A place like this could never truly embody peace because too much tragedy had been birthed here.
I could just make out my Toyota up ahead, but it took every last reserve of strength I had to make it that last half block. It didn’t help that I’d hardly slept the night before, too anxious from anticipating what would transpire tonight.
Before I made it to the car, I could tell something was wrong. It was tilting—the side next to the curb was lower than the other. A sigh rumbled in my chest. How many cars with slashed tires had I passed in my years here? Too damn many.
Add one more to that list. So much for that perceived armistice . . . but then again, it was after midnight, so it was officially a new day. On with things in The Clink as usual: gang wars, drug deals, vehicular theft, and tire slashing.
I had a spare in the trunk, but I didn’t have two. Not that I could have changed a tire with the level of exhaustion I’d reached anyway. Just as I was pulling out my phone to find a local, hopefully affordable towing service, I noticed someone move out of the shadows.
This wasn’t the time of night or the zip code a person wanted to experience someone creeping out of the shadows, but this shadow was a familiar one. A shape I’d never feared. A figure I knew I never could fear, no matter what the past contained or where the future went.
“How many times have I reminded you not to take to these streets at night alone?” Grant’s frame loomed just beyond the streetlight’s reach, but I could see him as plain as if it were day. Growing up here, you learned how to see in the dark. It was the only way to survive.
“Probably a thousand,” I answered, trying not to act thrown that Grant was standing ten feet in front of me when I thought he’d stormed away hours ago.
“Make it a thousand and one then.” The faintest of smiles pulled at one side of his mouth. “Don’t walk alone at night here. Don’t go anywhere alone here. It’s not safe. Never has been and never will be.”
The irony of me surviving seventeen years in The Clink hit me then. I’d survived hell only to struggle through the supposed free-land ever since.
“It’s not safe for cars, at least.” I waved at my two flat tires. How much was that going to cost?
“Probably just a couple of young kids trying to prove how tough they are.”
“In The Clink? No. I don’t remember anyone being like that.” I looked at Grant to find he was still doing that almost-smile of his. I could remember him really smiling only a few times. At least the kind of smile that other people did—the type that reached their eyes.
A minute of silence passed between us. After what had been said in the bedroom and how he’d spent most of the night ignoring me, I had no idea what he was doing here now. Seemingly willingly.
“What are you doing here, Grant?” I asked, not quite as eloquently as I’d been planning. I blamed that on the time of night and my waning energy.
The skin between his eyebrows creased for one long moment before his expression cleared. Tilting away from me, he motioned at my car. “I called you a tow truck, but I wasn’t sure where to send it to get new tires. I wanted to make sure it was close to wherever you’re staying, but I wasn’t sure where that was.” He cleared his throat. “Or even if you were staying.”
My chest tightened, hearing the boy I remembered in the man before me. “I’m staying over in the Pearl District. On Carson Street.”
He nodded like he knew where that was, but I wasn’t sure if he did. When we lived here, we rarely left The Clink’s boundaries, then he’d gone to college in College Station to stay close to me, then onto big cities with big teams.
“Thank you for calling a tow truck. You didn’t have to do that though.” I shifted, already owing Grant a debt I could never pay back if I spent the rest of my life trying. A debt that had grown. Again.
“Yes, I did. I wouldn’t leave a stranger alone and abandoned on these streets at this hour. I sure as shit wouldn’t leave someone I used to love in the same condition.” As he said it, his tone changed. It took on that sharp, removed pitch I’d heard for the first time earlier tonight.
The words “used to” hit me. Hard. Not because I hadn’t accepted years ago that Grant used to love me, but because it was the first time I’d heard him say it. The first time he’d confirmed it.
It stung like a son of a bitch.
“I’ll let the tow company know to drop it at an auto shop close by you.” Grant pulled a phone out of his pants pocket and started punching in a text.
“Do you know how much it will be?” I tried to remember how much I had sitting in my checking account, guessing I’d need to transfer some from savings for the check to clear. When Grant’s head turned toward me, his brow lifted, I added, “Just so I can have the check ready when the truck gets here?”
“It’s already taken care of.”
“No, I can’t . . . you couldn’t . . .”
Grant pocketed his phone and turned back to face me. “You can. And I did. So either say thank you or fuck you or whatever you like, but it’s done.”
My head shook. “I can’t let you do that.”
“Why? Because you broke my heart when we were kids?” He tipped his head at me. “It’s okay. I survived. Now, let’s get out of here before my tires are next.” He started down the sidewalk but stopped after a few steps to wait for me.
“I was just going to call a cab.”