Fighting For Life

by Kylie Alyssa Forte

  “I would assume so. I mean, we’re plenty away from the bad part of town.” I shrugged. “She didn’t even hesitate to do it. I’d assume that she does that a lot.”

  Brandon nodded in agreement. “Did you see all of those bruises?” he asked after a minute.

  I nodded in response.

  “Someone messed her up,” he stated. “Who do you think did that to her?”

  “I don’t know, she didn’t say anything to me.” I shook my head. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything that bad.” I sighed, trying to remember.

  “Except . . .” I stopped talking abruptly.

  Brandon gave me a sympathetic look, he remembered too.

  “I wonder what your mom made for dinner?” he asked, changing the subject quickly.

  I was grateful for that distraction. Still, I just couldn’t get the thought of someone hurting Aubry out of my mind. It made me sick to my stomach just thinking about it.

  Chapter Seven

  Truth

  Aubry

  I was kicking myself for being so ridiculous. Brandon was just trying to be funny, yet I had to ruin it by freaking out. I needed to get myself under control. My anxiety was getting the best of me, and my panic attacks were doing nothing to help me at all. Eventually, they’d give me away if I kept it up the way I was going.

  I was still shaking from the anxiety as I turned down Main Street. It was a Tuesday night, so it wasn’t very busy at all downtown. I trekked down the street slowly as I took in the scenes around me. Most of the shops were closed, hardly any cars were in the streets, and I was the only one walking in the town square. I made my way to the very center of town; the old historic courthouse was positioned there quaintly.

  I spotted one of the city-provided benches that were scattered around the historic landmark. I collapsed down ungracefully into the seat, feeling like I couldn’t take any more steps. It was mid-November, and the chilliness was seeping through my thin hoodie. It wasn’t too bad yet, but I knew that it was coming . . . winter always would.

  I watched the leaves fall in the autumn breeze and found myself sagging down in exhaustion. My body was on fire, and I let out a whimper as I laid myself down across the bench. I was tired, hurt, and hungry. What else could go wrong?

  As if on cue, thunder roared in the sky before I laughed audibly. It was as if I was at the butt to all of God’s cruel jokes. I couldn’t be too mad though, I really probably deserved it. This was just karma coming back to me.

  I closed my eyes and drifted off into a half sleep. I was awake enough to still be aware of what was going on around me, but asleep enough for it to almost count as sleep. Not to mention, the beginning of the cold sprinkles of rain started not too long after I finally got comfortable enough to rest, so that surely kept me slightly awake.

  I was unaware of how long I stayed like that before I heard footsteps approaching me from behind. My eyes shot open quickly.

  “Mmm, little girl, you look almost good enough to eat,” the man said, trying to grab me. I forced myself up and got myself out of his drunken reach quickly.

  “Oh come on, don’t be like that, little one,” he slurred. “I can give you a place to stay . . .” he bribed. He squinted at me for a moment and looked at me intensely.

  “Jenny?” he asked with his head tilted.

  “My mother,” I answered for him before he thought that I was my mother and tried something on me.

  “You’re Jenny and Frank’s little girl?”

  I just gave him a leery look. He looked familiar, and that was not a good sign.

  “You’re the one that Sunny is always talking about, aren’t you?”

  “That’s probably my sister you’re speaking about, not me.” I tried to say to get me out of his head.

  “No, no. Frank was always the one goin’ on about Kelsey, the good one. Sunny, however, always talked about the little one . . . about how you were the fighter. The one that was thrilling and unpredictable.” He grinned sinisterly at me and started to come forward, reaching out for me. “I can’t wait to find out what he means.”

  I panicked. I wasn’t sure what to do, so lying through my teeth seemed to be the only thing that I could come up with. “You know if you touch me, Demetri will send men after you and kill you.”

  “Y-You’re lying,” he stuttered, his wicked smile faltering.

