Breakfall, page 11
“Really?” she said. The problem was that she had been telling
the truth; she didn’t know his last name. She knew Dylan’s ex-wife enough to be friends with her on Facebook, but she used her maid- en name. Still, maybe she could reach out and ask her about it. It was already eleven, but she sent her a message anyway. She probably
wouldn’t hear back until the next day, but at least she felt like she was being proactive.
“How do you not know his last name?” Matthew asked after she’d explained this to him.
“He never told me,” she said. “Didn’t that seem odd to you?”
She shrugged. “No. Not everyone knows my last name,” she said. “The cops asked me the same thing.”
“Well, it is a tad weird. You’ve been friends with the guy for how long?”
She shrugged again. “I don’t know. Since I started rolling, I guess. He was more Dimitry’s friend, really, until we separated.”
Matthew laughed. “Some friend.” “What does that mean?”
“I saw the way he looked at you,” he said, squeezing her thigh.
Mina rolled her eyes. “If I held that look against everyone, I’d have no friends.”
“Maybe you should find yourself some female friends,” he said with a chuckle.
“You know I don’t get along with other women,” she said, shak- ing her head.
Even at the gym, the small group of women who had frequented the place seemed to all instinctively dislike her, and she had never understood why, or cared to find out. This was yet another pattern in her life, not fitting in, and she preferred to spend all her time with Matthew anyway, or a few of the other guys she got along with because they were fun and never got offended by anything. She was not a fan of groups of women anyway. One-on-one, she could relate to a few women at a time, and she usually had a revolving door of girlfriends to go out and drink with; they never seemed to last more than a few years, with the exception of Lila, who she’d known since they were kids. Ariel had been one of those friends for a while, albeit a peripheral one, someone she could have playdates with but never really felt like she knew all that well. But because of
their distance, at least they’d never had any drama. Until the Matthew debacle. And even that, Mina didn’t take all that personally. Yeah, they’d been friendly, and no, it wasn’t okay what she had done. But Ariel and her were not exactly BFFs. From the instant they’d first talked, her connection with Matthew, disregarding the sexual component, had always been far more developed, far stronger and deeper. There was some kind of deep mutual understanding, one that could not be explained with words. It merely existed, even now. It would probably continue to exist as long as they continued to bump into each other’s orbits. She felt so comfortable with him right away, like they’d known each other their entire lives.
“Yeah, I don’t blame you. Women are difficult,” he said.
She laughed, taking the cigarette back from him and inhaling. “I don’t know, I think you’ve had it pretty good with women.”
“Uh, have you met my wife?”
She shrugged. “I mean, she’s not the most interesting person or the best listener,” Mina said. “But you must have liked her at some point. Why did you even marry her if that’s how you feel?”
Matthew was about to give her that look again, the don’t-go-there look, when she preempted it with a punch in the shoulder. “Just tell me,” she said. “I want to know.”
Matthew took the cigarette back, inhaling the remainder of it before answering. “I don’t know. She’s a good person. It wasn’t always like this.”
“What changed?” she asked, ignoring the impulse to argue that she was not so sure this was true. The vitriolic, horrible things Ariel had said to Mina during the weeks and months that followed the blowup had changed her mind on that front. They were a hundred times worse than anything Dima had said, and he was the one she’d cheated on.
Matthew shrugged, throwing the cigarette butt over her porch and standing up. “Twenty years is a long time to be with someone.”
She stood too, opening the door to let him back inside, then
following him to the couch. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, but before she took it out to respond, she sat down beside Matthew again.
“It was Dallas, right?” she said. “What changed things?”
He shook his head. “Don’t go there,” he said. “I can’t even think like—”
She rubbed his shoulder. “I get it. It changes you. Sometimes it destroys you. I think if we never had Amelie, I’d probably still be with Dimitry too,” she said. “But I would rather have Amelie, so I guess it was all worth it in the end.”
Matthew nodded in agreement, though he didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. She had been there, after all. She saw their marriage crumbling the older Dallas got; she saw it because the same thing was happening at her house. It wasn’t the child’s fault, of course, in either case. It was the strain and stress of balancing parenthood with work and all the various other needs an adult has. If there are major problems between a couple, or if there is any kind of imbalance—and in both their cases, they had both—it could eat away at the entire relationship, bit by bit. A life could only take on so much weight before it began to collapse, after all.
Her phone buzzed again. She reached into her pocket to check what notification she would be getting so late at night, and was surprised to see Meghan’s name. She had completely forgotten about messaging her.
Dylan’s last name is Elliott, said the first message. It was fol- lowed by, “If you see that fucker, tell him he’s lucky I didn’t call the fucking cops.”
