Page 4

Blade

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t imagine running into Bella over the years and how that would go. The way it actually went never occurred to me. Saving her from an overzealous boss in a small tattoo place in Brooklyn was never on the list.

She always liked drawing, ever since I first met her back in third grade. But she was never big on tattoos. I guess that’s changed. Her hands are covered with them and I suppose the rest of her milky pale skin might be too. I’m not complaining.

She still looks amazing, her ass perfectly round in those tight skinny jeans she’s wearing, and that leather jacket does nothing to hide the rest of her curves.

She’s holding onto my arm like her life depends on it and we’re walking in perfect sync down the crowded sidewalk, somehow managing not to jostle against anyone.

I think it’s because she’s leading me. I didn’t do this well in the sidewalk crowd on my way to find her.

But I’m not ready to start thinking of all the ways we’re perfect for each other yet.

New York’s a strange city. It seems that no one sees anyone else, yet they flow seamlessly by each other on the sidewalks like rivers of varying currents, free and un-bridled, un-concerned with anything but their own path. I could do without the cold though.

“Here,” she says and leads us into a Starbucks that’s somehow noisier than the street outside. But at least it’s warm.

She’s winded from the pace she set to get us here, her cheeks slightly rosy. Her hazel eyes, big enough to suck you right in, are fixed on mine.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” she adds.

“I’m sorry you had to live it. You should’ve let me teach that guy a lesson.”

She shakes her head. “He’s pudgy and weak and I wasn’t kidding, you probably would’ve killed him.”

“I have more control than that,” I say, eyeing the menu above the counter. “But maybe he’d deserve it. He came across as a sketchy rapist type to me.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” she says then orders the largest latte they offer.

I’ve given up caffeine a while back, and I’ve grown partial to the green drinks they serve back home, but those don’t seem to have made it all the way out east yet. So I opt for a green tea.

“This is nice,” she says as we move to wait for the drinks. “Just like old times.”

She’s talking breezily enough but there’s an edge to her tone. Finally. Because from the way she’s been talking, smiling and touching me, I was beginning to think the last ten years never happened. Or that we’d been together this whole time. Like nothing had changed.

“We found Ghost,” I tell her and watch her pretty face and eyes flip through a bunch of emotions. Most of them sad and ugly.

“And we killed him.”

More emotions follow, not all of them dark. There’s something very close to joy amid them.

“So it’s over?” she finally breathes. “Angel is finally avenged?”

The barista is calling our names, but she doesn’t seem to hear it. I collect our drinks and lead the way to a table for two in a window nook. Outside the currents of people are still flowing by relentlessly.

Her cheeks are even rosier and she’s still breathing hard, but it’s all just from hearing my news now. I’m gonna let her have a moment. Mostly because I don’t know what to follow up my news with.

“Who caught him?” she asks.

“We did.”

There’s an incredulous tone to my voice until I realize she probably has no idea what we have become in the years that I haven’t spoken to her.

Back when Angel died and Bella was still the love of my life we were just a bunch of kids riding motorcycles and occasionally scaring off a drug dealer or pedophile.

But mostly we rode motorcycles and partied.

“By we you mean Rogue and Zane and them?” There’s bitterness in her tone.

“Yeah, among others. We’ve established a real motorcycle club and our sole purpose is hunting down criminals,” I explain.

“And what’s it called, this motorcycle club of yours?”

She smiles, but it’s a sad, wispy little thing.

“Rogue Angels MC.”

She nods. “Nice. Figures Rogue would want to honor her. And get his name in there too.”

“Rogue likes the fame and attention, I’m not gonna lie,” I say. “But he’s still the most selfless man I know.”

She smiles again and touches my hand lightly. It feels like a butterfly landed on it. “You’re the most selfless man I know.”

“How do you figure that?” We knew each other well once upon a time. But that time is long gone.

“I mean, look at you, coming to tell me this news when everyone else has long since given up on me,” she says.

She’s not wrong. We have all written her off.

