“Fuckkk!”, I screamed as my fresh cappuccino hit my red silk blouse and chest, burning my caramel brownskin and soaking the ends of my long, light brown curly hair.
I hadn’t even realized I had just bumped into Destiny my assistant spilling coffee all over her white button up and red pencil skirt.
“Oh my gosh Destiny! I am soo sorry, Girl, I’m having a rough start this morning and wasn’t paying attention.”
“It’s okay, I understand.” She replied. “I’ll go get us both a change of clothes.” She said as she chuckled away.
After Destiny changed and brought me a new outfit, we went about our workday as normal. The day flew by faster than normal because it was soon almost time for New York Fashion Week, and I had been feeling guilty about spilling that drink on Destiny all day, so I thought about asking her out for drinks after work.
The clock was glaring back at me showing 6:52pm, and the studio had finally started emptying out. Fabric swatches and mood boards covered every inch of my desk and half-finished sketches pinned from corner to corner of every wall, yet the quiet chaos of Fashion Week still felt like home to me. This was my favorite time of day: in the office, the lights dimmed, the busyness settling, and me alone with my work.
However, this new skirt left me uncomfortable the entire day.
As I was packing up my sketchbook and notes, Destiny walked in my office, which was shocking because she was usually gone at 5:59 on the dot.
“Do you want to go out for drinks?” she asks.
“I do actually, however drinks are on me. I want to make up for this morning.”
She laughed and remarked, “Great! I know a spot downtown. We can take the train there, just us girls.”Just us girls. That sounded very peaceful.I snapped back to reality, and she was grabbing her coat before I could say another word.
The train ride downtown was easy, quite comfortable actually. Destiny spilled the tea the whole ride the way she normally does, about the Fall lineup, Fashion Week stress, and complaints about her new neighbors’ dogs that keep her up all night long. You know, normal, yet comfortable things. I laughed at the right moments and watched the city fly past the window. I thought to myselfmaybe I had been too hard on people. Maybe it’s not a bad idea after all to let my guard down and let new people in.
The bar was dim and warm when we walked in, with all low lighting, dark wood and the kind of music that hums just below conversation. Everyone wearing black to match the aesthetic of the bar made my bright red skirt stand out in the crowd. I noticed Destiny scanned the room and her face broke into a wide grin.
“Oh, perfect, he made it” she pretty much thought to herself.
I followed her eyes to a table where a tall man with broad shoulders and a low top fade sat, watching us with dark, patient eyes. I had never seen this man before. I nudged her and whisper ed, “What happened to just us girls?”
“It was last minute.” She blushed as she’s already hugging him and waving me off. “Babe this is my boss, Kalilah; Kalilah, this is my boyfriend, Andre.”
Andre smiled. But his smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Nice to finally meet you.” He says with an underlying tone as if he already knows everything about me. I felt this random pain in my gut as he said it.
I told myself it was nothing, slid into the chair across from Destiny and ordered a cocktail, but I started to feel anxious. I just told myself that it was from me usually having my guard up around new people. I was always so guarded, at least everyone else said so. However, for once in my life, I decided to ignore that feeling and enjoy myself.
Boy, was I wrong for doing that!
Andre was not what I expected from Destiny’s boyfriend at all. She’s very expressive, outgoing, and filled every room she walks in with sunshine, and he was the total opposite. Very reserved, observant and measured. The kind of still that made you aware of your own noise.
He bought the first round without even asking what we wanted. Luckily for me, it was tequila. I told myself it was a generous act and not to think too much into it.
Destiny kept us entertained throughout the night with her endless conversation, per usual. Fashion Week, a story about two models coming in for their fitting 2 hours late, and many other stories that I barely listened to. I interacted when it made sense to, sipped on my drink, and then very slowly started to relax my nerves.
My phone buzzed against the table. Christopher. I flipped my phone face down.
Not tonight.
The bar thinned out past midnight, and Destiny looked as if she noticed this detail for the first time.
“We should keep this going.” She said as she grabbed her coat. “Andre’s apartment is actually really close by. We can smoke, have another drink, and truly relax without all the noise.”
