Falling for Colton (Falling #5) (23 page)

“Yes. I do.” She grips my hand with fierce strength. Her palms and fingers are callused and strong. “My India, she was all I had. Now she gone. And…I ain’t gonna sugarcoat it. It’s because of you that she’s gone. If she hadn’t gotten mixed up with you, she’d still be alive. I told her not to hang out with no more of them Bishop boys. They bad news. Bad, bad news. She knew it. I knew it. After Isaac…I didn’t think she would ever go back to being with a Bishop. But she told me, ‘He’s different, Mama. He ain’t like the others.’ And I believed her. I let you be here when you wanted to be here, and do what you want. Ya’ll are adults, gonna make your own decisions. And…you loved her. I saw that. I saw it in her. She was hurt so bad when Isaac died. And you brought her to life in a new way. She was getting that cosmetology degree. Gonna be a model in the city. But now…she gone.”
 

I can’t help a choked-back sob.

Maya takes a long breath and grabs my other hand, holding them so tight the bones grate together. She fixes her eyes on mine. “I forgive you. And you…you got to go. You stay here; you’ll waste away on that bed. I can’t let you do that. She wouldn’t have wanted you to lie there, giving up, letting yourself go. I forgive you. And for her sake, I’m gonna make you go. If you wanna give up, it ain’t gonna happen here. And…honestly, you got to go, for me, too. I need to learn to be alone now. And you remind me of her. So you got to go. For you, for her, and for me.”
 

I nod. It’s all I can manage. She’s right. I know she is. But…it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I can’t feel anything but the pain. So I stand up, turn and face Maya. She sees the
I’m sorry
in my eyes.
 

I can see there is something else she wants to tell me. “What, Maya? Just say it.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t—I just can’t.”

I stare at her for a long time, but she remains silent. “Thank you. For…everything.”

“Goodbye, Colt.” It’s final. She puts a hand on my shoulder, and then she’s gone, and and I’m alone.

It only takes a few minutes to pack my things. I’ve got my saved cash, clothes, extra pair of shoes, that’s about it. That is all I’ve got. And the gun. I hold it in my hands, staring at it. Stuff it in the back of my pants, because I don’t want it in my bag. Got to get rid of it.
 

I’m done. Done with the Bishops. Done with everything.
 

I’m at the front door, bag on my shoulder, taking one last look at the living room where India and I spent so much time together. That couch…god, we made love on that couch so many times, under that ivory afghan, watching TV.
 

Maya stops me. She’s carrying one of India’s teddy bears, the one with the blue button eye. Wordlessly she hands it me. For a moment that feels like an eternity, I hold the teddy bear in my hands, smelling India on it, feeling her on it. I swallow hard, blink harder. With tears in my eyes, I leave India’s apartment. Don’t look back.
 

Down the stairs at the front of the building, turn right, and start walking.
 

This is familiar. The walking.
 

I make it a few miles before Split catches up to me. He stops his GTO in front me and gets out. He looks hard at me. “You’re gonna leave, just like that? Fuck you, Colt. I thought you had more guts than this.”
 

I shake my head; I don’t.

He pushes up against me, chest to chest, nose to nose. “Fuck that, man. I ain’t letting you walk away like this. I know you’re hurting. I know you hate yourself. But you don’t get to walk away. We’re in this together.”
 

In answer, I pull out the 9mm, eject the clip, pull the slide to eject the shell in the chamber, hand it all to him. I push past him.
 

He grabs my arm, spins me around, shoves me backward, and then decks me with a wicked right hook. It levels me. I topple backward to the ground, blood dribbling from the corner of my lip. I stay on the ground, shocked. Split tosses the gun, clip, and shell onto the backseat of his car, and moves to kneel in front of me.
 

He grabs the front of my shirt. “I’ve had it, Colt. You can’t puss out on me. I ain’t gonna let you.” He stands up, hauling me to my feet.
 

He lunges at me, hits me again. I let him. I take it on the cheekbone. He hits me yet again, a right to the gut. I double over, then straighten up. I deserve this. Again, and again, he punches me, and I do nothing but take it.

