It’d been over an hour since the line between Bianca and Gio went dead. She tried to convince herself that he hadn’t hung up on her. There had to be a reasonable explanation for why they’d been cut off and he was now not answering any of her calls or returning her texts. Even with the pictures, he couldn’t possibly believe the stories about her and Felix being back together.
Toni had called her about a half hour after her call with Gio to warn her about the new stories. The new photos of her and Felix coupled with the stories the media was circulating were pretty damning. She suggested Bianca give Gio a head’s up. The media sure had a way of making even the most innocent of photos seem like some kind of deep moment between them.
The more time that passed without her hearing from Gio, the more anxious she felt that he might actually be buying into the hype. He couldn’t possibly, could he? But it was late already. They usually talked in the evening until bedtime.
The television was on low as she walked into Nana’s house. Having to be sneaky just to run her errands after she got off work tonight had made her get home later than usual.
Everyone was home now, including their neighbor Jerry, a widowed man her mother’s age that often came over to have coffee and chat with them. They were all in the front room as she walked in through the kitchen door from the driveway.
Her mother was the first one to turn to her, the expression on her face alone was alarming. “What is it?”
“You haven’t heard?” Nana asked, picking up the remote.
“Heard what?”
“I’ll rewind it. It’s been on the news for the past hour.”
Bianca began to roll her eyes. The pictures—the rumors—she was so sick of it all. Her mother and Nana couldn’t be falling for this too, could they?
She took a few steps through the dining room. They all sat, staring at the television as Nana rewound it. All set to hear more about her and Felix’s “publicity stunt,” Bianca crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame that separated the dining room from the spacious front room.
Nana stood and started toward Bianca as she hit play. The reporter’s first sentence sent a heart stopping chill down Bianca’s spine, rendering her literally unable to breathe.
“We are live on the scene where an explosion at the 5th Street gym in East Los Angeles has left one dead and several critically injured. It is unclear what caused the explosion, but authorities believe it may have been a gas leak. The name of the deceased is being withheld at this time pending notification of next of kin.
“According to witnesses, the explosion took place just after eight this evening when most members are usually gone, but we have no confirmation yet if the deceased or the injured were employees or members of the club. The fire that destroyed more than seventy percent of the old building is now completely out, but the investigation will continue into the night.”
“Bianca,” Nana’s words came through a tunnel. “Bianca, breathe.”
Gio hadn’t responded to her calls or texts because he couldn’t. “He’s dead?”
Nana caught Bianca before she went down. “Bianca!”
Somehow Bianca managed to latch her arms around her grandmother’s shoulders. Her mother and Jerry were already by her side, helping her grandmother get her onto a chair. “Honey, they don’t know anything. He could just be one of the injured. You haven’t talked to him at all?”
“No!” The reporter had said an hour ago. That’s how long it had been since she’d last talked to him. When the phone went dead, that’s when it must’ve … “Oh my God!”
She tried standing, wanting to bolt out of the room and drive to LA, but they held her down. “Bianca, you’re hysterical! Sit down, sweetie. Calm yourself!”
They managed to keep her there, but each passing minute was torture. Nana tried giving her a pill to calm her, but Bianca refused. She didn’t want anything blurring her state of mind. She needed it clear in case she managed to escape out of there and drive to Gio’s side.
After watching more of the news broadcast, which didn’t seem to have anything new to report other than more small details of the possible cause and more witnesses giving their accounts of the event, Bianca finally gave in and called Felix.
“Do you know anything?” she cried into the phone. “Is Gio dead?”
Just saying it made it hard for her to breathe. Her mother stood next to her, stroking her hair and back.
“No, but he was one of the ones rushed to the hospital. That’s all I know about him. I’m getting ready to leave now. I’m flying down. Jack ...” He paused and Bianca heard him take a trembling breath. “Jack didn’t make it.”
