Page 60 of Brash for It
When five hits, I text Kellum a picture of the flowers with a caption that just saysyou’re trouble of the best kind.
He sends back a period and a heart and then,be there in ten.
My face does that thing again where it tries to split in half with happiness.I’m about to writetake your timejust to feel like contact with him again when the bell over the door rings, and in he walks, early.
Every head in the room swivels, not subtle.He doesn’t change his position.He just looks at me, looks at the roses, and the corner of his mouth lifts a fraction like he’s pleased with his own work in the world.
“Hi,” I greet, too bright.
“Hey,” he replies, low.
Trina clears her throat.“Sir, we are a professional place of business.Please refrain from—” She waves at my face and neck.“—your obvious deeds.”
Kellum can’t hold back the full smile that erupts like he’s proud of his work.I am, unhelpfully, delighted because I’m proud to be marked and claimed.
I clock out, grab my tote, and we step into evening like the day arranged the lighting just for us.On the sidewalk, he takes my bag without asking, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
It’s the best day.I didn’t know that the best day could be this ordinary, this full of small things.I didn’t know a woman could walk through town with a bouquet and a mark on her neck and feel not shame but joy.
I tuck that away in the place where I keep proof.I might need it later, when the past tries to call me by my old names.
The glow lasts all the way home—until it doesn’t.
We take the long way because I asked for wind, and he gives me that without negotiation.I lean, I breathe, I press my cheek to his back and memorize the steady of him.When we get home, he pulls me in by the hip, steals a kiss that tastes like everything, and says he’s got to run up to the shop to check on a parts order that came in before they close, “twenty minutes,” and I tell him I’ll start a salad because I’m trying to be an adult who eats somewhat healthy on weekdays.
He’s gone three minutes when the first call comes in.
Unknown number.I swipe green because I’m still in the part of my life where phones mean logistics, not landmines.Plus no one has this number but work and Kellum and his family.
“Hello?”
Static, then a man’s laugh.“Whore.”
I freeze.“Excuse me?”
“Biker’s toy,” a different voice cuts in, too close to the mic, breathy like he’s been running his mouth all day.“You think wearing his mark on your neck makes you somebody?You’re trash.”
The word hits like it used to.For half a second, I’m back in a parking lot with no one, my phone dead and my car gone.That half second burns away fast.I hit end call with a force that makes my finger ache.
The phone rings again.A number but I don’t recognize it.My stomach tightens, but I answer because I’ve learned that sometimes the fastest way out is through.
“Stop calling me.”
Laughter.Not one voice this time, but a chorus of men practicing power where it costs nothing.“Gonna get yours,” one says.“Hellions don’t keep their playthings.We’ll make sure you remember.Can’t wait to mark your body myself.”
I hang up.Block.The phone rings again with no caller ID.I don’t pick up.It rings three more times while I stand in the kitchen and try to will my heartbeat down out of my mouth.
I move on instinct.I put my phone on speaker, open a new note, and start writing the numbers down.I don’t know if it will matter.It feels like something I can do besides shake.By the seventh call, I’m answering and saying, “This call is being recorded,” like that will scare someone who does this kind of stuff.By the eighth, my hands aren’t shaking anymore, no I’m full on rage mode.By the ninth, the voicemail catches and I hear a threat drop into a recorded box like garbage into a can.
In the quiet between rings, my brain jumps to the only man who’d be petty enough to pay people to spit words down a line at me.
Brian.
The tenth call comes.I let it go to voicemail.It’s the same kind of spit, a man saying I deserve what I get for taking myself down in class which is so Brian-coded I see red.I don’t wait.I pull up my keypad, tap the number from memory, and listen to it ring.
He answers on the second.“Kristen,” he answers, like he’s been inconvenienced.My blood runs cold because he does indeed know my number.
“What did you do?”I demand.