One more drink is the deal I had made with myself.
I picked up my phone and noticed the twelve missed calls and several messages from Christopher. I thought about the argument waiting for me like a cold meal sitting out on the counter. Christopher’s jaw tight, careful words, and that particular silence that was somehow louder than the fight itself.
“One more drink, then I need to go home.” I said to her as we headed towards the door to leave.
Andre veered up at me like he knew how this night was going to end, smiled and gestured for me to walk ahead of him. I walked through the door and follow behind Destiny to his car.
Andre’s car was a blacked out 2020 Audi A4 parked a block away from the bar. Clean and expensive. Let you know what type of person he was. Destiny naturally climbs in the passenger seat leaving me sitting alone in the back of the car. Andre happened to catch me staring at him through the rearview as he started the engine, I had to look away.
The neighborhood he lived in was quiet in the way that expensive neighborhoods are. It appeared deliberate, almost staged. His house itself was impressive, with all clean lines and warm lighting bleeding through the windows.
“This is niceeee!” I said, because it was.
“Thanks.” Andre smirked as he unlocked the front door without looking in my direction.
He gave me a tour: a hallway bathroom just inside the entrance, then his den, set up like a professional sound engineering studio with keyboards, monitors, and acoustic panels lining the walls. A toddler’s bedroom had a nightlight still glowing. The kitchen was shown last, and we sat at the grey marble island in the center. This was the kind of kitchen that was never actually cooked in.
Andre lined up three shot glasses without asking and poured whiskey while Destiny pulled a pre-rolled joint out of her purse. Music began to play out of nowhere and progressively got louder for being the time of hour it was.
I picked up the shot glass and threw it back with no problem however my face immediately did something involuntary.
“This tastes weird,” I said, setting the glass down. “Like, off. Is this a special kind of whiskey?”
Silence.
Not long, a half second, maybe less, But Destiny went completely still in a way that had nothing to do with thinking about the answer. Her eyes didn’t move to Andre and she didn’t laugh; she just froze like a screen on a single frame.
She then blinked, picked up her glass and said, “Its cheap whiskey. You’ve been drinking martinis all night, so your palette is just thrown off.”
I told myself she was right then brushed it off.
We sat at the island and passed the joint while talking about a project deadline we had approaching. I started to feel myself unwind in a way that was somewhat relaxing yet like I was losing my grip on reality. The music kept getting louder and my thoughts started arriving slower than usual.
“Can one of you take me back to my car?” I said, with my own voice sounding far away.
Andre looked at me with something behind his eyes that wasn’t quite a smile.
“There are beds upstairs,” he said. “You don’t have to drive like that.”
Destiny said absolutely nothing. I made mental note of this to address later. I go to pick up my purse and then turned back to them both.
“Bathroom.” I said. “Down the hall?”
“First door on the right.” He replied.
I walked as normal as possible, closed the door and locked it behind me. I pulled out my phone with fingers were not working in the way that I need them to be and stared at my screen.
One percent.
Great I moaned as I call Christopher anyways. It went straight to voicemail. I opened my mouth to say something, anything for help, but realized I didn’t even know where I was to begin with. All I knew is that the room was starting to tilt and there were black spots gathering at the edges of my vision as if the darkness was creeping in at night.
I was crying before I had even realized it. Silent, the way you cry when you’re trying not to be heard. Then, Destiney’s voice came through the door. Sweet, gentle, wrapped in fake concern like a knife in silk.
“Kalilah? Are you okay in there, boo? Do you need anything?”
I squeezed my eyes shut.I don’t want to diewas the last thought that was fully mine before I became face to face with the floor.
When I woke up, I was unsure how much time had passed or where I exactly was. The light was different, grey and early, as dawn started pressing through the window above me. My arms ached first, then everything else caught up at once. My hands were bound above my head and my feet chained to the floor.
