His Mafia Queen

My Love

Riley

The night grinds on, each minute feeling like an hour. Everything I do seems to take longer than necessary, and everything's going wrong. My phone isn't holding its charge, my pen stopped working, the rain ruined a page of my notes.

Fuck my life.

After Gabriel walked away from me without saying a goodbye, I was furious. Still am. My insides are vibrating with barely controlled anger, with a healthy mix of sadness for the people who had to endure the trauma of the shooting.

Of course, there was nothing I could do after he left but continue working, so I interviewed several more witnesses and neighbors then sent the information back to Helen. She cleared me to leave, and that's when I got angry at the newspaper.

Why hadn't Helen sent any reporters to help? This is a huge story, one I'm sure that will get national attention.

I'm still angry as I drive to the hospital. There, I'm met by the hospital spokeswoman, who tells me in no uncertain terms that I can't linger on the property to interview relatives of the injured.

"I'll have you arrested if you don't leave," she says in an obnoxious tone.

Well, wouldn't that make the evening so much better, I think as I walk to my car.

Now I'm in yet another empty parking lot, wondering what I should do. Feeling helpless in every way. It's just after midnight and I just got off the phone with Helen. Another reporter has been brought in for the overnight shift, and Helen says I'll probably be needed early tomorrow for a follow-up article so I should go home and get some rest.

But the question is: what home am I going to? My own, or Gabriel's?

"Screw this," I say aloud, and turn the car's steering wheel, driving onto the street. I'm headachey and hungry.

I'm going to my house. Alone. My feelings about everything — Gabriel, his involvement in the mafia, tonight's mass shooting — are too complex to distill into a late-night conversation. It's for the best if I go home and sleep off my anger and sadness.

Home is like a mausoleum, quiet and musty-smelling because I hadn't turned the air conditioning on and all the windows were shut. This place tends to get like this, and I suspect the previous tenants had a cat because I sometimes get a whiff of old kitty litter, which grosses me out.

Two thoughts pop into my brain. One is that I wouldn't have had to deal with any of this had I gone to Gabriel's. And two, it really sucks being poor.

The first thing I do is strip off my clothes. They're damp and clammy, and a hot shower is the best thing I can do for myself. Afterwards, I wrap myself in a silk robe, hating that everything here is reminding me of Gabriel, but too tired to change into anything more complicated.

I blast the air, crank the fans and open a window. Now is not the time to give a crap about the electric bill. All I want is for this stuffy smell to go away, and it's like a wind tunnel in here.

A quick check of my phone shows that it's charging, but slowly, and I'm annoyed that I might need to buy a new one soon. Gabriel would gladly pay for a top-of-the-line phone, but tonight I'm not sure I want him doing anything for me. I pull open the fridge with a sigh.

I'm starving, yet don't feel like eating. A vague pain in my abdomen makes me rub my stomach, and I decide on a glass of wine and a Tylenol. Terrible, I know, but I don't care. Probably I should eat something. There's a box of crackers left over from the food Gabriel brought over the weekend, when I was hungover.

I pull them open and shovel a handful in my mouth, feeling like a goblin.

Jesus, it's been a wild week. Catherine, the bar, the public scene with Gabriel in the bar. Him telling me he loves me...