I threw the bags in the back of the car and unlocked the doors and slid into the driver’s seat, immediately starting the car and rolling the windows down to let the steamy air out. I sat there for a little while, just dreading the idea of even going home and what I might find there.
So, I put off my arrival at home as long as possible. I drove through McDonald’s. I stopped at the Super Target and bought another copy of Nick’s cd so I’d have him “with” me. I took the route with the longest stoplights. And then the curiosity began to take over and I finally started heading home.
I pulled into the driveway and held my breath as the garage door opened. His truck was there… but, thank god, so was my car. I was driving my car.. the other one, the silly little Miata, but MY car, the Explorer, more SUV than car, but whatever... was the car that I would have killed Zack over… and was still sitting in the third garage space, just where it was supposed to be, looking unharmed. I pulled into the garage and jumped out of the car and ran over to my baby.
After a careful inspection, I determined that she was still perfect. I was glad Zack at least had enough sense to keep his hands off my most prized possession. I smiled at my reflection in the glossy shine of the handwax I’d done just last week. The Explorer itself was nothing special, not a collector’s fantasy or anything… but it represented a time in my life that I’d have given anything to go back to.. and I was willing to do anything I could to preserve what I had left… the memories and that car.
Satisfied that everything was as it should be, at least out here, I grabbed my bags and headed into the house. I surveyed the kitchen as I walked in… everything looked considerably better than it had when I’d left it. Part of me wanted to be surprised he was dumb enough to still be here, but at the same time… I wasn’t honestly shocked at all. He’d proven himself to be completely ridiculous over and over.
I couldn’t hear anything, so I couldn’t figure out where he was. I half-expected him to appear out of nowhere and try to take me down/out. My eyes flickered over to where the knives were kept… Were. Past tense. Where the fuck did he put the knives??? I growled to myself and dropped my bags. Might as well get this showdown over.
I’d barely made it out of the kitchen when he came to me. Looking at him just then, I wondered what it was that had ever made me find him attractive.
“I knew you’d come back.” He said, smirking.
“It’s MY house, asshat. Of course, I came back!” I shouted at him.
He scoffed, “You always come back for more.”
I shook my head, I was so not going there with him. “And you never seem to learn, everytime I come back, YOUR ass gets kicked. You whine like a little bitch, beg forgiveness and we move on. Not anymore. It’s over. Get. Out.”
He just looked at me, like he was trying to formulate a comeback, but couldn’t quite do it.
“I mean it, Zack, leave.”
“You don’t really want me gone.”
I sighed. He just had to be a jackass. “No, really, I do…” I replied, reaching for the phone. I dialed 911, but didn’t hit send yet, just waiting on him.
“Where’d you go, anyway?” he asked, as if pretending to be interested would postpone the inevitable.
I considered for a moment, where I’d been, who I’d been with… how it had felt to be there, with him. “I went home.” I answered. Before I could allow myself to be wistful, I said, again, “Zack, get out of here. Seriously.”
“Are you going to make me leave?” he asked, tilting his head and cocking his eyebrow.
“Yep.”
“Bring it on.” He smirked again, obviously not thinking I’d really do anything.
“No problem.” I hit ‘send’ and waited until I heard “911, what’s your emergency?” and then I started screaming.
-----
I waved to the police car as it drove off, Zack in the back. I turned to Drake, standing beside me on the sidewalk. I was glad he was one of the cops who’d responded to the call… he was my friend and I knew he’d be glad to take Zack in.
“You okay?” he asked, glancing over me.
I looked down at my clothes – ripped and hanging off me, splattered with blood – and laughed a little, “I’m better now that’s he’s gone.”
“He won’t come back, I promise. I’ll help you get his stuff out of here if you need me, too.” he offered.
I smiled, “Thanks, Drake, but I’ll be okay…”
“Alright, call me if you need me.” He gave me a little smile as he retreated to his squad car.
I went back into the house, pulling off my clothes. I knew I was a mess again… I knew as soon as I made the call that Zack would go nuts… which meant I’d look exactly as bad as I needed to when the cops arrived. The bruises from the last round, plus the fresh ones from this tussle –ensured that I wasn’t going to have to deal with Zack anymore. Drake and his boys had seen what they needed… poor wounded me trying to get away from evil, violent Zack. It was sneaky and a little underhanded, but it worked. I wouldn’t press charges, so he wouldn’t have to go to trial or do jail time, but he didn’t need to know that yet. I’d let him sweat it for a few days until someone bailed him out. But now, he wasn’t my problem.
I stepped into the shower, considering what to do next. I wanted his stuff gone, immediately, if not sooner. Part of me thought I should just move my stuff out and then sell the house as-is, complete with all his junk in it. But that seemed really unfair to whoever would buy the house and then have to deal with him when he found out what I’d done. Whatever, I could decide on that later.
I finished in the shower and went to find my phone, retrieving my voicemails to see what I’d missed in the few days it was gone. There was one from Zack that made me laugh – he didn’t realize he was calling the phone that was on my nightstand the whole time? He’d probably made the call from in the bedroom and couldn’t figure out where the ringing noise was coming from. One call from my mom, three calls from Gia wanting to know where I was and why I hadn’t called her about going shopping.
I deleted my messages and sat down on the bed, a little bummed out. I could disappear and two people would notice I was gone. Depressing. I flopped back into my pillows, sighing, I’d make the calls later.