Myself included. And the longer I spend with her, that is fast starting to seem like the biggest mistake I ever made.

It always had seemed that way, but I could rationalize it before.

Those rationalizations have no power to stand up to her pretty face and the sweet sound of her voice, which I’ve missed even more than I realized.

Or her touch. Or her smile. Or the way her eyes glow like brushed gold, making everything right, and good, and nice.

“So, what have you been up to?” I ask, because I really want to know.

Her eyes widen again, but then she looks away at the currents of people outside the window and it’s like a part of her flows away with them. “You don’t want to know.”

Then she snaps her head back, fire in her eyes as she looks at me. “But I’m clean. I’ve been clean for five years, or will be next month. November 5 th is my sober anniversary.”

It took her five years to get clean after we parted ways? Sounds like a nightmare. All alone, friendless, a whole continent removed from anyone she knew and loved.

“Your aunt and uncle didn’t straighten you out?” I ask.

The last time we spoke, she was being shipped off to live with them like some Italian, female version of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

She shakes her head. “Not even close. They gave up on me too, after I went down… everyone did, at that point.”

“Went down as in went to prison?” I ask and she nods, barely meeting my eyes.

Why didn’t I know this? Did Rogue?

“I got busted for possession,” she says.

“And I know it sounds twisted, but it was the best thing that could’ve happened to me.

Nothing like getting your freedom taken away, the last thing I still had at that point as it were, to straighten you out.

But it worked out. I got clean and I learned a trade.

They tell me I’m now the best tattoo artist in the tri-state area.

People come from all over to get inked by me. ”

She’s smiling widely, but her eyes are sadder than ever.

“How long were you inside for?”

I don’t even know why I’m asking this instead of something more uplifting about her tattooing career or something. But it’s suddenly very important to me to know all the fucked-up things she lived through and I wasn’t there for.

“Two years, but it was a minimum-security place, not so bad,” she says. “They had a great rehab program, and I met Bear’s daughter in there. She taught me everything about tattooing.”

“Who’s Bear?”

“He’s… or was the owner of the place you found me in,” she says. “The dweeb’s his nephew. He’s running the place now.”

“You’re so close to them, but they let that dweeb treat you like that?” I very nearly get up and go teach all of them a very belated lesson in decency. And start making up for the last decade in which I didn’t take care of her like I should’ve.

“Bear had to retire, his daughter’s still inside and Doogie’s all he’s got,” she says. “But it’s fine. I’ve been thinking about going freelance anyway. I’m ready.”

She gives me a look I haven’t seen in over a decade.

Except in my dreams. I see it often in those even though she never speaks.

It’s a look of welcome, devotion and belonging all rolled into one.

Only she can give it. Only she can make me believe it.

Being an orphan, a black kid adopted by white parents, I never really felt I belonged.

Until she looked at me like this. It was a long time ago, but it still feels like yesterday. How?

“Maybe I could do it in LA?” she asks quietly.

I almost yell, “Yes!” but end up just clearing my throat.

“I’m ready to go home,” she adds. “And now that Angel’s killer has been dealt with maybe I’ll be accepted again. And my family won’t be a threat to anyone anymore.”

“Yeah,” I say and leave it at that.

She’s always been impulsive. Always acted first and only thought about it after it was done. It’s gotten us in so much trouble over the years. But it’s also given me some of the best memories I’ll ever have.

“Unless you think me going back home isn’t a good idea,” she says. “I thought you coming here was a sign… “

“I think it’s a great idea,” I say and finally manage to smile at her. I’ve wanted to do that since I saw her. “You’ve been gone too long.”

She gives me one of her classic, beaming, light-up-the-whole-room Bella smiles. I missed those very much too. But her eyes are still sad.

Signs were always her thing too. She saw them everywhere. And she didn’t need much more to act on something that one of those “signs”. I’m glad none of that’s changed.

But can we really go back? Or more like, should we?

Then again, maybe this sign is telling her the truth.

I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing more of her. As in every day from now on…