After Eight Years, She Left Me at the Altar for Her First Love novel · Chapter 2 of 48

Chapter 2: Next Door

Troy moves into his small apartment, throws a loan shark through a wall, and lets a battered neighbor move in, though he never told her his name.

Troy left the Wainright house with two suitcases.

Twelve years of living there, and everything he owned fit in the trunk of a cab.

He rode out to the suburbs and let himself into the apartment he had bought with his own pay.

It was six hundred square feet, with a window over a parking lot.

It was the only thing in the world that was his.

Celia had told him more than once to sell it.

He was glad now that he had said no.

Nobody had lived in it for months, so he spent the afternoon cleaning off the dust.

At five he carried a bag of trash toward the door.

Next door, something heavy hit a wall.

A man shouted, and the neighbor's door banged open so hard it bounced off the frame.

A young woman came flying out of it and landed at Troy's feet.

Her hair hid her face.

Her arms were bruised from wrist to elbow.

Troy put down the bag and crouched.

"Are you all right?"

"Who the hell are you?" a voice growled. "Get out of this."

Four men filled the doorway behind her.

They were big, with thick necks and dead eyes, and the one in front was clearly in charge.

The woman shook.

"Please," she whispered. "I don't have anything left. They took it all."

Troy stood up and moved so she was behind him.

"Four of you on one girl," he said. "Whatever she owes, that isn't how you collect it."

The leader looked him over and laughed.

"Her father borrowed from us to gamble, and he never paid. He put her name on the paper. You want to cover it, tough guy?"

Troy said nothing.

He had nothing to cover it with.

"We gave you three days," the leader said to the girl. "Time's up. If there's no money, you work it off."

He nodded at the others.

Two of them stepped forward and reached for her.

Troy caught the nearest man's wrist.

He turned his hip and pulled.

He expected a stumble.

The man left the floor.

He went over Troy's shoulder, across the hall, and into the wall.

The plaster cracked.

A dent as wide as his shoulders opened in the wall, and the man slid down it screaming.

Nobody moved.

Troy looked at his hands.

They felt exactly the same as always.

For ten years the family doctor had given him a shot every March.

It left him tired and weak, and he had never questioned it.

This March he had put it off because of the wedding.

The leader's mouth had fallen open, and then he shut it.

"Get him up," he told the others. "Now."

They dragged their friend down the stairwell, and the leader backed after them, pointing at Troy.

"Next time we see you, you won't walk away from it."

Their steps faded down the stairs.

The woman stayed on the floor a moment.

Then she pushed her hair behind her ear, and Troy saw her face.

She was young, maybe twenty-three, with clear brown eyes and long lashes and a cut on her lip.

Her eyes went to the dent first.

Then she looked up at him and her whole face softened.

"Thank you," she said. "Nobody has ever stepped in for me before."

Troy looked away first.

"Do you want me to call the police?"

"No!" She grabbed his sleeve. "Please. They'd just come back worse."

He let her talk.

Her name was Molly Aubrey.

Her father owed money all over town, and he had put her up as collateral on the loan.

She had lost her job last week, and the men had cleared out her wallet this afternoon.

She could not make the rent.

"I know it's too much to ask," Molly said. "I wouldn't, if I had anyone."

Troy thought about his own bank balance.

The wedding had taken every dollar he'd saved.

His last paycheck from Wainright Corporation had not come, and he doubted it would.

All he had was this apartment.

He looked at her arms again, bruised and thin, and thought of a boy in an orphanage who had once been held down by the bigger children.

"I have one bedroom," he said. "You can take it. I'll sleep on the couch."

"Really?"

"Until you find a job. Then you find a place of your own."

"Deal!" She put out her hand, and he shook it.

"I'll pay you rent as soon as I can. Every cent. You'll see."

"We'll talk about that later."

"Thank you, Troy!" She laughed, close to tears. "I'll go pack right now!"

She ran back into her apartment.

Troy stood in the hallway, the corners of his mouth lifting for the first time in a day.

Then the smile stopped.

He had never told her his name.

He turned it over once.

Then he looked at the dent in the wall, and at his own right hand, and slowly he made a fist.

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