A Mafia Thing

Chapter Four

    The memory alone made me blush. Maybe I should have felt bad, or ashamed. Leon was violent toward anyone that even looked at me wrong. I wasn’t. It was sexy back then. He protected me against the kids that made me want to give up. Against the kids that tormented me for their enjoyment. That day in the cafeteria the air around him was pure fury and danger. After he knocked Elliot out he looked around the entire room, everyone saw the promise in his eyes. It was then that everyone realized that if they messed with me, they’d have to answer to him. His eyes promised violence. Even the principal was afraid to confront him.

    “Holy s**t, that’s so hot.” Brooke was bouncing up and down next to me. Even her cheeks were pink from blushing. “So what happened? Why isn’t he around?”

    A scowl formed on my face. Of course my story couldn’t end on a happy note. No. Only loneliness and misery are allowed to follow me.

    “We dated for the next six months. Everyone left us alone. I was now untouchable and we were happy. I was happy. At the time I thought he was the love of my life. My happily ever after.” I knew it sounded dumb. I was only sixteen at the time, he was barely eighteen. We were just kids. I was stupid to think it would last. “At the end of my sophomore year I stayed late after school one day to workout. My boyfriend had to finish a report, so I was basically just hanging out until he finished. I went to the locker room after I was done to change. The gym teacher had followed me inside of the locker room.”

    The lump in my throat doubled, my tongue was suddenly so heavy.

    “I was halfway through changing before I noticed him. I stood there in my bra and panties when the creep slipped out of the shadows. I let out a blood curdling scream before he was close enough to stop me. He grabbed me by my hair and slammed me into the lockers.”

    Once.

    Twice.

    Three times.

    Warm blood trickled down the side of my head. My vision started to fade in and out. I could barely make out the words he was saying. But I could. He called me a w***e, a tease. He said I’d teased him all year in my little shorts. It was the school uniform for gym. I wasn’t any different from any of the other students. It didn’t matter, though, not to him. He said he wanted to claim me, taste me.

    My body trembled, hearing his voice in my head. I wouldn’t share those details with Brooke. She was too pure, too good. “I don’t know how my boyfriend knew to go in there, whether he heard the scream or not, but he saved me. Yet again.” Leon saved me. Always saving me, always protecting me. “He tore the gym teacher off of me and carried me to the office for help. That was the last time I saw him— the teacher, and my boyfriend.”

    “Wait, what?” Brooke’s eyebrows bunched together in confusion.

    “Yeah. The school took care of the teacher” I lied, “and my boyfriend left the school after that. He completely ghosted me, too. I found out later from the school secretary that he graduated early. But yeah, that’s it. My one silver lining abandoned me like everyone else.” Another ugly laugh trickled out of me. “People later said it was due to the trauma and stress my life put on him. His parents got him away from me as soon as they could. The latest incident was the final straw.”

    That was the story everyone got if they asked, anyway. It wasn’t the truth though, and I couldn’t tell Brooke the truth. Hell, I couldn’t tell anyone the truth. Sometimes even I struggled to believe what actually happened that day.

    I leaned back against the couch, inhaling a deep breath through my nose. I watched the scene of that day play out in my mind. Everything about the locker room had been true up until Leon entered.

    He had come down the hallway looking for me. He knew I was going to change, I texted him just before I left the gym. Leon had been just around the corner when I screamed, he said it shook the walls. When he ran into the locker room, the gym teacher was holding me by my hair with one hand, slamming my head into the lockers. His other hand was undoing his pants. Leon claimed he saw red. He grabbed the teacher and tore his hand off of me. He smashed him against the locker as hard as he could. He bent the metal locker frames with his force.

