Page 8 of True Abandon

My finger hovers over the mouse. The moment I click the message, she’ll know I read it. I won’t be able to help her—I’m stranded in my apartment during a hurricane; not to mention, I’m in New York. According to her profile, she lives in Washington, D. C. I can’t fathom what she could need me for or what would make her reach out after all this time.

I move my hand closer to the mouse pad, about to click and then pull back. I can’t open it—not if it has anything to do with him. She knows Jax was the guy in the tape and that he’s the reason my family uprooted and moved to Connecticut. She has one hell of a nerve reaching out.

The bottom of the computer feels hot on my skin as my finger hovers over the mouse. She hasn’t contacted me in almost a decade, even after we “connected” online. This is Ella Davis—the respectable, courteous, sweet, and proper girl I once studied with, and later became good friends. If she needs my help then it must be important and I shouldn’t ignore her.

I click on the message. My heart threatens to beat out of my chest before I read the first word.

Trish, I need your help. Jax was in an accident tonight and taken to Holy Samaritan in NYC. We called, and it doesn’t sound good. I’m freaking out. We’re trying to get into the city, but all flights are grounded. I know this is the craziest request, but you’re the only person I know there, and I need you to go to him. From what I’m being told, he’s dying and there is no one there to sit by his side. Please. I don’t have any one else to ask. If my brother doesn’t make it through the night, I don’t want him to be alone.

Trembling.

My body shakes.

I try to breathe, but the air can’t inflate my lungs fast enough. I take sharp, shallow breaths. They’re quick, and I can’t keep up with them. The words I just read have me hyperventilating.

I walk over to the kitchen, banging my foot on the end table unable to see in the dark. My knees hit the floor, so I crawl, fingers pawing at the vinyl flooring desperate to catch hold of anything to cling to.

In the cabinet under the sink, I grab a brown paper bag and slam my back against the cabinet door. With my knees pressed tightly to my chest, I raise the bag to my mouth and take a series of deep breaths, inhaling as long as possible until my lungs resume normal function.

Jax is in the city.

Jax is dying.

His family wants me to go to him.

I want to tell them no. I should type back that Jackson deserves whatever happens to him tonight. A part of me died years ago at his hands, and I’ll never get it back.

A thunderous boom sounds from outside the window making a car alarm blare.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

The lights from the vehicle reach our fifth-floor apartment providing a faint glow on the wall—the same wall that has a techno color picture of Jesus wearing sunglasses and giving the thumbs up. With pulsating beats, his holiness is illuminated like a neon sign along with every flash of the alarm.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I shout into the pitch-black apartment.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

Over and over, the blaring noise continues. If the owner of the vehicle would please turn their stupid alarm off it would be of great assistance, because right now, I’m freaking the fuck out. If I ever believed in signs—this would be the one to heed.

My darkest enemy, the Judas of my life, lies alone in a hospital room dying, and I have been summoned to his bedside.

I cover my ears, but the incessant wailing of the car won’t stop. Neither will the light blasting across the wall leaving me to contemplate the plight and answer the moral question of the night: Do I go to Jax or do I leave him there to suffer alone?

chapter TWO

Taxis are scarce in Alphabet City, and an Uber would cost way more than it should, so I run to the subway station on 14th street—my umbrella getting pulled inside-out by the powerful winds—only to find the service is suspended.

I run to First Avenue, and stick my arm out to flag down one of the few taxis that are still on the road.

I hear a noise behind me and turn to see a man dressed in brown pants and a tethered down jacket, huddled in the stoop of a store that has it’s gates lowered. He’s shivering and taking cover from the torrential downpour.

Just when I think no one wants to be on the road anymore, a taxi pulls up with it’s window rolling down.

“I’m done with my shift, but I’ll take you as far as the Queensboro,” he says, leaning across the passenger seat.