“Fight back, goddamn it!”
 

I can’t. I won’t.

He stops, breathing hard, staring at me in fury. “You gonna give up like this, then…you didn’t deserve her. You never deserved her.”
 

That cuts. Deep.
 

I stagger from the pain of his words. It’s a real, physical agony, the knowledge that I don’t deserve her. That I never did. And the pain from Split’s hard, accurate punches makes it all the more real.
 

I like the pain. It’s something to hold on to.
 

“Thought you were my boy, my brother.” Split is cracking. Anger and agony are a maelstrom in his eyes. He shoves me, hard. “You ain’t. You ain’t nothin’.”
 

I can’t argue with that.
 

But the slicing pain of knowing he’s right drops me to my knees. And Split is there, grabbing me by the hair. “Get angry, Colt. At me. At yourself. At the assholes who caused all this. I took care’a them, you know? Made sure they paid. They
paid
. Now, you gotta get up and show who you are. India wouldn’t love a pussy. A pathetic piece of shit who would just give up like this. Just walk away. From me, from Callie, from Maya, from Cleo, from the Bishops. That ain’t you. You gotta find you again, Colt.”
 

He hauls me to my feet by my hair. Shoves me. Watches for a moment, waiting for a reaction. I say nothing, do nothing. I have nothing, I am nothing. I’m not the man India loved. He died when she did.

Split spits on the ground at my feet, gets in his car and drives away. But he only goes a few yards before screeching to a halt. Stalks angrily toward me, grabs me by the shirt and hauls me to his car. Shoves me in, closes the door after me. Gets in and starts driving. I don’t ask where. It doesn’t matter.
 

Split drives a few blocks, to the hospital, and parks in the general parking lot. “C’mon. Mo’s in here, got hurt bad in all that bullshit. You owe it to him to at least pay him a visit.”

Fuck, I gotta visit Mo. He’s a good dude, a little crazy, but good. So I haul my ass up to the ninth floor and check on Mo. He took one to the chest and made it to the doctors in time to get patched up. He’s hooked up to all sorts of machines and monitors, looking pale and pissed. Bored. I’m there, and that’s all that’s necessary. He doesn’t say anything to me about India, and I don’t say anything at all.
 

Eventually, I have to get out of the room. I’m halfway to the elevator when I’m stopped by a pretty young girl with her hair in cornrows, wearing nurse’s scrubs.
 

“Hey, you Colt?” she asks.
 

I nod.

“I was friends with India.” She ducks her head, seems hesitant. Afraid. “Not sure if Maya’s mom told you, but…um. India—she…when she died, she was—” A long, long pause, then. A tear trickles down her face. She finally looks up at me, eyes wet. “She was pregnant.”
 

I think I collapse. I only remember cold tile under my face, and feeling cold inside. Then I become aware of hands lifting me, carrying me. I might have been crying, I don’t know. It’s all a blur, a haze, darkness.
 

I’m on a couch at some point and realize I am at Split and Callie’s apartment.

I feel hunger, and thirst, but I ignore it.

Split forces me to eat, and I do it just to get him off my back. I’m empty, for I don’t even know how long.

* * *

I’m on Split’s couch.
 

I’m seeing India.

I’m seeing her bleed onto my legs and onto the grass.
 

I’m hearing Maya tell me it’s my fault but that she forgives me.
 

I don’t forgive me; all I deserve is pain.
 

The only thought I have is that I need to feel pain.

Late one night, something—I don’t know what—propels me to get up off the couch and tiptoe into the kitchen. I open a drawer and pull out a steak knife. I don’t know what drives me to stand over the sink and drag the blade across my wrist. It stings, but not enough. I’m shirtless, and something dark and black and thirsty whispers to me, telling me to pull the blade across my chest. Directly under my left nipple, a long slow slice.
 

The pain is sharp and sweet. While I bleed, I can breathe. But it fades all too soon. So I pull the blade across my chest on the other side. I press hard so the blade cuts deep. I flex and the blood flows. I breathe, sucking in a breath.
 