The intense relief of hearing Gio was alive was replaced with bone-numbing sorrow: sorrow for Felix—sorrow for Gio—for all of them. Jack was their father, and what Bianca had done to Felix and Gio struck her like lightning now. She hadn’t just come between two friends. These two were like brothers. “I’m so sorry,” her words were barely audible as the invisible fist that squeezed her windpipe didn’t allow for more.
He didn’t speak for a few moments, but she heard his trembling breaths. He was crying. And more than likely he was all alone—alone in his huge cabin. Bianca wanted nothing more at that moment than to be there to comfort him.
“I gotta go,” he finally said, but he was clearly broken up.
Bianca knew it was too much to ask—a blatantly shameful request given the circumstances. But even now like all the times she’d been helpless to fight her feelings for Gio, she couldn’t hold back. She’d beg if she had to. “Take me with you,” she whispered. “Please.”
To her surprise, his response was immediate. “I’ll pick you up in a few minutes.”
The moment she was off the phone, she rushed off to her room to pack a bag, her mother and Nana right behind her. She explained to them quickly through tears about Gio and Jack. The emotions utterly consumed her. The grief of their loss was overwhelming, but at the same time Gio was injured. She didn’t want to think the worst, but if Jack had been killed, how bad were Gio’s injuries? Were they life threatening? Was it something he would bounce back from, or was it something that would alter his life forever?
And 5th Street—it was all of their livelihoods, and it had been virtually destroyed. Noah had a child on the way: a family to think of now. All these things bounced around Bianca’s frazzled mind as she signed rapidly to her worried mother that she’d be fine. She was just processing it all. She wasn’t hysterical, even though she felt the incredible urge to let out a blood curdling scream.
She ran out the front door as soon as she saw Felix’s car arrive. Bianca promised Nana and her mother she’d stay in touch and stay calm no matter what, even though she knew the latter was doubtful.
The paparazzi had followed Felix and were already snapping photos as she reached his car.
“Are you moving back in with him now?” one of the photographers yelled just as he snapped the photo of Felix’s driver taking her overnight bag from her.
“Is it true it was all for publicity?” a different one asked now. “Or did you really screw his friend to get back at him about Shelley?”
Bianca had been patient enough with these vultures, and they had said the wrong thing at absolutely the wrong time. She didn’t care anymore if they got this on camera; she was so sick of them. With her middle finger in the air, she yelled what she’d been wanting to say to them all week, “Go fuck yourselves, you bunch of blood-sucking assholes!”
Bianca actually felt a tiny bit better as she got in the car until she saw Felix’s grief stricken face. She hugged him hard, feeling the incredible anguish she’d felt when he first told her about Jack all over again as he cried unabashedly against her shoulder.
~*~
Gio stared at the news reports numbly, switching from one channel to another as they went to commercial, ashamed to admit the stories and images of Felix and Bianca hurt just as much as the coverage of the fire.
His second home, 5th Street, had been destroyed. Jack was gone, and Gio still had room to mourn for Bianca. He watched the latest reports that showed her getting into Felix’s car with her luggage and flipping off the photographers. They were now said to be on their way here—together.
Gio had never felt so stupid in his life. He’d hardly said two words since he came to over an hour ago, and the doctors advised him that the pain he was feeling was from his body being slammed against the wall. He’d been bruised and scraped up pretty bad from all the flying debris, but otherwise the worst injury he’d suffered was a concussion. They didn’t think it was too bad, but they did warn the pain would probably worsen in the coming days when the whiplash and soreness really set in.
Even that had him thinking of Bianca. Memories flashed of the day they’d gone snowboarding for the first time and the days after when he’d barely been able to walk, but it had been worth every single ache.
Then they let Noah and Abel in. Both looked wretched and he knew something was very wrong. When they told him Jack hadn’t made it, he’d gone mute. Not even his mom or sisters could get him to talk until he said the only thing to them he’d said at all: “Can I be alone?”
The only other thing he’d been sure to say after flipping through the channels on the television for nearly an hour was to Noah. “Whatever you do. Do not let Bianca in my room. I don’t even wanna see her.”