Mina blinked. She hadn’t expected her response to be so vitriolic. Last she had talked to Dylan about it, things had been okay between the former couple; they had broken up years back, way before she had ever even had a thought of leaving Dimitry. They’d seemed so much in love in their old photos, and she wasn’t entirely sure what had broken them apart. But then again, she knew now a lot of what people shared with the world is mostly for show. A Facebook feed full of nothing but smiling faces or long affirmations about love now
concerned her more than made her jealous. People who were really that happy didn’t feel the need to prove it to everyone they’d ever known.
What happened? she typed to Meghan. While she waited for a reply, she glanced up at Matthew, whose eyes were closed and seemed to be near dozing off. Was he really intending to sleep over? How would that look to Amelie when she got up in the morning? For once, she was glad she still wasn’t talking much.
“Dylan Elliott,” Mina said, jarring him awake with the edge of
her foot. “Can you look him up? Maybe we can find out his address.”
Matthew jumped a little, blinking, then reached for his phone, and Mina looked back down at hers. Meghan had sent a new message.
You tell him if he pays me back, I won’t call the police on him,
okay? Meghan’s message said. I just want my shit back. He’s stealing again? Mina wrote.
That’s really the least of it, girl. I know you’re friends, but take my advice and stay far away from that guy, okay? Or you’ll also have a bunch of Russians knocking on your door soon.
Russians? Mina wrote.
What was she talking about? It made her think of Dima for some reason, not that he was that kind of Russian. He was far too anxiety-prone and nice to be involved in any criminal activity, but he had mentioned some rich cousins with less-than-discernible jobs. Mina thought he was just saying that to make her think he was cooler than he was, though. She’d met his whole family, including those cousins, and they did not seem like criminals to her; if anything, they were a tad on the nerdy side. Most of his relatives were engineers and lawyers and doctors, not mobsters. She shook her head; she didn’t like to think about Dima too much these days; it filled her with too much guilt and sadness. And anyway, it wasn’t like he had anything to do with this, or with Dylan. He lived in Jefferson Park now and had joined a different gym; they only saw each other when she drove Amelie to his apartment for the weekend.
“You mean like the mob or something?” Mina asked Meghan. “Or just Russians generally speaking?”
“Never mind, I already said too much. Just tell him what I said. I gotta go,” Meghan wrote. Then she logged off, and Mina was left staring at her phone, more confused than before. She would have sat there for minutes if Matthew didn’t push her foot with his to get her attention.
“Three pending felony charges,” Matthew said, shaking his head. “What a shock.”
Mina looked up as she pocketed her phone. “What are the charges?” she asked.
Matthew whistled, then read aloud from his screen. “Theft, mov- able property, felony I. Theft, movable property, felony I.”
“Is that cars?” she asked.
“Not necessarily,” Matthew said. “Just something worth five grand.”
Without thinking, she grabbed his phone and looked at the list. “What’s that last one?” she asked, trying to decipher a string of long, vague text, followed by another felony classification with a different letter.
Matthew took his phone back, then looked at her and yawned. “That is definitely drugs or guns,” he said. “You really should call and report your car stolen now.”
“But that will just add to his charges!” she said. “Not your problem,” he said.
“Well, was there an address on there?” she asked.
Matthew glanced down again and nodded. “Yeah. Jackson Street.
The Salvation Army building.”
“I’ll go there in the morning and talk to him. Then I’ll report the van stolen. Okay?”
Matthew yawned again. “Whatever. You do you,” he said, spreading out across her couch.
“So, you’re sleeping here, then?”
His eyes had already closed, but he nodded. “Got any better ideas?”
She bit her lip. They’d never had one sleepover during their af- fair. They’d fucked in his truck, in various Airbnbs, in her own bed, in his, and several hotel rooms—but they’d never slept in the same bed together. How could they? They both had families to get home to. It wasn’t college, they couldn’t just disappear for days at a time without consequence. They’d never even slept under the same roof. Plus, he slept during the day like a vampire and she slept at night, when she could sleep, that is.
In any case, it was weird having him there. But she couldn’t exactly kick him out since it was partly her fault he had nowhere else to go. Maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, having him around, at least on such a strange night; he had always made her feel so safe. And since her dog had died and she lived alone, she didn’t exactly feel as comfortable alone at night as she used to. So she went to the closet and found some extra pillows and blankets, laying the pillow under his head and the blankets over his resting body. From the looks of it, he had already fallen asleep. She was jealous. She wished she could fall asleep that easily.
She spent half the night tossing and turning, and then Amelie barged into her room at six in the morning, demanding cereal. Once she was done eating, and noticed the mound of blankets on the couch, Mina explained that her friend had nowhere else to go so she had let him stay over. Amelie turned back to the task at hand, flipping through a Disney princess coloring book, without as much as a confused look.
At least one thing about her day was going to be easy.
Mina got dressed, and after a quick struggle with Amelie’s shoes, which she had suddenly decided she hated, they were all ready to go.