  “I’ve been protected by Demetri for years. He won’t hesitate to blow your brains out for just thinking of messing with one of his wards.”

  His mouth dropped open, and he backed away from me while shaking. “S-Sorry!”

  “If I ever see you coming at anyone in this way ever again, I’ll surely tell Demetri about this. Got it?” I said in a threatening tone.

  He nodded silently.

  I quickly took off away from him. I was glad he bought my story. I was in no shape to take him on or run away from a drunken pervert.

  I walked around aimlessly. The rain had picked up as I walked and pelted me with cold water. A bank sign flashed 3:30 AM, and I groaned aloud. I just wanted some sleep. I wanted some rest. I honestly would have been fine with death at that point, if that meant that I could have some uninterrupted sleep!

  I found myself staring at the big warehouse-like building after a while. I hadn’t meant to go there, but I knew that I was eventually going to have to end up there before 5:30 anyways. So what if I was a couple hours early? At least I wasn’t late.

  I leisurely strolled up to the door and sat down on the concrete right in front of it. I stayed hunched up in a small ball, much to my ribs’s dismay, because of the cold rain that was continuously pelting me. It was like ice on my skin. Why couldn’t there at least have been a small cover above the door?

  I breathed out deeply as I sat there and tried not to think about my life too hard. I tried not to let myself get sucked in too deeply into my dark thoughts, but that was hard to do considering the situation that I was in . . .

  I was in so much pain . . . emotionally, mentally, and especially physically.

  My sides and back were so injured that I couldn’t even breathe without some sort of extreme pain radiating through them. I couldn’t do the one simple thing I needed to do to just exist without wanting to cry constantly.

  I let out a whimpered sob as I moaned in pain and glaringly painfully lowered myself into a fetal position on the pavement underneath me. I laid there pitifully as I cried to myself.

  I hated everything . . . I hated the town that I had grown up in. I hated the weather that God apparently loved to mock me with. I hated the pain that I had brought upon myself. I hated my life . . . every single bit of it.

  Why had I even begged Demetri to spare me? If I hadn’t argued or made him feel bad for me, then I wouldn’t have had to deal with the painful existence that I was left with.

  I would have been at peace, finally at peace.

  I laid there, throwing myself a pity party in the rain while trying to get some sort of sleep for what seemed like days.

  That’s when I finally heard a car door slam shut. I didn’t even bother looking up when I heard it. I honestly didn’t even care who it was coming up. I had even hoped that it was death to take me away. Instead, I heard familiar voices carrying over to me as they came closer to the door.

  I finally let myself sit up when they were close enough for me to clearly understand the conversation that they were having. I had to hold in my breath to avoid screaming out in pain as I moved. My sides were getting worse and worse as time went on, right along with the thoughts in my head.

  “How long have you been here?” Aiden asked as he unlocked the door behind me.

  He reached his hand down to help me up, but the door fell open behind from behind. I found myself laid out in the doorway, trying not to move as the pain raced through my body from my sudden jerky movements.

  “Aubry? Are you okay? Sorry, the latch is broken,” Brandon said as he held the door open, so it didn’t close on me.

  I sigh
ed and mustered all of my strength to get up. I stood up and breathed out little puffs of breath as both boys looked at me, though they could barely see me due to the darkness of the unlit gym and the still-dark sky.

  “Oh um . . . not long,” I lied, finally answering Aiden’s question as Brandon shut the door to the gym.

  The dark engulfed us all as the lights were off in the gym. Aiden reached over and flipped the lights on. The lights hurt my eyes, and I closed them, but I heard both boys inhale deeply as I could feel their eyes on me. I knew I must have looked messed up from my awful night.

  I reopened my eyes and looked at Aiden who was staring at me. He raised an eyebrow at me and shook his head.

  “Right, not long,” he said in disbelief and walked away from me.

  ***

  Aiden

  “Oh um . . . not long,” her soft voice finally answered my question as she ignored Brandon altogether.