I screamed until my throat felt raw, but the sound ricocheted off the walls I could barely see in the darkness. Somewhere, below me, music was still playing, loud enough to swallow everything. Shapes moved in the darkness around me, but as to how many I couldn’t tell because the room was too dark and my eyes wouldn’t focus well enough for me to decipher a face as the shadows kept shifting.
I was not alone; That was all I knew and that was enough.
I can’t explain what happened next except to say that my mind loved me more than my circumstances did because it took me somewhere else. It took me home and then somehow, I was free…
The chain was gone. The room was gone. I was running and the air was cold and real against my face. My legs were moving the way they were supposed to and I thought to myself,I’m out. I made it out.
The street looked like home, not like Andre’s neighborhood with its deliberate quiet and staged perfection. This was my city: yellow cabs, corner bodegas, and the particular smell of New York at 3am that I had always complained about but never actually minded. My heels hit the pavement, and I ran as nobody tried to stop me, so I thoughtkeep going, don’t stop running at all.
My blouse was white. I looked down at it and for just a second, I had this nagging thought, ‘I wasn’t wearing white tonight, butthen a cab blurred past and I kept running and the thought disappeared before I could hold on to it.
I turned a corner, and there was our building, The light on the third-floor window, was still on, the way Christopher always left it when he was up waiting for me even when he said he wouldn’t. Something in my chest cracked open at the sight of it.
I took the stairs two at a time. The door was unlocked as I twisted the knob. He was sitting on the couch in the grey sweatshirt he always wore when he couldn't sleep, phone in his hand. When he looked up and saw me, his face did something I had never seen it do before, like every wall he had come down at the exact same moment.
"Kalilah…"
"I know," I said. "I know. I'm sorry. I should have come home."
He crossed the room before I finished the sentence and I felt his arms come around me, I closed my eyes and pressed my face into his chest and thought this is it, this is the only place I ever needed to be, why did I ever leave…
"You're so cold," he said into my hair.
"I'm okay," I told him.
He pulled back to look at me, and something shifted in his face. A small thing. His eyes moving over me the way you look at someone when something wasn't adding up.
"Kalilah your hands…"
I looked down.
My wrists were wrong. Red and raw, the skin broken in a ring around each one, I hadn't felt pain until I saw then, and now I couldn't un-feel it since the pain arrived all at once like a door slamming open.
"I'm fine," I said quickly. "I'm fine it's nothing—"
"Baby what happened to you—"
The light in the apartment flickered.
Just once. Just for a second, but in that second, the room felt different, smaller somehow. The walls appeared closer, the air thicker and Christopher's voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away even though he was right in front of me.
No, I thought. Stay here. Stay here with him.
"Christopher." I reached for his face, and my hands went through him like smoke and I couldn't — I couldn't make them feel him.
The apartment flickered again.
Suddenly, I was running. Still running through the street again, but something was wrong with it now: The bodega on the corner now had no door. The cab that passed had no driver. The light in our window was on, but when I looked up at the building the numbers above the entrance weren't right, weren't anything, just distorted shapes that my mind kept trying to turn into something familiar.
Get up, I told myself. Christopher is waiting. Get up and go home.
But my legs were slowing the way they do in dreams when the thing chasing you gets closer and your body stops cooperating and no matter how hard you push, you're barely moving—
His voice again. From somewhere.
"Please call me back."
Not in front of me. Not in the apartment. A voicemail from my own phone in a locked bathroom at one percent battery. The floor already coming up,
No.I tried to hold the street. Tried to hold the building, the window, the light. I pressed my eyes shut inside the fantasy and just tried to keep the picture of his face, the grey sweatshirt, the way he'd looked when he saw me walk through the door, that thing that had happened to his face.
The street went quiet. The city stopped. And in the silence, for just one moment, I was back in my body. The real one. The dark room. The chains. The shapes moving in the dark, around me that I still couldn't count, couldn't name, couldn't stop them from feeling on me.I don't want to die, I thought. It was the same thought I'd had on that bathroom floor; the only thought that had followed me through all of it. But that thought had no legs anymore. The light in the window stayed on. I held onto that until I couldn’t.
