couple minutes before he comes back. I know it’s bad from the look of regret on his face. I take a deep breath and follow him into my apartment.
It’s worse than I thought. Everything is destroyed. The couch cushions have been cut and the stuffing pulled out, my crappy TV looks like a baseball bat was taken to it, the few trinkets I’ve collected have been smashed, and the lone picture frame that holds a picture of Gerald, Maude, and me at my high school graduation has been broken. I have to choke back tears when I see the damage to my desk. Gerald and Maude gifted me that desk when I graduated with honors, saying I would need a good desk to set me up for success in college and after.
I touch the once-smooth wood, tracing the letters hastily carved into the top.'You are mine.'I turn away, swallowing thickly. I ignore the red spray paint on the walls as I go to my bedroom. The same destruction greets me. The bedding has been shredded, and my pillows slashed open. My clothes have been thrown everywhere. I’m hopeful they’ve only been tossed around, but that hope is crushed when I pick up my favorite jeans and realize they’ve been cut up.
He destroyed everything.
There’s nothing that hasn’t been touched. It’s taken me years to buy everything I have. I spent the first eight months living here without a bed because buying the secondhand couch at the thrift store was cheaper than even a simple mattress. I slept on the lumpy couch until I saved enough money to buy even the most inexpensive bed available. Now it’s all ruined. Everything I’ve worked so hard for. It might’ve been secondhand junk to most people, but it’s mine, and I’m proud of it.
I finally lose the battle with my tears. A choked sob escapes me, and my knees give out. Before I can collapse to the floor among my ruined things, Jude’s strong arms wrap around me, pulling me against his muscular chest. I cling to him as I completely break down.
“Shh… it’s okay, babygirl. I’ve got you,” Jude murmurs.
He strokes my back as he talks to me in a soothing manner. My sobs turn to hiccups even as tears still stream down my face. Jude cups my cheeks, wiping my tears with his thumbs. The concern I see reflected in his eyes makes my heart constrict. No one has ever looked at me like that. I know Gerald and Maude cared in their own way, but they always saw me as self-sufficient. I followed the rules and made sure to never make waves. I never gave them a reason to be concerned for me. My parents sure as hell weren’t concerned about me. They didn’t care what happened to me one way or another.
“You’re okay, babygirl. Just breathe.”
I let his strong, sure words wash over me until I finally breathe normally again. I bury my face in his chest again, and he wraps his arms around me. I cling to him, not wanting him to let go. Right now, he’s the only thing holding me together. I think I’ll break into a million pieces if he lets go.
“What am I going to do?” I mutter more to myself than anything.
“You’re going to come home with me.”
“What?!” I ask, reeling back in shock. “I can’t do that.”
“You can and you will. I’m not leaving you here when it’s obviously not safe.”
I want to argue that it is safe. I’ve lived here for years; nothing like this has happened before, but that sense of safety is completely gone. Honestly, ever since Arturo moved in, it hasn’t felt safe. The only reason I haven’t considered moving is because I don’t have the money to move. Plus, I can’t afford anything nicer. I’d just be moving to another shitty apartment. At least here, I know where the dangers are and how to avoid them.
“Okay,” I quietly agree.
I should put up a fight, but I’m so damn tired of fighting for everything. I can stay with Jude for a few days until I figure out what to do next. I will have to call the owner about fixing the door. He’s going to be pissed and will probably charge me for the damages, even though none of this is my fault. I silently try to add up the costs of fixing and replacing everything and quickly get overwhelmed. It’s too much.
“Let’s go, babygirl.”
It suddenly hits me that not everything is lost. My laptop should still be safe. I pull away from Jude and rush to my closet. I toss my ruined clothes and shoes aside and wiggle the loose board up, crossing my fingers that it’s still there. I don’t know how anyone would even think to look for anything here. I reach into the dark hole and relax when my fingers touch the smooth top of my laptop. I pull it out and hug it to my chest, thankful I listened to Mrs. Clyde when I first moved in to hide my valuables. This is the only thing I have of any value, so it’s the only thing I ever bothered to hide.
I send a silent thanks to Mrs. Clyde. She was the highlight of living here until she was moved into a nursing home a little over a year ago. I still miss her. She was the closest thing to a friend I had and the only reason I wasn’t completely isolated other than school and work. When she moved, I lost that. Most people would probably try to make new friends, but not me. It was just further proof that getting attached to people causes nothing but pain when they leave.
