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Isla
Isla
“I think this is a mistake,” Giselle, my best friend since forever, says, her voice echoing through the car as I drive straight and wince when I encounter a ditch, the seat belt saving me from hitting my head on the steering wheel.
“Crap,” I mutter, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Giselle. She might be on speakerphone right now with me miles away, but she knows me better than anyone.
My craps usually mean nothing good.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” She sighs while annoyance coats her tone. “That’s why I told you to wait till we come back home and use our apartment in Chicago in the meantime.” A beat passes, and she adds, “The offer still stands.”
Right.
While she might be blissfully in love with her billionaire husband, Callum, who has a rather questionable reputation that I refuse to examine since he makes her so happy, I’m not an idiot.
He’s totally obsessed with his wife, so he would do anything for her, but it doesn’t mean he won’t butt into my business while doing it, making sure that I don't endanger her.
And right now, Giselle can’t know about my true plans. Otherwise, she’ll hop on their private plane and come here to kick my ass for even thinking about my idea, let alone anything else.
“I know. I promise if living here turns into hell, your number will be the first one I dial.” She huffs, clearly not believing my bullshit because we both know if there is one thing I hate the most…it’s asking for help and receiving charity.
When you depend on the generosity of others for years due to a vicious human who destroyed your life once upon a time…you tend to resent it because the emotions suffocate you to the point where you feel indebted to everyone. I have to learn to be on my own, and I might as well do so now while moving here.
Gripping the steering wheel harder, I press on the gas pedal and continue to drive to my destination, which is ten minutes away according to the GPS, while trying my best not to judge the neighborhood around me.
After my godfather dumped his big news on me, I had around one month to get all my affairs in order and very little time to look for a new apartment that would fit my budget.
By sheer coincidence, I found a newspaper lying near my apartment on a random evening, and there was an offer for a one-bedroom apartment circled in red, which made me think someone else in my building was planning to move to Chicago.
I quickly called the landlord and paid the deposit without even checking anything or the neighborhood. Over the years, I’ve lived in some horrible places, so how bad could it really be?
Well, I guess I shouldn’t have asked this rather rhetorical question because life once again found a way to surprise me.
The neighborhood presents a gloomy atmosphere consisting of gray and black concrete buildings with cracks visible under the streaming sunlight, indicating they might collapse at any moment.
Nothing but emptiness surrounds the place. The grass that had once been green is now yellowed with a little orange thrown in. Several overturned trash cans are scattered across the premises, with half-open black bags filled with rotten food spilling on the ground. Flies swarm above them while a couple of cats dig into the food, meowing loudly.
At least they won’t get hungry, but I won’t be opening my windows anytime soon.
“Is it far away from your station?” I blink at this, momentarily forgetting about our conversation, and bite my lower lip, guilt slowly sliding through my veins along with embarrassment. “I don’t think your car can survive driving long distances every single day.”
My vehicle chooses this moment to emit some weird sound and flash some kind of warning on the display that I always ignore. “Hey! Don’t talk about Mercy this way.” I pat the seat next to me. “We have some fond memories in my car.”
“If you’re talking about a road trip across the country that ended in three hours because it broke down, and we had to stay in a cheap motel where we heard a couple screw each other for five hours straight, then yeah.”
Despite the situation, laughter slips past my lips and eases some of the tension squeezing me so tightly that sometimes it’s hard to breathe. “You have to admit that man had some stamina.”
She giggles. “I guess. My husband’s is better.”
“Oh, come on!” I groan, a shudder rushing through me at the details of her sex life because her husband might be handsome…but once you know him, it’s weird as hell to think about him in such a way.
Callum has this ‘don’t fuck with me and anything of mine ever or you’ll never know peace’ attitude, so being intimidating doesn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg in his case.
In short, I prefer not to know how my best friend gets her rocks off with him. “All right. You haven’t answered my question.” As I drive farther, I notice various people dressed from formal dresses to bike tops roaming the street, chatting or cruising with each other. Some of them hold drinks and engage in board games, erupting in loud laughter if their thrown-back heads are anything to go by.
“What question?”
“Is it far from your station?”
