Page 50 of Jagged Line Paradise

“The bliss of avoidance and denial.” She grins, but it’s humorless.

I nod, letting out a heavy breath. “Yeah. I get it. Sometimes it’s easier to live with your demons than it is to confront them.”

“Ghosts.”

“What?”

“I don’t think of them as demons. They’re ghosts. I feel…haunted.”

Diosmío.

I remember loving her and that brilliant, troubled mind. We both look at each other and I pay careful attention. I don’t want to forget the look in her eyes right now.

Haunted, yes. I can see it. I can feel it, too.

“Please, Avalon,” I say carefully. “Come with me and see for yourself. If you decide this documentary is the worst thing I’ve ever asked you to do, then I’ll leave you alone. I won’t bother you again.” My gut roils at the thought.

Her eyebrows dip together and she looks down at her lap. “I don’t want you to—”

“I heard you came back,ese.What are you doing with my girl?” I’m on my feet in a snap when I see Anthony fucking Johnson come walking toward us.

I step in front of Avalon and march toward him, but she jumps to her feet and runs around in front of me…literally, she runs to get in front of me.

“I’m not your girl, Tony,” she says, her demeanor perfectly calm for this piece of shit.

He turns his attention to her. “You fucking with him now?” He points a finger over her shoulder at me. “Is he paying your bills now, baby girl?”

Avalon puts both hands on his lean chest and gently pushes. “You’re high, Tony. Go back home. Sleep it off.”

He softens to her, his hand stroking down the side of her cheek. “You’re so beautiful, baby. Come back home with me.”

She gently pushes against his dirty, white T-shirt. “We’redivorced, Tony. You’ll remember when you sleep it off.” He comes after her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She pushes down on his arms. “Tony, stop. Go home.”

That’s when I fucking lose it. I don’t even know how it happens, I just know that in seconds, I’ve got his back shoved against the trailer behind Lonnie’s and my hand is wrapped around his neck, squeezing.

“Andrés, don’t,” Avalon says softly behind me. “Don’t do something you’ll regret. Let him go and he’ll go back home, won’t you, Tony?”

His red-rimmed eyes are wide and his hands are raised in surrender. “Yeah, yeah, man. I’ll go home. Just let me go.”

I give him a good hard yank away from the siding, then a shove, making sure the back of his head slams against it. “You’re a fucking piece of shit. Leave her alone. She doesn’t belong to you and she’llneverfucking work for you. Do you understand me?”

His head rapidly nods. “Yeah, I got it. I got it.”

I let go of him and step back, pacing away before I change my mind and chase him down. He scurries away like the little rat that he is. Avalon looks at me, crossing her arms over her chest.

“What the hell was that?” she asks me.

“Just tell me one fucking thing, Avalon. Did you work for him? Did youeverwork for that piece of shit?”

I remember being questioned about it the day Avalon escaped my father, when they pinned me as a suspect just before she pulled into the police station parking lot in my dad’s truck. They asked me if Avalon might’ve gotten mixed up in something bad—that something bad being Anthony Johnson. When selling drugs didn’t make him enough fucking money, he pimped out the girls in our neighborhood.

Her mouth opens, then closes. She takes in a deep breath and then she sighs, dropping her arms from her chest. “He was my husband.”

Chapter 15

Avalon

I GUESS HEdidn’t know about my marriage to Anthony Johnson. He looks at me in shock, his chest heaving and his fists clenched at his sides.

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