“You need a ride?” Matthew grumbled from the couch as they were about to leave. She hadn’t realized he was even awake, and was
so surprised to hear his voice she dropped her phone.
“Don’t you have work or something?” she asked him, bending
over to grab it.
“No. They haven’t reinstated me yet. I’m gonna go to District 1 and check on my status, and then I’m free for the rest of the day.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, I guess if you’re on your way out anyway,
I’ll take the ride.”
Matthew sat up with a groan, wiping sleep from his eyes. He found his Vans on the other side of the couch and placed them on his feet. A minute later, they were all in his truck. She tried not to think about all the various things they had done in that truck, but it was hard not to. Too many memories. She could tell he was avoid- ing a trip down memory lane too, judging from the smile he shook from his face once they had started driving.
Once Amelie was inside her daycare, the same one Dallas used to go to, so he knew exactly where to pull up, Mina got back in the car, assuming he would take her home. But he drove her straight to the Salvation Army building on Jackson Boulevard.
“Call me if you need help,” he said, pulling up to a fire hydrant and double parking there. He wouldn’t look at her, and she felt even more confused than ever. “Do you want me to come in with you?” She shook her head. If she did manage to find Dylan in there,
she knew he wouldn’t talk to her in Matthew’s presence. No, she needed to find him alone.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked, suspicious.
He shook his head and groaned. “Fine. Get the fuck out of my truck,” he said, annoyed.
She rolled her eyes. “Gladly,” she said.
Immediately, she regretted not taking him up on his offer to come inside. The building where Dylan lived was dank and dirty and filled with bedraggled men of various sizes and ages. For the first time since she’d gone to Open Guard regularly, she felt like she’d been pushed into a shark tank covered in blood. Testosterone poured in from every crevice and piece of skin in sight. She could practically feel every eye in the building directed right at her, and was grateful she was at least wearing a large red puffer coat over her tight ripped jeans and tank top.
“Can I help you?” asked a tattooed giant of a man. He was sitting at the front desk, his hand cradling a phone receiver to his massive shoulder, glaring at her like she had interrupted him in the middle of the best meal of his life. It was more than a tad off-putting.
She cleared her throat, her heart pounding with adrenaline. It was hot in there, so hot she had to unzip her coat, and suddenly she felt like she’d come into a war zone without any armor.
“Sorry, I’m looking for a friend of mine. Dylan Elliott?” she said,
trying to keep her voice steady.
“We don’t allow visitors here,” growled the large man, before putting the phone back to his ear.
“Oh, okay,” she said, turning around to go. But before she could, she heard a voice calling out to her from behind.
“Hey!” the voice said.
She turned around. It was a different man, older and heavyset, carrying a cup of coffee down the hallway as he walked. His shoes, oversized Nikes, squeaked against the linoleum floor.
“You asking about Dylan?”
Mina nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat.
“Dylan didn’t come back last night,” he said. “Dude’s MIA.” “Oh,” she said. “Do you know where he could have gone?”
The man shook his head, and she caught him staring at her chest. She blushed, pulling the sides of her open coat closed. “Well, wherever he is, he ain’t coming back here.”
“What do you mean?”
“You break curfew, you’re out. They gotta pretty strict policy here.”
She nodded. She was pretty sure Dylan had mentioned this to her before, which was why she was surprised not to find him there. “Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”
The man took another long, creepy glance at her before turning around. “Good luck to ya.”
“Thanks,” she said. She had no idea then how much she would need it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After Mina made a quick beeline out of the Salvation Army lobby, she turned the corner and leaned against the cold brick of the build- ing to try to catch her breath. So many things cycled through her mind in that moment. How did she end up here? What had she done in her life to lead her to this exact moment? Oh, right. Dimitry. Jiu Jitsu. Sex. And she couldn’t forget Matthew. Matthew had been the start of all her unraveling. Not that she could blame him entirely, considering the state of her hormones and her overactive sex drive at the time. Even there, under the frigid cold air, the pungent rotting smell of the nearby dumpster fresh in her nose, she could still remember that first conversation with January about what had gone wrong with her marriage, her body, her life. It was seared into her memory, insight she could never seem to escape. And even then, she understood Matthew was just the symptom, not the problem.
“Mina,” January said gingerly, just as they had been about to wrap up.
Mina had already grabbed her purse from the floor and stood, but when she heard the tone in January’s voice she sat back down.
“Why did you marry your husband if you didn’t enjoy sleeping with him?”
Mina swallowed. She had been considering this question herself a lot during that time, and it was getting harder and harder to understand it, let alone explain it. “I’m not really sure. I guess I
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thought maybe it would get better?” she said, then shook her head. “No, that’s not the only reason. I think I was just sick of dating ass- holes, and Dima was just so nice. No drama. His family loved me. It just felt like what I should do. Like it was time to grow up, and he was the person I could do that with.”
“Would you say you were promiscuous before you met Dim- itry?”