But when the pain dulls, the anchor pressing on my chest is back.
 

I’m about to cut my chest again when the door to Split and Callie’s bedroom opens. Callie comes out, wearing one of Split’s shirts and looking sleepy. She doesn’t see me at first as she grabs a glass from the cabinet and moves to the sink to fill it with water. Then she sees me.
 

“Shit, sorry, didn’t see you.” She blinks up at me, still bleary-eyed. And then her gaze fixes on my chest; the thin trickles of blood trailing down my chest. She sees the long deep slices in my skin, in the muscle. Sees the knife in my hand, the blade red. “Colt? What the fuck are you doing?”

I just stand there. I have no words, no explanation.
 

She shakes her head in disgust. “Man, you need help. That’s fucked up.” She gets her water and goes back to bed.
 

I hear her talking to Split in low murmurs, and after a minute he comes out, wearing a pair of low-riding shorts. His gaze rakes across my cuts, then goes to the knife.

“I gotta worry about finding you dead in my kitchen?” he demands.

I have to think about that. Eventually, I can shake my head in the negative. It’s not about seeking death. It’s about finding pain so I can breathe. Even if I could speak, I couldn’t explain it.
 

Split takes the knife from me. “Don’t be an idiot, man. This ain’t the way.” He washes the knife carefully, dries it, and puts it away. I just watch. When he’s done, he faces me. “Colt, I don’t need this shit. You want to cut yourself to pieces, do it somewhere else. Not in my house. Not around my woman. She’s been through enough. I know you’re hurt, but doing that ain’t gonna fix it. I won’t sit by and watch you do that shit.”
 

He’s right. She’s right. They’re both right. It’s fucked up and it doesn’t fix anything.

But I can breathe when I bleed. I can breathe when the pain is sharp and fresh. I can’t breathe without India and I don’t deserve to.

So I cut, but I do it when I’m alone, where they can’t see, and I don’t ever let them know.

I find a razor blade and keep it in my wallet. I walk the streets at night when the streetlights buzz and hum and the streets are empty and the playgrounds are still. Sometimes I sit on the swings and think of India, and think about flirting, living, falling in love with a girl.
 

I lift my shirt and slide the razor across my chest, then down my bicep. I watch the blood and breathe while it flows.
 

Split knows I’m still doing this, but I keep my promise, and I never cut around him, or Callie.
 

I never thought I’d be a cutter.
 

Just like I never thought I’d be homeless, or a member of a gang, or an underground fighter.
 

I’m all those things, and none of them are worth a damn.

* * *

A couple months later, I go back to fighting. Every night there’s a fight, and I fight as many times as Ruiz will let me. The fights are the only times I feel alive. I fight like a wounded tiger. Night after night, week after week. My face takes a battering. My nose is permanently crooked. I bank my money, save it all. I don’t even bother to count it, I just stuff it into a duffel bag and stash it at Split’s place.
 

I fight.

I cut.
 

And I walk.

I barely sleep.
 

I try, but I can’t.

When I’m alone in the apartment I listen to music and I sing to myself. It started out as nonsense, but it turns into…something. I write a song to sing to myself and, in the process, find a way to push away the emptiness, to push away the need to cut:

Quiet your crying voice, lost child.
 

Let no plea for comfort pass your lips.

You’re okay, now.
 

You’re okay, now.

Don’t cry anymore, dry your eyes.
 

Roll the pain away, put it down on the ground and leave it for the birds.
 

Suffer no more, lost child.

Stand and take the road, move on and seal the hurt behind the miles.

It’s not all right, it’s not okay.
 

I know, I know.

The night is long, it’s dark and cruel.
 

I know, I know.

You’re not alone. You’re not alone.

You are loved. You are held.

Quiet your crying voice, lost child.
 

You’re okay, now.
 

You’re okay, now.

Just hold on, one more day.

Just hold on, one more hour.

Someone will come for you.
 

Someone will hold you close.

I know, I know.

It’s not okay, it’s not all right.

But if you just hold on,

One more day, one more hour.

It will be. It will be.