Ragged✔|18+

THIRTEEN

REYNA

"Is this it?" Clyde asks as he stares up at the building I used to call home.

It's still the same. Four-storey whitewashed building with medium-sized apartments and a mediocre parking lot. It's located in the finer parts of Jamaica, so it's got that snottish Upper Eastside going for it. Too bad it's reputation was tarnished by the happenings of late last year.

"Yeah." 

"Just stay here. I'll be back in ten."

"What, no." He unbuckles his seatbelt. "You heard what your dad said. Anything happens to you and I'm dead."

Although he wasn't welcoming to the idea of me going on a date, dad agreed to let me go on the condition that Clyde brought me back by ten o'clock and that he doesn't try anything "funny" with me or else he'll shoot both his kneecaps and leave him to bleed out on the driveway.

"He didn't mean that literally."

He comes to stand in front of me. "I don't want to take any chances."

"Fine. Just please, for the love of God, don't stare at anyone or anything you see."

"So I close my eyes?" He closes said eyes with his hands and I can't help but smile at his antics to put me in a good mood. He did that a lot too in the car when he was driving me here.

"No, but it's a welcome suggestion."

I step out of the car, immediately cursing myself for wearing these damn heels but I needed to wear them or else my dad wouldn't buy the whole I-got-date-and-I-can't-backout charade Clyde and I pulled. Well, not exactly a charade because I did promise Clyde I'll let him take me out on one date and I intend to keep my word.

"Nice place," Clyde says as we enter the elevator.

"Yeah. . ." I push the button for third floor. "It used to be."

Thankfully, he shuts his mouth and does my bidding.

"What's wrong? You okay?"

"I can't do it. I don't know why." My voice is shaky as I say that. God, he must think I'm a freak. Who in their right mind drags a stranger to Queens and has a mini-panic attack prior to their date?

"Want me to open it for you?" he offers.

I can only nod. Words are escaping my mouth and are all jumbled up in my mind. He takes the key from my hand and inserts it in the keyhole. The door's hinges squeak as he opens it. Clyde switches on the lights in the hallway and waits for me to get inside.

It feels weird crossing the threshold even though I've done it a million times before, especially when I'm greeted by the grim sight of what used to be our living room. White sheets cover the furniture and a musk, dusty scent hovers over the entire room.

The apartment should be occupied with a new tenant by now but I'm guessing it's been proven difficult considering the ordeal that happened in here. No one wants to live in an apartment that was very recently a murder scene.

The floorboard creaks as I walk over to the console that held most of our family pics and other sentimental stuff. Sentimental being a snow globe mom bought for me at a bodega in Soho. It's not much—it only has the engraving of "I heart New York" on it—but I've never viewed it as anything less.

"What happened here?" Clyde asks, taking in the disheveled state of the room. He picks up a framed picture of me and my mom.

"Homicide."

"Shit." He puts down the picture and focuses on me. "Your mom—"

"Got murdered in here?" I look around the room. "Yeah. She did. Right over there."