  I flipped on the lights to the gym and saw Aubry clearly for the first time that morning.

  And I thought that she looked messed up the day before.

  This morning, the bruises on her face were on full display. The way her whole face was bruised, cut, contorted, and swollen made me so angry and sick. On top of her injuries, her hair was wet and stringy from the rain, her clothes were soaked and disheveled, and her eyes were red and puffy, making her two black eyes look even worse. She definitely had been in the rain for a long while, and there was no way that she hadn’t been waiting there for ‘not long’ as she had said. She was certainly lying.

  “Right, not long,” I said sarcastically and walked away to put my things down.

  I gestured for her to follow me when she had not done it automatically like I had assumed she would.

  “So, there’s a locker room right through here,” I said, leading the way. I gestured to her new locker. “This one will be yours.” I showed her how to open it quickly.

  She nodded and stuck her bag in there, grabbing some dry clothes out of it before closing it.

  “The bathroom is right over here.” I ushered her over to the door. “There’s the showers over there. The toilets are over there.” She nodded as she followed me further into the clean bathrooms. “It’s all unisex. I don’t think we’ve had any incidents, all the members here are pretty cool and keep to themselves. However, if anyone ever even tries something unprofessional or harasses you in any way, let me know.” I took a pause, trying to convey my sincerity. I didn’t want a single member of our gym to feel unsafe or uncomfortable. If there was any funny business going on, then I wanted to know about it immediately to take care of it.

  “Alright, go get changed and we’ll begin.”

  She changed quickly and came back out in a black tank top and grey sweatpants. She was so small, and the more form fitting top showed off how scrawny she really was. I was unsure of how well she would do with some of the particularly strong men that fought in the pool.

  “Alright . . . so, usually in the mornings we stick to strictly strength and cardio training only. However, today I want to do a bit of what we were working on yesterday to make sure that you are truly getting it down.”

  She nodded in understanding and followed me to the same practice dummy that we were working with the day before. I had expected to have to explain and go over it again to her, but thankfully, much to my surprise, she put out a swift punch to the dummy, and her form was almost all correct. I helped her a little bit as time went on and positioned her to get more strength with her small stature.

  She was catching on better than I had ever seen anyone catch on before. She was swift, calm, focused, and determined. Even though she was so tiny, her punch was becoming more and more powerful with each new hit.

  It was pretty incredible how much progress she had made from the night before. Her punch would even hurt me by the end of the first part of training that morning, which was quite a feat for someone who had such an awful punch just the day before.

  “Okay, I think that is enough for now. You have made incredible progress,” I praised. She smiled proudly at the compliment.

  “It is time for strength training.” I said and led her to the weights. “This is important to give you more power throughout your punches and kicks. You are very small, so your strength will be quite important because people will most likely try to overpower you as you fight. We’ll do incline press first.”

  I walked over to the incline press bench and sat on it. Brandon was on the free weights, staring at us intently. I could see that he was impressed by her too. Even with all her injuries, she was progressing extremely quickly. I just assumed that her injuries weren’t as bad as they had seemed.

  “Okay, I’ll go first and show you exactly what to do, then you can go after me,” I stated while putting the weights on the bar. I explained how to spot me and talked her through each press as I did them. I explained what to do and exactly what muscles it was helping as I did it.

  “Your turn,” I told her after I was done. Her eyes went wide with nervousness, but she didn’t say a word. She sat down with her back to me and Brandon, but I could see that she was on edge. “We’ll start you off with the bar, forty-five pounds.”

  She lifted her hands above her head and took a harsh breath in with a soft grunt. Her hands were shaking when she touched the bar.

  “Aubry, calm down . . . It’s not that hard,” I reassured her.

  With my help, she lifted the bar off of the resting plates. I let it go, and she let it drop quickly towards her lap. We both stopped it before it hit her. She let out a groan.

