Nightcrawling(39)

Trevor and I practice late at night sometimes, when Dee comes back and starts wilding out with her laughing. He knocks on the door to my apartment and we take the ball out, do dribbles around the pool. Sometimes I imagine him showing up at my door and knocking when I’m not there, waiting when there’s never gonna be an answer.

It’s getting close to dark and the party starts the second the sun disappears. I get ready, slip on the only dress I own, which is more of a nightgown than anything. It was a gift from one of the cops, and it reminds me how I’ve lived a whole century in the span of these months. Time moves in so many directions.

In the bathroom, I stare straight into the mirror. I am all shades of brown. My hair has remnants of red in it from the one time I tried to dye it auburn, and I paint my face in watered-down mascara and eyeliner I don’t really know how to use. Eventually, I look like a grown version of myself: more angular. I got more sharpness in my face than I used to, and my shoulders make the bareness of the dress more stark with the way my skeleton shines through. I’m not really that skinny, but my shoulders seem to think I am. The rest of me has a soft cushion, keeps my organs insulated, safe.

It’s ten now and I slip on my new heels. These ones are silver and the stiletto is two inches shorter than the old ones that metal man threw into the street. I don’t take a jacket because I know how humid whatever house or shack or warehouse this party is in will be, and the only thing worse than a chill is the sweat from inescapable heat.

When Camila gave me the address, I don’t think it even crossed her mind that I’m on my own out here, don’t got a car, don’t even got a bus pass after the ones Alé and I stole ran out of money. I mapped the directions to the place before I left, but standing on High Street, that two-mile walk feels like a marathon my feet can’t handle.

When there is no choice, the only thing you have left to do is walk. The soles of my feet ache in that familiar way that tells me I’m not only gonna have blisters in the morning, my feet are gonna bruise themselves into a purple that looks closer to my mama’s neck than flesh should.

I think about each step and repeat to myself: heel, toe, heel, toe. Makes it easier. The honks from assholes in cars accompany each step, but I don’t pay no mind until one pulls over. Window down. I tense before I look close enough to realize it’s a woman. She’s got her speakers blasting to Kehlani and her eyelashes are adorned in blue sparkles.

“Need a ride?” she asks.

I nod, then look into the backseat. It’s a full circus in there, only the middle seat in the back row empty. They swing the back door open for me and the girl closest to me slides over. They’re clearly heading to a party, got dresses with barely more fabric than mine.

I close the door.

“Where you going?” the driver asks, turning to look at me.

I tell her the address and the girl next to me leans toward the driver. “Ain’t that Demond’s place?” She tries to whisper but it comes out loud enough for the whole car to hear, even over the boom of the stereo.

The driver nods slightly and then calls back to me, “I’m Sam. You know what kinda house you walking into, yeah?”

“Know all I need to know,” I call back to her. “I’m Kia.”

We spend the rest of the ride in silence except for the music. When they let me out in front of the house, Sam turns around and touches my knee.

“If Demond tries to give you some shit, don’t take it.” Her blue eyelashes flap up and down and then she turns back to the wheel and the door swings open. The girl next to me shoves a little and I tumble out onto the sidewalk, gaining my footing despite how stilettos make me feel like I’m walking on stilts. The house reminds me of the way cartoons animate a house party: the building looks like it’s bouncing up and down, strobe lights shining through the windows, people lingering on the front steps. The rest of the street is dark, all the way up to the cul-de-sac, and if it wasn’t for the rager going on inside, I would’ve thought some kids lived up in the house, picket fence and shit.

I watch the circus car pull away.

“Ay, you one of Demond’s girls?” one of the men smoking a Backwoods on the front steps calls out to me.

“No, just pulling up for Camila,” I call back, walking toward them.

Fear don’t do nothing but paint red across the neck, tell them all how easy it is to split you open.

The man nods and his friend joins in, taking a hit of the blunt. “Camila.” He draws out her name, chuckles a little. “She been in the game so long, bet she got some fine tricks.” I don’t know who he’s talking to because he’s looking at the sky like he expects it to talk back.

The man next to him is shirtless and looks me in the eye. “Yeah, cost one damn pretty penny too.”

Sky man turns to him. “You ain’t been with her?”

“No man never been with Camila and lived to tell no one about it. You got that kind of money, you also got a hit out on your ass.” He focuses back on me. “Guessing you one of Camila’s new girls. She knows how to pick ’em.”

His eyes gaze over every part of my body and I feel as naked as I do right out of the shower, before the shea butter has absorbed into my skin.

“If you’ll excuse me, I got somewhere to be,” I tell them, maneuvering between their bodies up the steps toward the front door and the blasting trap music. Shirtless yells after me, “Imma find you later, girl.” And I know that is exactly what I came here for, but needles still course up my spine like a warning.