Page 93 of Release Me

There’s the contempt again. The thinly veiled dislike I’ve done nothing to deserve from the woman who was supposed to be my best friend.

“I don’t think the world revolves around me, but I do think that it can’t be a coincidence that you’re here, in the place I ran to when I escaped your boyfriend.”

All traces of humor leave her face, and she turns somber, crossing her arms over her chest. It’s the first time I notice that she’s dressed nice. Like really nice. Nicer than she ever did when she was with Beau. Her hair is trimmed and has been recently styled, her clothes aren’t quite designer, but they’re more expensive than her usual threads, and her skin is smooth and supple. She looks healthy.

“Beau is not my boyfriend anymore.”

“What?”

A strong breeze sweeps down the sidewalk, bringing a snap of cold with it. Bianca shivers, rubbing at the thin fabric of her red trench coat. “Can we not have this conversation on the sidewalk?”

“I’m not going to a secondary location with you.”

Her brows pull together. “A secondary location? Nyla, please. This isn’t a true crime documentary.” My only response is my own crossed arms and lifted brow, which makes her sigh. She looks over her shoulder and then back at me. “There’s a cafe right there on the corner. We could sit down, get warm, have a cup of coffee and I can tell you all about how and why I left Beau’s sorry ass in the dust.”

Bianca has been known to be manipulative, so I don’t completely trust that the teaser about her leaving Beau was just an innocent slip of the tongue. In fact, I know it wasn’t, but it doesn’t stop me from shooting Des a quick text promising to call and explain why I had to leave so suddenly and following her inside the cafe. Once we’re seated at a table by the window with our coffees in hand, I sit back in my chair and cross my arms.

“Start talking.”

She takes a long sip of her coffee, probably just to get on my nerves. When she finally starts talking, she looks away from me, shame clouding her eyes. “I guess I should start with an apology.”

“An apology? For what?”

“For believing the lies Beau told me about you stealing clients from me. For being a bad friend to you. I never should have trusted him.” Her fingers are in her lap underneath the table, but I know her well enough to know that she’s picking at her cuticles. It’s the one nervous tic she has.

“He started hitting you.”

I don’t ask because there’s no need to phrase it as a question when I already know. Beau is an abuser, and that desire to exert control and impart fear doesn’t die when your chosen victim leaves.

Bianca nods, finally bringing her eyes back to mine. “When you didn’t come home, he lost it and started taking it out on me.”

My heart splits in two, and all my apprehension falls away. I reach across the table with my palm facing up, and she takes it. “I’m sorry, B. I never wanted to leave you, but I…”

“You had to,” she says, finishing for me. “I get it, Nyla. If you stayed, he probably would have killed you eventually.”

A tremor runs through me, and I want to tell her that I wasn’t running to avoid death, that leaving put me in more danger than staying ever could have because the only promise Beau ever made me, the one he used to keep me from running after the first time I tried to leave, is that he would kill me if I did it again. He locked me in a room for days, only coming in to beat me within an inch of my life. Every time I so much as thought about running, those beatings were in my head, a reminder of what would happen if I was caught. A reference of violence that made me think death was preferable to life.

“He got close a few times, but I’m still here. We both are.”

Bianca squeezes my fingers. “Yeah, you’re right. We are.”

“How did you get away?”

“After you didn’t come back from the job in Florida, Beau lost it. At first he got really mean and nasty, taking all of his anger and frustration out on me, and then one day I woke up and he was just…gone.”

“Gone?”

She nods. “Gone. No one knew where he was or if he was coming back, and I didn’t care. I grabbed all my shit and ran to my cousin in Pasadena.”

“Tiffany?” I ask, recalling the name of the only family Bianca has in California. I never met her, but Bianca says she was the one who got her into sex work in the first place.

“Yeah, I hid out at her place for a while, avoiding work because I was scared I was going to end up running into Beau at a party or something. Then I just got tired of being scared and not being able to afford any of the shit I like, so I started working with Tiff. She introduced me to Omar, the client I’m here with. He paid me ten grand to come home with him for the holidays and pretend to be his long term girlfriend.” She smiles and lets go of my hand so she can gesture to her outfit. “The clothes came with the gig, and I get to keep them after we’re done.”

The tension that was lining my shoulders melts away when I realize that this, her being here in New Haven, is just kismet. I’m not accustomed to happenstance, to random acts of fate that don’t spell disaster for me.

“That’s great, B.” I take a sip of my coffee, willing my stomach not to rebel because this is the first time I’ve had anything other than water or ginger ale since the night of the gala. “Were you two at a gala the other night? I could have sworn I saw you.”

“Oh, yeah. That domestic violence thing?”

---