    The force alone would have been enough to stop the altercation. The teacher couldn't fight back, not after hitting the lockers that hard. Leon could have covered me up and taken me away. That’s what a normal person would have done. The teacher would have been dazed long enough for us to get to the office. But Leon wasn’t normal. Instead he rained punches down on him until he lost consciousness. At the very least that’s where it should have ended— it wasn’t. Leon picked me up and held me for a moment before he found a towel it cover my head with. There was so much blood. I remember a buzzing sound in my head— it had muffled the sound of the teacher crying in agony. I remember Leon calling someone, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. We sat in the locker room for awhile longer. Leon claimed we only waited five minutes, but it felt like hours. My body hurt so much but Leon just held me.

    Three people came into the locker room next. None of which worked for the school. Later Leon had explained that they worked for his family, that’s who he’d been on the phone with. Two of the men stayed in the locker room while Leon carried me to the nurses office, followed by another guy. The nurse was gone but it didn’t matter, turns out the guy that followed us was a doctor. I ended up needing stitches for the gashes on my head. I also had a concussion and dislocated shoulder. The doctor gave me some type of sedative. Leon held me until I fell asleep.

    I woke up in Leon’s bed, how I got there, I wasn’t sure. My head was pounding and my entire body ached everywhere. When I asked him what happened to the gym teacher Leon’s eyes grew dark. A storm of emotion flared in them before nothing but anger showed. He warned me that I would hate him once he told me, but he knew I deserved the truth. Leon said he had killed him. His voice void of emotion. An eerie calm crept over him.

    He had killed him.

    Those words rang in my ears.

    I should have been afraid. I should have run. Screamed. Thrown up. Those are the things normal people do when they hear that news. A man had lost his life at the hands of my high school boyfriend. Alarms should have been going off in my head, red flags raised. None of that happened, though.

    I started to cry. Leon froze in place. That was the first time I saw him afraid. He was so terrified that I hated him, that I would leave him. I remember him saying “I’m so sorry Samantha. I had to. I couldn’t let him hurt you. I’m so sorry.” He was apologizing to me. He thought he’d hurt me. I remember looking up at him, tears streaming down my face as I whispering “thank you”. It had been so quiet but he heard. His body instantly relaxed in front of me. He dropped to his knees and kissed my hand. I felt the tears on his face then.

    Leon had saved me. Protected me. Always. In my eyes he wasn’t a monster. He was the person that saved me from monsters. Should the teacher have died? Maybe not. A normal person would say no— I wasn’t normal. I didn’t feel sadness over his lost life. There was no regret or remorse. Maybe I’m sick, or crazy but I felt peace in that moment. Leon was a hero in my eyes. He was the good guy.

    I stayed the night with him. The next night too. It wasn’t the first time we’d had s*x but it was the first time it was as gentle and loving. Every time he slipped inside of me I was filled with love. That’s what he was giving me with every touch. All of him. He finally drove me home after being at his house for three days. My foster parents didn’t even notice I hadn’t been home, nor did they care about the bruises or the sling on my arm. I didn’t care about that. Nothing else mattered because I had Leon.

    The next day had been different, though. Normally he’d pick me up for school but he had texted earlier saying he had family stuff to deal with due to the school incident. He wouldn’t be at school that day. I shrugged it off, it made sense. He had explained to me that his family was in the mafia. Again, it should have scared me but I wasn’t afraid. It made sense to be honest. The men that showed up that day worked for his father. They helped Leon clean up the scene and erase the videos from the hallway. No one knew what happened to the gym teacher.

    The following day was Saturday and I expected to hear from Leon, but I didn’t. Sunday passed without word, too. I started to freak out when I couldn’t get ahold of him. I automatically assumed he'd been arrested. Then Monday rolled around and rumors about him being pulled out of school circulated. Someone said they saw his family move out before the weekend had started and no one had been to the house since. That had been the truth, but I didn’t find out until later.

    What I’d told Brooke about the secretary had been true. She confirmed that he graduated early. Leon was a genius. He was taking all college level courses. As far as high school credits go he could have graduated a year earlier.

    That last text message about dealing with family stuff due to the incident was the last time I’d heard from him until two years later when I graduated.