“Are you okay?” Liam asks again, looking at me with genuine concern. I nod at him. He takes a seat on the elevated deck and motions for me to follow so I do. For a moment we sit there in silence and watch while in the yard, someone has started a small bonfire, and people begin gathering around plastic lawn chairs, getting louder by the minute. A typical Wednesday in Riverwest. Well, for everyone other than me.
“So… um…” I start, wondering how I can explain this. And I realize the truth would actually work. “I got robbed, I guess?”
“No shit? Are you okay?” he asks. In his glasses, the reflection of the fire twists and curls, then disappears. My heart soars so high and so low in one moment it turns into some kind of numbness. I take another last sip of his can.
“I will be,” I say. I mean it, too. It’s the worst night of my life, but in some ways it’s the best, because I’ve learned exactly where my line is. And that I don’t have to go down this road just to prove something to someone who isn’t even watching.
“Here,” Liam says, reaching into his coat pocket for a flask and handing it over. I take a long, long sip, feeling it burn all the way down my throat. The whiskey is a better repellent of the coke that is still in my system. It succeeds in taking my heart rate down a notch, but barely. The coke is really potent. I’m so afraid of my own body I never want to do another drug again. Also, now that I’ve seen where it can lead, I am extra done with drugs. If I find a way to do what I want with my life and get meaning from that, I won’t need it. This is all very clear to me in a way that wasn’t before.
“You want to tell me what happened?”
I shake my head. “It’s a long story.”
Liam lets out a little grunt, then continues to smoke his cigarette. He pats me on the leg in a friendly, not sexual, way. “All right.”
“Sorry, thanks.”
We sit there in silence for a while, at least the length of two or three songs, before Liam speaks again. “Where the hell have you been, lately?” he asks. The way he asks is almost shy. He seems uncertain, which is unlike him. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in months.”
I shrug. “Around.”
Liam narrows his eyes. “You didn’t answer my calls.”
“When did you call?” I ask, dumbfounded.
He shrugs. “A bunch of times. I wanted to know what you’ve been up to.”
I nod in understanding. “Melanie left you again.”
“Now why would you assume that?” he asks.
I let out a sigh. I do not have the energy for that conversation. It’s enough that I had to compete with her once already. A month ago it was all I could think about, but now? A relationship with Liam is the furthest thing from my mind. Instead of answering, I watch as a bunch of metal heads in studded leather coats stream into the backyard, drinking cans of beer and smoking something that’s not a cigarette over the bonfire. Liam takes a long sip from his flask, then licks his lips. Two of the punks by the fire look in our direction like they might know us and come over. But I’ve never seen either of them before.
“Friends of yours?” I ask Liam, after they’ve checked us out a second time. I look closer, and they don’t look familiar to me at all.
“No, I think they’re looking at you. That’s why I’ve been calling,” Liam says. He reaches into his back pocket and produces a piece of paper from his duck taped wallet. On the paper is a drawing of a face.
My face.
“Doesn’t this look just like you?” he asks. I look at the drawing again, and have to admit it really does have a strong resemblance to me. Almost as if they got me to draw the thing myself. I read the text at the bottom. It says: “The Milwaukee Police Department is searching for a person of interest in several local robberies. If you have seen this woman, please call the number below.”
My breath escapes in a sudden gasp, my hands letting go of the flyer. The paper falls to the ground, and Liam picks it up. “So it is you,” he says. “I thought you just had a doppelganger out there robbing people.”
I stand up, wobbly legs be damned, and take a very long breath. I don’t have time to relax at a party. I need to make myself scarce. “I really gotta go Liam. Thanks for the booze. And the cigarette.”
“Wait,” he says, standing up too, and grabbing a hold of me. “Why don’t you stay? Just for the night.”
“I’m really not in the mood for a party.”
“We can go hang out in my room if you want,” he says. “Come on, it’s getting late. And you seem really fucked up. Let me be there for you.”
I look at him, weighing my options carefully. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life than what I know in that moment: I need to get the hell out of Milwaukee. And in order to do that, I would need to make some sacrifices. Starting with Zoya’s money, which I no longer have access to. I don’t have a clue where Tristan has been keeping it, and my backpack is gone. And who knows if he was even able to make it out of there in one piece, with that dog on his leg. When he does, I doubt the first thing on his mind would be to find me. He’ll need to find a doctor. It gives me the perfect window to go without having to also break up with him. But it also leaves me broke. “Do you have a computer?” I ask Liam.
“What am I, Amish?” Liam asks, laughing. “Of course I fucking have a computer.”
“Okay. I just need to stop at home for second to grab a few things.”
ANNA
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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Tristan isn’t back at the apartment, which doesn’t surprise me. As much as I don’t want to see him, I’m sure he doesn’t want to see me. First, he had put me in real danger. Then he threw his sobriety out the window like it was nothing. And to top it off, he stole my bag. I have a lot of things I need in that bag. My sketch pad, an extra set of clothes and underwear, an iPod with headphones, the expensive winter coat I took from the party, and my beloved (if not very in need of repair) Converse. Now I’d be stuck in my shitty winter boots for who knows how long.
Admittedly, I have bigger problems than a few missing items. I keep my wallet in my coat, so I still have ID and about fifty dollars cash, but without Tristan, that would be all the money I have to my name. Plus, my face is all over the walls of the Milwaukee Police Department. If that isn’t a sign to get the hell out of Dodge, I don’t know what would be. I don’t even bother to look for our money because I know there’s none in the apartment. I simply grab an empty garbage bag from the kitchen and start filling it up with everything I need. I would not be coming back ever again.
It doesn’t take long; I left most of my things at my parents’ house. Not ten minutes later, I’m back on my bicycle heading west to Valhalla. I go straight to Liam’s room to find him totally passed out in his bed. I’m half annoyed and half relieved. I think about leaving, but then I see his computer is on and I sit down for a minute to write Zoya. I don’t even open the two new emails I received from her, because I already know what they’re going to say and I’ve had enough of people threatening me and trying to use my good nature as a weapon. It’s time I start taking care of myself.
Dear Zoya,
Go ahead, tell the whole world what my dad did. I am no longer taking responsibility for his actions. It’s time I start making my own decisions, poor or otherwise.
P.S. My dad would probably rather deplete his entire life savings on lawyers than pay you a dime, so really, good luck in court.