----
I woke up the next morning, a little confused again. I was naked except for the towel wrapped around me. I’d obviously crashed right out of the shower. Guess last night’s fiasco took more out of me than I realized.
I grabbed the phone and dialed Gia while I poked around the kitchen for something to have for… I glanced at the clock… okay, brunch. Gia picked up just as I was determining I had to go grocery shopping. I pulled a package of ramen noodles out of the pantry and dumped them into a pot, listening to Gia rambling on the other end, since she’d started talking without even letting me say ‘hello’.
“OHMYGAWDWHEREHAVEYOUBEEN??? You promised you’d go with me! And then you leave! And I totally kept calling you… I called Zack who said you just left and then I was talking to Quinn this morning who said Drake was at your place last night, whatthefuckisgoingon?!?” She finally paused for a breath, giving me a chance to talk.
“Hello to you, too, Gia… and which part of that do you want me to cover first?”
“Why weren’t you here to go shopping with me??” she demanded.
I sighed, amazed at the level of self-absorption she achieved sometimes. She knows there were cops at my house last night and she’s most concerned with why I wasn’t standing in line with her when the doors opened at International Plaza for the newest offerings at Gucci or Louis Vuitton. “I was out of town.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving??”
“It was kind of… spontaneous.” I said.
“You knew we had plans!”
“Oh for the love of God, Gia! I know you were up there anyway without me, what difference does it make?” I was tired of this, tired of her. Even the haute couture droids in LA had displayed more depth than this.
“You’re my shopping buddy!” she replied in a much softer, friendlier tone, like she knew was getting on my last nerve.
“Right. But I’m sure you did just fine on your own.”
“I don’t know… I totally couldn’t decide between the pony hair and the crocodile… I still don’t know if I made the right call…”
I cut her off before she could launch a debate about them. “They’re HANDBAGS, Gia. Purses! Just places to put your shit! If you don’t like the one, go buy the other one.” I snapped. Damn, I was wound tight.
“Jeeeezus, Summer. What IS your deal? Ohmygod, does this have anything to do with Drake being at your house last night? Quinn said she totally heard you screaming on the dispatch radio at their place. Is Zack okay?”
I held the phone away from my ear and just stared at it. Was she serious?!? “You have got to be fucking kidding me…”
“What??”
“She says she hears ME screaming and you ask if ZACK is okay? He fucking got taken off to jail! I don’t care if he’s okay or not!”
“Jail? Why?” She had the conspiratorial tone to her voice, I knew everything I said was going to make it through the gossip circuit as soon as we hung up.
“I broke up with him. He didn’t take it well.”
“You broke up with him? But he’s hot!!”
I stared at the phone again, not saying anything. Was this really my ‘best friend’? Why was that again? It hadn’t always been like this… I’d had good friends, good relationships… It was like my whole life had fallen apart… or well, at least taken one hell of a nosedive into the abyss… and it all went back to the same … what was that? An event?
“Hello? Summer?”
I heard Gia calling me through the phone. “Yeah, what?”
“So where’d you go?”
I don’t know if it was a conscious change-of-subject, like she realized she’d said the wrong thing and wanted to move away from it or if her only-able-to-process-so-much-at-once brain had already switched gears. “I went to LA.”
“YOU WENT TO LA WITHOUT ME???” she was shrieking again.
“I said it was spontaneous, Gia. I didn’t plan it. I just called someone and went. I had to get away from here for a while.” I muttered.
“Who’d you go see? I didn’t even know you had friends in LA…”
“I stayed with Nick.” I told her, instantly regretting it.
“Nick? Like… NICK-Nick?”
“Yes, Nick.” Exasperated sigh on my part.
“Was that… a good idea?”
Yes, it was. Probably the best idea I’d had in years. “It was fine, Gia.”
“It wasn’t weird?”
“No, it wasn’t weird at all.” It’d been good for me. It’d been…too short.
“Oh, well, um, that’s… cool.”
“Yeah, it was cool. It was great, in fact, I’m going back.” As soon as I said it, I knew it was true. I was going to. I was going back to LA.
“You’re going back? To LA? With Nick?” I could hear the jitter in her voice, like the information was almost too good to be real and she was just dying to tell everyone else.
“No, not WITH Nick. He’s leaving town for a while… and I’m just… leaving here for a while. It has nothing to do with him.”
Mostly a lie… it basically had everything to do with him.
----
“Really? Awesome!” Nick exclaimed.
I smiled, I was glad to hear the honest enthusiasm in his voice. As soon as I’d gotten off the phone with Gia, I’d called him. I’d caught him out somewhere with some of his friends… I’d called his cell this time, like everyone else. He still picked up, though, listened as I told him I’d done some thinking and decided he was right, I needed something new. I was coming to LA. “It better be awesome… otherwise I’ll be totally pissed at you!” I joked.
“I’ll call you later, okay? We’ll figure things out…”
“Yeah… go have fun with your boys… prepare them for my arrival… “I cackled.
“Oh hell no!” He hung up on me, but I could hear him laughing.
I dropped the phone on the couch, feeling lighter… happier. I knew had a lot to take care of here, a lot of decisions to make. Was it just an extended visit I? Doing a friend a favor? Or was I giving up my life… again? How much DID Nick really have to do with it, I wondered. Was this for him… or for me?
I almost skipped over to my computer, browsing through my audio files. I went to get some orange juice – with just a splash of vodka – and hummed along to “California Dreamin’”… that was enough for now.