  “You have to breathe and stay in control, okay? You have to control your muscles, don’t let it drop,” I told her as I couldn’t see her face.

  She nodded wordlessly and tried again.

  Once again, I helped her lift it off the resting plates. That time, she let out a really long breath as she picked up the bar. She took a sharp intake of breath and tried to bring the bar down slow. However, halfway through the descent, I had to catch it before it hit her.

  How could someone not pick up forty-five pounds?! That’s not even that heavy! It seemed like she wasn’t even trying.

  I was overly frustrated with her as I made my way around the bench to yell at her for not even trying. What I was faced with was something that I had not expected though. She looked up at me with a red face and silent tears flowing down her cheeks. She wasn’t even breathing as she looked around panicked.

  “W-What’s wrong?” I asked, instantly forgetting the frustration that I had at her.

  “M-My . . .” Was all she could gasp out through the pain. She pointed to her side as a sob wracked through her, making her wince even more painfully.

  I gently picked her up as carefully as I could, even as more tears flowed down her cheeks.

  I took her into the training room where we had the medical supplies set up, along with a lot of other athletic trainer’s supplies. I sat her down on a medical chair in the room and kneeled down to her height.

  “Aubry, you have to breathe. I know. I understand that it hurts, but you need to breathe,” I coached her gently.

  She nodded slightly and let out her pent-up breath, along with a loud agonizing groan as she collapsed further into the chair. She panted as she winced in pain while she breathed.

  “Okay . . . Can I remove your shirt? I need to take your shirt off to see what’s going on.”

  She nodded slightly and tried to help me a little as I took off her tank top. I was immediately sickened by the sight of all her grotesque bruises that were hidden underneath her sports bra, only for them to appear from underneath the fabric on her upper back as well. They were spread from her abdomen, across her sides, and all over her back. Her whole back was like one big black, blue, and purple painting of severe pain.

  I was unaware of how she was even standing, much less, doing the things that she had been doing. How was she even been walking? How was she been punching? That was a serious mystery.

 
; I looked up at the door and saw Brandon staring at her messed-up back in horror.

  “Brandon, I need you to go get some ice, please?” I asked, trying to keep everyone calm, especially Aubry as she was sitting in the chair heaving breaths very painfully.

  “Is it okay if I touch them? I’ll be careful and gentle . . . I just want to see if I can feel any damage to the bones.”

  She nodded slightly, but I could see the fear on her face. She didn’t move; she only watched me with wide eyes as I slowly drifted my hands across her ribs. I knew that even my softest touch was hurting her. I knew for sure that at least a few were broken on both sides of her body. I couldn’t tell her any more than that since I wasn’t a doctor.

  Brandon returned with ice and still just stared at her skin with a look of utter disbelief. Whatever happened to her was horrid. I wanted to kill the person who hurt her. No one deserved that kind of pain.

  “I’m going to lay the chair down so you can lay flat. Hopefully, that will help alleviate some of the pressure. We’re also going to put some ice bags on them, one on the front and one on the back.” I laid her back gently, but I knew that it hurt like hell. The girl still barely even flinched.

  “There are quite a few broken,” I stated as I looked at her, she wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Why wouldn’t you tell me you were hurting?” I finally asked exasperatedly.

  “Well . . . You said that I needed to do it. So . . . I wanted to do it,” she stated, shrugging, but she clenched her teeth at the pain that it caused her.

  I shook my head at the stupid girl. She was going to get herself even more injured if she kept it up. “Next time, tell me. You could’ve injured yourself more.”

  She nodded back at me.

  “You need to go to the doctor.” I sighed. “This is bad.”

  She looked at me like I was stupid. “Doctors ask questions . . . questions that I don’t want to answer. Plus, doctors cost money . . . money that I don’t have. Therefore, the doctor is out of the question. Unless, you have some bootleg doctor on speed dial that hands out oxy for free and specializes in people who get the shit beat out of them.”