“Let go!”

“Roxanne, calm down.”

I struggled against him, “Hank, let me go!” Surprisingly, I won the struggle. It didn’t occur to me he wasn’t going to wrestle with me when I had three cracked ribs. I jumped out of bed and ran to my suitcases, my breathing labored with that minimal effort.

“I have to go, like, now,” I announced even though I was in no shape to go anywhere.

Hank was out of bed and getting in my space.

“Come back to bed,” he said.

“No, I have to go.”

He was blocking my way, every way I turned, and herding me back to the bed.

“Get out of my way!” I shouted.

“Where are you going to go?”

I made a split-second decision, “Mexico!”

“Mexico?”

“My money wil go further there. I could start a franchise, like a convenience store or something. I’l be the gringa queen of my vil age.”

I was stil trying to dodge him when his hands caught my h*ps and he held tight.

“Don’t tel Tex you’re gonna buy a franchise, he’l go bal istic.”

What he said made me stop and I stared up at him stupidly in the dark.

“What’s wrong with franchises?” I asked.

“They’re the death of America,” Uncle Tex boomed from the next room and both Hank and I froze. “Now, wil you two keep it the f**k down. The wal s are paper thin and you’re disturbin’ the cats!”

We both stood stock stil for a moment and then I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself. I laughed so hard I thought I’d crack another rib. I started to bend double but my forehead col ided with Hank’s col arbone. Stil , I didn’t stop laughing.

Hank, I noticed vaguely, didn’t laugh at al .

His arms went around me and my laughter quickly turned to tears again. I put my arms around him, I didn’t want to but if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to stay standing.

Final y, when I’d gotten some control, I said quietly, “I thought he loved me.”

Hank’s body had relaxed when I’d wrapped my arms around him, but, at my words, it went stil again.

“I promise, I didn’t think I was in danger,” I continued.

He began to stroke my back with one hand, holding me with the other arm. Something had changed in the way he was holding me but I was too worn out to notice it.

“I believe you,” he said.

I swal owed because I knew he did and that meant a lot.

“Thank you,” I whispered, for like the mil ionth time that day.

“Do you love him?” Hank asked.

I nodded against his chest and the air changed again and, again, I was too exhausted to notice.

I didn’t mean that I loved Bil y now. I meant I had loved him, once upon a time when the fairytale could stil turn real.

I didn’t love him anymore. I didn’t hate him either. I just didn’t want him anywhere near me. I didn’t even want to think about him.

I stood there, in Hank’s arms, and let the tiredness seep through me.

It was like he felt it, he was so tuned into me, and he guided me to the bed.

I didn’t resist.

We both got in and he held me again.

I didn’t resist that either.

Sleepily, to take my mind off my thoughts, or maybe to teach myself a lesson, I quoted the lyrics to Mel encamp’s

“Minutes to Memories”.

“Mel encamp,” Hank muttered.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I should have listened closer.” Hank’s head moved, he kissed my neck and then he settled.

I waited until his breathing evened.

Then, when I knew he was asleep, I whispered the part of the song where Mel encamp explains about the wise old man in the song’s vision. About how that vision was hard to fol ow. About how the young man in the song did things his way and he paid a high price. About how, years later, he looked back at his conversation with the old man during their bus ride and he knew the old man was right.

And oh man, was he right.

I went silent.

Then, after awhile, it hit me and I started to sing, thinking it was a secret, my secret, my song. In another life, a life without the last three days, a life where Hank came home from his run before Bil y found me, it could have been Hank’s and my song.

Springsteen’s words.

I sang so quietly, my voice was barely a whisper and I changed just two of the words.

It was the first verse of Springsteen’s “Because the Night”.

I hummed the second verse and in the middle of humming, I fel asleep in Hank’s arms.

Because I was asleep, I never realized Hank wasn’t.

* * * * *

It felt like I slept for a week. When I woke up, Hank was gone.

Chapter Ten

MP3 Torture

It was daylight when I rol ed out of bed. My body protested with aches and pains letting me know early that they felt like hanging around for a while.

I didn’t know where Hank went but I figured to work because it was nearly noon.

I went to the bathroom and saw that either Indy or Jet had put my toiletry bag on the sink. I crushed down another wave of remorse that these kind people would not be in my life but for a few treasured memories. Then I swept the thought aside, brushed my teeth and washed my face.

I surveyed myself in the mirror. The swel ing was gone; the bruises were purple, green and yel ow. Not a good color combination and I was doubtful that Calvin Klein would use them in his spring line.

I walked into the living room and saw Uncle Tex on the couch his feet up on the coffee table, a bowl of popcorn resting on his bel y and a Bruce Lee movie running quiet on the console TV.

He looked at me when I came in. “Hey darlin’ girl. How you feelin’ today?”

“Coffee,” I replied.

He grinned. “I can do coffee.”

I sat in a loud, green, white and yel ow daisy-printed, vinyl chair at his kitchen table. He got me a cup of coffee and sat with me. “Hank stil sleepin’?” he asked.

“Hank’s gone,” I replied.

He looked at me funny. “What do you mean, gone?”

“Probably at work.”

He stared at me.

“I didn’t hear him go,” he said.

I shrugged and looked out the window.

“You mad at me that I let him in?” he asked.

“A little bit,” I answered truthful y.

“You wanna talk about it?”

I shook my head.

“You wanna talk about anything?”

I shook my head again.

“Al right, girl. I’l give you today. Tomorrow, we’re talkin’