He knew it was stupid to continue to obsess over the reports on TV, but even when Trinidad died, it was the only thing that numbed him. Staring at the television put him almost in a trance. After a while, he wasn’t even listening anymore, just staring and watching the images: images of the charred remains of 5th Street; then images of Felix and Bianca laughing and hugging—getting in his car together; and now the latest of the two of them arriving at LAX hand in hand, rushing past the paparazzi to his car.
He switched the channel again and froze. The most painful image he’d seen all night was on the screen: Jack’s smiling face with his birth date and today’s date across the bottom of the image. They’d just released the name and photo of the person who’d died in the fire, and the agonizing reality really hit home. Jarring memories of his own father’s death assaulted him and his body shook violently.
Dropping the remote, he brought his hands to his face and let the massive buildup of sorrow out, crying like he hadn’t cried since he was a kid—since his father’s death.
~*~
Even knowing her last conversation with Gio had ended the way it had and Toni warning her that the stories were damning, nothing could’ve prepared Bianca for the cold reception she received at the hospital. Nor did it prepare her for what Noah informed her almost as soon as she arrived.
All eyes were on them as they rushed into the waiting room. Noah quickly met them near the entrance.
After hugging Felix tightly and explaining what he knew about the gas leak, he turned to Bianca. Felix walked away to talk to Abel. Noah’s eyes were red and swollen from all the crying he’d obviously been doing. They also held a mixture of determination and sympathy.
“Gio’s okay,” he said immediately, giving her what she needed to hear to keep herself from breaking down too.
On her way there, she’d held it together for Felix’s sake. He was so inconsolable. “When can I see him?”
“You can’t.”
That panicked her. “Why? You said he’s okay. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No.” He shook his head. “He has a concussion, but the docs say he’s gonna be all right. He just …” He took a deep breath and glanced away.
“He just what?” Bianca’s heart couldn’t take anymore. “What is it?”
“It’s not a good time right now. C’mere.” He placed a gentle hand on her arm and walked her further away from where everyone else was crowded in the small waiting room and lowered his voice. “He’s real upset about Jack. We all are. He just suffered a concussion, and, well, that may cause him to be even more upset than the norm. He’s hardly spoken since he came to and we told him about Jack.” He turned around and glanced at where Felix stood with Abel. “This is isn’t the time or place for this. Gio is gonna need time. It’s none of my business what’s going on with you two, but whatever it is, I’m asking, as a favor to me and the rest of everyone who’s grieving, respect Gio’s wishes for now.”
“His wishes? What wishes?”
“He doesn’t want to see you right now.” Noah said firmly. “The last thing we need right now is any emotional outbursts or arguments. He’s real broken up right now about everything. This next week is gonna be real rough for everyone. Maybe you should just hold off until after all the services to try and talk to him.”
He doesn’t want to see you right now.
The words stung like nothing Bianca had ever felt in her life. He actually believed it: all the bullshit they were saying on television, the stupid pictures. She didn’t care how damning they were. She could not believe he’d bought into it—believed them without so much as giving her a chance to explain.
Barely able to see through the tears, Bianca’s breathing began to accelerate. She glanced back, taking in the desolate crowd. Even Roni kept dabbing tears away. It took everything she had to hold it together, because Noah was absolutely right. This was not the time or place for it.
“Can you tell me which direction the restrooms are?”
Clearly relieved that she didn’t push, he walked her out into the hallway and pointed. Bianca rushed away without another word. She barely made it into the restroom, glad that it was a single restroom because she burst out crying as soon as she closed the door behind her.
Waves of painfully anguished sobs came again and again: Everything she was forced to hold in when her grandmother and mother begged her to calm down. The entire trip down when she refused to add to Felix’s grief by letting out her own incredible fear that Gio could be seriously injured. Then the slap in the face that Gio didn’t want to see her. It all came out now as she curled up in the corner of the cold little room and cried until she thought she couldn’t cry anymore.