Page 85 of Tank
My vision falters; the tears are already in my eyes, hot and bitter.
“You used me,” I whisper. “At first, you used me. And then what? Changed your mind halfway through?”
Tank flinches. “I didn’t change my mind. I changed. Because of you.”
I want to believe him. God, I do. But my heart feels like it’s bleeding from every angle.
“Do you know what happened because of this?” I say, rising to my feet. “The fundraiser’s a disaster. Safe House is in pieces. Vanessa is gone. Dead. And everything I worked for — everything I am — feels like it’s broken.”
“I know,” he says quietly, standing too. “I know, and I’m sorry. And I’ll spend every day trying to make up for it. I will scrub floors, lay brick, raise money — I’ll do whatever it takes.”
I shake my head. My eyes are wet, and my breath is shaky. “I love you, Tank. I do. And maybe that’s the problem. Because I don’t know if love is enough anymore.” It hurts to force the words out, and I hear how tangled they’ve become, how impossible they sound. He steps forward slowly, his hands raised like he’s reaching for something he can’t quite touch, his eyes desperate, almost wild.
“Then tell me what is,” he says. “I’ll do it. You say the word. I’ll do anything.”
He means it. More than I want him to. But I don’t have the answer. I don’t know if there even is one. I can barely breathe. My world has been ripped apart in a dozen directions, and the man I love is at the center of it all.
“I just…” I press a hand to my chest, searching for air, for words, for myself. “I need time. Space. To figure out what I even want anymore.”
“Then I’ll give you that. Because I’d give you anything.”
I let out a broken breath and walk to the door, my steps heavy like I’m dragging my heart behind me, but just before I leave, I glance back. He’s standing there, still, like a mountain that’s just lost its anchor. And it breaks my heart all over again.
I leave.
The hallways of the hospital stretch like a maze around me, all sterile tiles and disinfectant smells, but I hardly notice. The buzzing fluorescent lights blend into the noise in my head, and I just keep walking until I find Alex in the waiting room. Her arms go around me without a word, tight and warm and understanding, and I whisper, my voice cracking, “Can you take me home?”
"Of course.”
The hours pass in a daze of pain and grief.
Later that night, I sit alone on my couch, a glass of bourbon in my hand. The house is too quiet. The silence presses in from every direction until I can’t tell if it’s out there or just inside me.
I think about Tank’s eyes, his voice, the way he held Ricky like he was family.
I think about Vanessa never waking up, her last gasping breaths echoing in my memory like a nightmare I can’t escape.
I think about the future and how heavy it suddenly feels, how it looms over me like a weight I might not have the strength to lift.
When I finally crawl into bed, I curl up and cry. I cry until I can’t tell if the ache in my chest is from tears or breathing. And just before I fall asleep, one quiet, sinking truth claws its way up through the darkness: this is going to be the first of many nights like this.
And I don’t know how many I can survive.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Bianca
Alex and I sit opposite each other at the conference table in the Safe House office, where our resolve has been crumbling just as steadily as the numbers on the screens before us. She’s on her laptop, I’m on mine, both of us staring at spreadsheets that speak with a harsh clarity, slicing through our hope one row at a time. A river of red flows across the page. The fundraiser dinner — the same one I put every drop of my soul into — raised next to nothing. I see it all replay in my mind: most of the pledges that were made never came through, disappearing like ghosts, like broken promises. The guests were terrified, confused, dropping like flies once they learned about my abduction. The hard work amounted to barely more than a whisper, hounded by fear, overshadowed by my brother’s unforgiving reach.
Alex is quiet and distant, lips pressed into a tight line as she processes the loss, and the quiet stretches out endlessly, wrapping around us like a taut band ready to snap. Finally, she sighs and speaks, her voice the sound of a heart breaking. “At this rate, Bianca, we won’t make it past the end of the month.”
I sit there, frozen, the weight of her words pinning me to my chair. All the work we’ve done, all the good we’ve tried to bring to the world, crumbling to dust in our hands.
“I mean,” she continues, her voice cracking like thin ice underfoot, “we can’t even cover the bills due next week unless a miracle happens.”
Her voice falters and fades completely, overtaken by despair. I watch as her head drops into her hands, the image of strength and calm finally breaking apart. Alex is crying. I have never seen her cry before.
I want to be the strong one this time, to hold it together, to be solid enough for her to lean on, to be the rock for everyone who needs one. I reach over and rub her back, trying to comfort her, whispering that it’ll be okay. Again and again, I say it, even though I can’t bring myself to believe it.
