Started With a Lie

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Seven

Daniel doesn't have a car. I mean, it's New York City. I wait at a random convenient store as he rolls up down the street in the back of a taxi. I watch him rushing to step out and looking around everywhere. Slowly, I step out and walk as if one of my legs have been amputated. I look down, brain somewhere else, and try to go to him. I feel so tired and weak. I hate it.

           "Ivory," Daniel says, catching me by the arm when I'm close. I hold onto his forearms, trying to just find a sense of what's going on. I think I'm in aftershock. My whole world is upside down. "Ivory, Jesus fuck, what happened?"

             His 'Jesus fuck' makes me laugh because it's such a Daniel catchphrase and somehow the laughs turn into sobs. I am insane and I think now Daniel knows, too.

             "Okay, okay, don't talk," he decides, putting a hand on my right shoulder and guiding me to the waiting taxi. He helps me in, putting a hand on the roof of the taxi and the other on my head so I don't bump my head. He probably thinks I'm drunk or something. Daniel steps in after me, seat-belting me in and then himself. "Where do you want to go? Home?"

           Home. Home? What even is home right now? This isn't my home. I don't know this city and this city does not know me. I just want to be eight again and watch my Mom paint some waterfall or something simple yet extravagant because she always made it that way. I want to be home, my real home, with my real family.

              I don't want to go back to the dorm. I don't want to be alone with just my dark thoughts and a night filled with crying and tearing my heart out again and again.

           "No," I say and my voice is gone. I cried so much that it's just a hollow sound now, my throat dry. I swallow, trying to decide where else I could go. "Take me to the party."

           Daniel raises his eyebrows and then shakes his head. "Ivory, I really don't think you should go to that right now. I was just there and it's really not that crazy or anything. Let me take you to your dorm room so you can rest, huh?"

           I stare at him. "I want to go to the party. Now."

          "Ivory, I mean, are you okay? I don't think—"

           "Please, Daniel," I plead. "I don't think I can handle being alone right now. Please just take me to the party. It'll distract me for a while."

        He sighs but he nods in the end, telling the taxi driver the address of the party. For a while, he just sits there, elbow on window sill and biting his thumbnail. Every few seconds, he looks over at me with an anxious look in his eye. He doesn't know what's wrong with me and he thinks I'll probably break down again soon. It's not all false. I might.

        "Here," Daniel says, pushing a bunch of Starbucks napkins into my lap. "From earlier. I think you need them more now."

          I faintly smile, reaching for them. "Thank you."

          "No biggie," Daniel replies, smiling real big that I'm somewhat getting better. He keeps an attentive watch on me as I sniffle into the napkins and use the others to wipe away dried tears and probably the horror slash film that is my mascara and other make up. "You want to talk about it or...?"

          I shake my head.

         "That's fine," he says, swinging his knees side to side and folding his hands in his lap.

               The rest of the car ride is silent and that's alright with me. Daniel doesn't complain either, his eyes focused on everything outside like a little kid at an amusement park for the first time. We get to a small apartment complex in fifteen or so minutes. Daniel pays for the far and he opens my door for me, a grin plastered on his face.