Justin

My father was going to be needing the hospital services for more than a few bullet wounds in the arm if he kept up with his snide ass remarks about Lani. Even in his hospital bed he was calling her a bitch, a whore, and saying that I should have listened to him and stopped ‘fucking around with that half-breed’ when he told me to. To make things worse, my step-mom was sitting there agreeing with everything he was saying.

“You know guys are acting like I can just pick and choose who to fall for. I didn’t ask to be back in your life Dad; I was fine without you for 20 years, and I’m sure I’ll be fine without you for the next 20 years if need be. I don’t like this anymore than you guys do, but it’s life, so fucking deal with it.” I stood up from the chair I was sitting in and made my way to the door to leave. As I was walking back the lobby to the elevators I saw the doctor, who had previously gotten a new one torn to him by me, talking to the Violanos. I guess Lani knew that I had gone to let the hospital staff have it after I walked away from her because she mouthed ‘thank you’ to me as the elevator door was closing. I didn’t want to say anything back to create attention so I nodded and put my head down.

That was the last time I saw her for a while. I left Jersey City and headed back up to Manhattan to pack up a bag to get out. I hopped on the next plane to the only place I knew I’d be able to relax, my Momma’s house. I was a little hesitant to ring the doorbell when I got out of my rental car for the simple fact that my mom and I got into a huge ass argument the last time I had visited her, and we hadn’t really spoken that much since. But I knew that because she was my mom she would put the bullshit aside and welcome me with open arms, even if it were 3 in the morning.

She didn’t say a word when she opened the door and saw me standing there, even if she wanted to beat my ass for not talking to her; she let me in and moved aside to let me go up to the attic where my old room was to get settled and get to sleep. Then next morning I woke up and trudged my way, zombie-like, downstairs to the kitchen where I smelled my mom cooking breakfast.

“Morning baby.” She put a plate down in front of the place I sat at and turned around to make another plate for my step-father who had made his way into the kitchen behind me.

“Hey Momma.” I don’t care what anyone says, there is nothing like my Momma’s cooking; immediately it felt like some of the stress was lifted when I bit into the Belgian waffles and bacon she made.

“Are you gonna tell me why you showed up here in the middle of the night, or am I gonna have to beat it out of you?”

“I’ve just got a lot going on and I needed to get away from the city for a while.”

“Mhm, what’s her name?” I hate that mother’s intuition bullshit.

“What makes you think this has anything to do with a girl?”

“Justin, I’m your momma. You’ve had that look on your face every time a relationship of yours goes bad. So what’s going on that’s got you running back home to your Momma lookin like you just got beat up at the playground?”

I told her everything, starting from the beginning. The good thing about my mom is that she’s the type of person who shuts up and lets you say everything you’re feeling before she tells you what she thinks. I was afraid of what she thought though, and for the first time in my life I didn’t want to hear her advice because I knew she was right.

“It seems like that Dominic boy is right baby. I’m sorry, I can tell you care for her a lot, but it’s in both of your best interests if you stay away, at least until things die down.”

“I know Ma. It’s not going to die down though. Dad was pissed when I told them off and left, and I’m sure he’s still fuming about it. I’m worried about Lani but I need to let everything be, I know. I don’t even want to go back there because I know I won’t be able to stay away.”

“Move on Justin, that’s the only thing you can do right now. And you know you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you like honey. Now cheer up, I love you baby, and you know I don’t like seeing you down like this.” She kissed my forehead and started to clean up the kitchen while Paul and I went into the living room to watch TV, like we usually did after breakfast when I was growing up.

For the majority of the time that I was home I sat around on my ass or ran errands for my mom while she was at work. There was nothing else for me to do but sit around and waste away my life; everyone I had grown up with had basically moved out of town and started families. Except for the losers who managed to stay in town and make something of their lives right there in Millington.

My mom also managed to set me up on the worst blind dates of my life (are there good ones?) with her friend’s daughters or nieces, but I wasn’t interested in the type of girls they were; Melania Renee Violano was the only ‘type’ I was interested in at the moment. Yeah, I was pretty much a big ass loser who was going to be lonely for the rest of my life at the rate I was turning beautiful girls down, but I didn’t care. I wouldn’t settle for anything less than Lani, even if I had to risk my life by being with her.

It was really weird not having anyone other than my family to talk to; I was so used to texting Lani through out the day or calling Trace in between our meetings to just joke around with him and I couldn’t do that. I made it my business to isolate myself from the world that I lived in prior to returning home to Memphis, which meant my cell phone was turned off and I took a leave of absence from my job. I basically had no life while I was ‘away’. I began to think that I was better of risking my life to be with Lani than sitting on my ass down in hot ass Memphis with my parents and grandparents where my only form of entertainment was Friday Night Yahtzee at my grandparents’ and Wednesday Night Bingo down at the community center.

Lani

When the elevator doors closed that was the last I saw of Justin for a while, but I didn’t know it at that time. Something in me told me that he was behind the doctors acknowledging that my family was sitting there pulling our hair out while they were lalligagging around us, and I was right when he nodded with a smile as the doors closed.

Daddy was okay; he lost a lot of blood from the gunshot wound he got in the stomach, but he was going to be okay after a few days in the hospital. I knew deep down that things were about to change, not only with my love life but with my family life as well. Even in his hospital bed and drugged up on morphine my dad and uncles were already working on ways to retaliate. I was extremely pissed that he sat there, playing with death, talking about things he was going to do to get back at Justin’s dad; did he not care that Gianni and I were ready to go crazy when we didn’t know what was going on with him?

