Chapter 13: Truth in the Rain
The city air was a physical assault, a thick blend of exhaust, greasy food, and the metallic tang of rain on hot pavement. Stephanie stumbled through it, her vision blurred into a kaleidoscope of smeared neon signs and the halos of streetlights. She didn’t know where she was going, just away. The image was burned onto the back of her eyelids: Veronica’s head thrown back, Maya between her legs, the raw, unfiltered sounds of it.
“Stephanie! Wait! Goddammit, wait!”
Veronica’s voice, sharp with panic, cut through the urban drone. Stephanie didn’t turn. She walked faster, her heels clicking a frantic, unsteady rhythm on the concrete. A sob hitched in her chest, but she swallowed it, choking on the bitterness.
A hand closed around her upper arm, firm and unyielding. “Stephanie, stop. Just let me talk to you.”
She whirled around, wrenching her arm free. The force of it sent a jolt of pain through her shoulder. Veronica stood there, breathing heavily, her hair a wild corona from the run, her shirt still misbuttoned in her haste.
“Ne me touche pas!” Stephanie spat, the French lashing out like a whip. “Ne me touche jamais!”
Veronica flinched but held her ground, her green eyes wide and pleading. “Just listen to me for one second.”
“Listen? Listen to what?” Stephanie’s voice broke, the accent thickening with her anguish. “To you explain why she was on her knees for you? After what she said to me? ‘Stupid little French bitch’? That is what she called me! And you let her… you let her…” She couldn’t say it. The words were too vile. She switched to the language she’d learned in Veronica’s grandmother’s kitchen, the words feeling like shattered glass in her mouth. “How could you, Veronica? Afta everyting she seh ’bout me? Yuh heart no have no blood?”
The Patois, coming from her, seemed to strike Veronica harder than any physical blow. She actually took a step back, her face crumbling. “Steph, it’s not what you think—”
“I know what I saw!” Stephanie screamed, drawing stares from a couple across the street. She didn’t care. “I saw everything! I heard you! ‘You filthy bitch.’ You called her that. You liked it.”
She turned to flee again, but Veronica moved with a swift, decisive fury. Before Stephanie could process it, Veronica had scooped her up, one arm under her knees, the other supporting her back, lifting her as if she weighed nothing.
“Put me down! Put me down right now!” Stephanie shrieked, pounding her fists against Veronica’s shoulders. It was like hitting stone.
“No.” Veronica’s voice was low, a guttural rumble. She carried her, struggling and cursing in a mixture of French and English, into the mouth of a narrow, dank alleyway between a closed bodega and a laundromat. She didn’t go far, just enough to be shielded from the main street, and set Stephanie down on her feet, but kept her body between Stephanie and the exit.
The air in the alley was cooler, smelling of rotten garbage and wet brick. A single, flickering light above a rusted fire escape cast long, dancing shadows.
“We are going to talk,” Veronica said, her chest still heaving. “You are going to listen. Even if I have to hold you here all night.”
Stephanie crossed her arms, hugging herself tightly, staring at a puddle of murky water near her feet. “There is nothing to say.”
“It was a distraction, Stephanie!” The words burst out of Veronica, harsh and raw. “A stupid, fucked-up, meaningless distraction! From you!”
Stephanie’s head snapped up. “What?”
“From you!” Veronica repeated, running a hand over her face in exasperation. “You think I don’t see how you look at me sometimes? You think I don’t feel it? For years, Steph. Years. And I can’t… I can’t have that. I can’t mess that up. You’re everything. You’re my best friend. So when Maya started sniffing around, she was easy. She was loud and she was there and she didn’t mean anything. She was a way to… to get the thoughts of you out of my head.”
The confession hung in the polluted air, more shocking than the act itself. Stephanie could only stare, her mind reeling. The anger was still there, a hot, tight ball in her stomach, but it was now tangled with a bewildering, terrifying thread of something else.
“You used her?” Stephanie whispered.
“She was using me, too!” Veronica shot back, a defensive edge returning. “You think she gives a shit about me? She likes the… the spectacle of me. She likes telling people she’s fucking the ‘scary Jamaican lawyer.’ It’s a transaction. It’s nothing. It’s less than nothing.”
“It did not look like nothing,” Stephanie said, her voice small. “It looked… you were… you wanted her.”
Veronica let out a short, bitter laugh. “I wanted to not want you.” She took a step closer, her voice dropping. “But it doesn’t work. It never works. Seeing you walk in… God, Stephanie. I have never been so ashamed in my entire life.”
The fight seemed to drain out of Stephanie all at once, leaving her hollow and trembling. The image was still there, but now it was overlaid with Veronica’s words. A distraction. From her. The world tilted on its axis.
Veronica saw the shift. The rigid anger in Stephanie’s posture softened into confusion. She cautiously reached out, her fingers gently brushing a stray strand of hair from Stephanie’s damp cheek. Stephanie didn’t pull away. A shudder ran through her at the touch.
“I’m so sorry,” Veronica murmured, her Jamaican lilt softening the words into a caress. “I’m a fool. A proud, stupid fool.”
Stephanie looked up, meeting her eyes properly for the first time. The sharp green was swimming in unshed tears, all the confidence and ferocity stripped away, leaving only a vulnerable, raw honesty. The alley, the city, the entire world narrowed to this single, charged point of space between them.
She didn’t know what to say. The news of her family’s freedom felt like a story from another lifetime. All that existed was the thrumming silence and the heat of Veronica’s hand so close to her skin.
Slowly, hesitantly, Stephanie uncrossed her arms. Her hand found Veronica’s, their fingers tangling together in the dim, flickering light. It was an answer. It was a question. It was the only thing she could do.