When my dad got out of the hospital I went home to be around my family and stayed at my place on the weekends to work; I realized that those Sunday dinners weren’t enough anymore. Justin vanished off of the face of the earth; we went by his office and they said he took a few weeks off but didn’t specify why and he cut his phone service off without telling anyone. After a few days of him not coming home Trace got extremely worried and busted out the big guns; he made a phone call back home to Justin’s mom to see if she had seen him. The only information he got out of her was that Justin was safe, but no matter how hard Trace tried to pry more information out of her she wouldn’t budge.

Despite my realization that I was falling in love with Justin, I had to live my life normally and try to get over it because a) there was no way we could be together now that our families really wanted to kill each other and b) it didn’t look like he was coming back anytime soon. I missed Justin coming into Marquee on Fridays and the occasional Saturdays; I missed the mid-day texts I would get just saying hi; I missed him showing up randomly at my apartment to annoy the hell out of me; I missed that contagious smile and his piercing blue eyes; I missed his touch, his kiss, his voice; I missed everything about him and it drove me crazy that we didn’t (and couldn’t) speak.

“Melania could you come in here for a second?” I heard my dad yell from down in the family room while I was in the kitchen looking for something to eat.

“What is it?” He patted the couch next to him so I sat down without saying a word.

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry about everything. I know you were finally moving on from Dominic and then all of this happened. For what it’s worth I liked Justin, it just isn’t safe for you two to continue anything with each other, for you or for him.”

“Please Daddy, I was just starting to forget about everything.” So maybe I was lying, I just didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I was tired of everyone telling me they were sorry that circumstances weren’t different, sorry doesn’t change anything. I got up and left the room before he could even finish what he wanted to say; I didn’t want to hear it because it was all bullshit. I knew what he was trying to do; everyone was apologizing so I would forget about what was going on and wouldn’t care that I was a lonely little girl again. They wanted me to move on and find someone new; they all wanted me to go back to Dominic only because he didn’t have a family they hated. Hell, Dominic didn’t have any family at all, which was a definite plus for them because they didn’t have to worry about anyone fucking them over.

Three or so weeks after everything happened I got a phone call at 4 in the morning, I just happened to be knocked out in my room at my dad’s house.

“Hello?”

“Were you sleeping?”

“No, actually I was just about to head out the door to go on my daily 5 mile run.”

“Sorry.”

“Who the hell is this?” I didn’t check the caller ID on my cell phone before answering it. But when I did check it said ‘Private’. I hate prank phone calls.

“Justin.” That made me sit right up.

“Where the hell are you Justin?”

“I’m back home in Memphis. I needed to get away Lani, I can’t be there anymore.”

“I don’t even know what to say to you.”

“Don’t say anything. I just wanted to hear your voice, it’s been a while.” I laid back down in my bed and pulled the covers back over me and started to drift back to sleep when he finally spoke again.

“What if we ran away?”

“Excuse me?” I was trying to hold in my yawn, but it escaped so I wasn’t really sure if he heard me.

“Yeah, I mean, what if we leave New York and start over somewhere together? We don’t even have to be a couple Lani, I just need to be with you and that’s not possible living so close to family.”

“Are you high Justin?”

“I believe that is your job.”

“Har har. We can’t just up and leave everything, do you know the size of the search party my dad would send out if I just vanished like you have? Not only would he kill me when I was found, he’d kill you, chop you up, put you in a box and then place you on your father’s doorstep with a rose attached.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah ouch. You’re crazy Justin.”

“I’m crazy for you. Everyone has told me to stay away; if I cared about you like I claim I do I’d stay away and let the both of us live our lives, but I can’t do that. I thought trying to date down here would help me move on but it hasn’t; these bitches down here don’t compare to you and no one ever will as far as I’m concerned. I know you live by loyalty and all that other bullshit you’ve got inked on you but couldn’t you at least think about it before saying no?”

“What is there to think about? You’re asking me to leave everything here and move away somewhere with you so we can be away from the bullshit that’s going on.”

“There’s shit going on?” His voice was worried, and I didn’t blame him.

“Yeah Justin. Your dad had a fit once you didn’t turn up and he thinks it’s my fault that you left. The hostility between our families has gotten so much worse, one of my dad’s soldiers got killed the other day when he was casing our yard to make sure it was safe for Gianni and I to walk from the door to my car to go grocery shopping. Clearly it wasn’t safe for us to leave.”

“You can’t even go grocery shopping without being watched?”

“Did you expect anything other than that? Everywhere I go, Massimo goes with me. I get my own personal bodyguard like I’m some sort of celebrity. It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of.” I was hoping he could sense the sarcasm through my tiredness. I guess I was talking too loud because I heard footsteps come from the direction of my father’s room and saw two feet stop outside my door. Before he could turn the knob I let Justin know I had to go.

“Shit. Justin my dad heard me talking to you. I gotta go. Bye.” I hung up just in time for the door to swing open to reveal my dad.

“Who the hell are you talking to this late?”

“One of my friends called when they were drunk. Sorry I woke you up. Go back to bed.” He didn’t protest; I wasn’t even sure that he was awake to begin with. But as he closed the door I suddenly wasn’t tired anymore.