by Beck, J. L.
Spotting Kennedy in the crowd, I suppress a smile.
“Holy fuck, is that Kennedy?” Ty leans over, nudging me in the side as if I’m not already looking right at her.
“Yeah, she goes to school here.” I try not to show my disgust at him saying her name. I don’t want him to even remotely know that I care about her.
“I thought this was a fancy-ass school. How did they let someone like her in? I still can’t believe they let her go.” Ty shakes his head, and I have to fight the urge to sucker punch him for talking about her like that. Then he does something that I never expected.
“Hey, killer!” he yells as she descends the steps. She looks up, and her face becomes ashen. Her gaze bounces like a ping pong ball from Ty and back to me before she finishes descending the steps and turns around the corner.
“What the fuck?” I growl, turning to Ty.
“What?” He seems legitimately confused. I’m pissed, so fucking angry that he said something like that, and more so that I was sitting next to him while he did it.
“You can’t just go around yelling shit like that.” I sigh, frustrated with Ty and my feelings for Kennedy.
Ty’s gaze widens with shock. “Why not? I mean, you of all people should hate her the most. She got into a car drunk and killed your sister.”
“I know!” I almost scream out in frustration. I’m angry with him, with myself, the whole situation. “I fucking know what she did. But I also know that she’s been through enough. She lost Jillian too, and it’s not like she did it on purpose. Hating her isn’t going to bring her back.” Ty looks at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“Well, damn, I didn’t know you would actually forgive her for what she did. Especially considering…” He trails off, looking anywhere besides me.
“Considering what?”
“Nah, man, I shouldn’t tell you.”
“Tell me, what? Out with it, Ty.”
“Man, I probably should’ve told you this earlier, but I didn’t want to make things worse, but that night… Kennedy came on to me.”
“What?”
“Yeah, man, she begged me to fuck her, and I wouldn’t. She left so quickly because I rejected her. She wanted to be with you and thought if she used me to make you jealous, you would finally notice her.” Ty releases a laugh. “Funny, seems she got everyone’s attention.”
For one whole minute, I just sit there. I don’t even think I’m breathing. The content feeling fades away, and the darkness, the hate, it all comes flooding back to me. In an instant, my thoughts flip. It’s like being struck by lightning.
“Sorry, I didn’t tell you sooner,” Ty’s voice pierces the fog.
I can’t even speak, my jaw is clenched so hard, my hands are curled into tight fists, and the blood in my veins is itching for violence. I’m afraid if I get up right now, something bad is going to happen, and yet I can’t fucking sit here and wait.
I’m furious, she fucking played me. It wasn’t just her getting in the fucking car and driving drunk. She did it for a selfish reason, got in the car and left, unable to wait for me, probably because she didn’t want me to know that she tried to get my best friend to fuck her.
My sister died because Kennedy wanted to be a selfish fucking bitch.
Shoving off the bench, I start running in the direction Kennedy went. I’m consumed with a need to make her pay, to rip her heart from her fucking chest.
If she thought she could play me, soften me, with her little pity story about cutting, or use my emotions against me, she thought wrong.
“Jackson, wait up. Where are you going?” Ty yells behind me.
I don’t even look back as I continue walking. “To find her!”
24
Kennedy
He’s here. Why is he here? My feet can’t seem to move fast enough as I sprint down the sidewalk and through the throngs of people congesting my route of escape.
“Where’s Jackson now? Who’s going to protect you?” I can hear his voice ringing in my ears, feel his fingers digging into my flesh. Tears prick my eyes at the memory.
I’m drowning, suffocating in fear. Walking a little faster, I dart through the crowd and almost sag to the ground once I’m past everyone. Gripping the straps of my backpack, I start walking again, but I’ve only taken one step before someone grabs me by my backpack, hauling me backward. A scream lodges in my throat but becomes nothing more than a muffled squeak.
“Did you think you could use me? That you could play me?” Jackson’s rage-filled voice burns the tips of my ears. I try to twist around in his grip, but it’s no use as I almost trip over my own feet while he drags me behind him. What is happening?
Tugging me around a corner, I don’t realize that I’m trapped between two buildings until Jackson shoves me against the brick exterior. Like a bear, his body looms over mine, blocking out any slivers of sunlight.
I shiver at the feral look in Jackson’s eyes, and that’s when I see him. Tylor. Oh, god. This can’t be happening. Placing a hand against my stomach, I try to combat the need to vomit. I have to get away, have to escape before he hurts me.
“Answer me!” Jackson yells into my face. His fingers dig into my upper arms as he gives me a shake as if he is trying to shake a response out of me. His grip is so tight, my arms hurt. The same hands that caressed me last night, now leave bruises on my skin.
“I…” Is the only thing I can get past the lump in my throat. Only then do his words trickle into my fear-stricken mind. “Did you think you could use me? That you could play me?” What is he talking about? I shake my head, trying to tell him that I don’t understand, but he only shoves me against the wall again. My head bounces off the brick, and I welcome the pain. It’s better than the fear, better than the throbbing ache in my chest.
My vision blurs with tears, but I can still make out Tylor standing right next to us, a sinister smirk on his face.
“You’re a selfish bitch, and I can’t believe that I fell for your act, that I even considered forgiving you.”
I’m so confused.
“What?” I ask, my voice cracking in two at the end.
“Come on, killer, you didn’t think I wasn’t going to tell him, did you?” Tylor’s voice is like acid touching my skin, and when he touches his crotch, bile rises in my throat. I want to scream, to fight, to tell Jackson that whatever he told him isn’t true, but I can’t get the words out.
Jackson’s entire body trembles with indescribable rage, and I flinch, afraid that he may actually hurt me. I’ve never seen him so angry, seen him so close to the edge.
“I thought if I showed you that I cared, we could both heal, but I realized today that you don’t deserve to heal. You deserve to suffocate, to drown in your own pain and misery.” Then he leans into me, his lip curled—I turn away, afraid of what may happen if I look him in the eyes—as he whispers, “Cut yourself a little deeper next time.”
He doesn’t know it, but his words cut me deeper than any wound I could ever inflict on myself. He could throw me to the wall hard enough to crack my skull, and it wouldn’t hurt as much as this. Deep down, I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him. I ate out of his open palm, letting him feed me lies, and make me believe something that was far too good to be true.
Between Jackson’s anger and Tylor’s presence, I’m in my own personal hell.
With one final shove, he releases me, and I slump back against the wall. I’m broken, a wound pulsing with blood, and soon I’ll bleed out. Rearing his arm back, he swings it at me like he’s going to punch me. The air swishes past my face, and I close my eyes and wait for the pain, but it never comes.
I feel the impact of his fist against the wall, and when I pry my eyes open, I find him standing in front of me, blood dripping down his clenched fist. He’s looking straight at me with nothing but unbridled hate and betrayal in his eyes. Everything we shared these last few days, every happy moment, every kiss, and every touch has been erased from his mind. In an instant, I’ve be
come nothing to him.
For every step we took forward, we just took twice as many back.
“I hate you, and I regret ever meeting you. I regret touching you. I regret everything between us,” he spits the words at me before turning around and walking away. Tylor stands there for another second, a wide smile spread across his face. I don’t even have to ask because I already know that he did this. He told Jackson a lie, and of course, he believed his friend over me. He didn’t even consider that Tylor was lying. He is convinced that I did whatever it is Tylor told him about me.
“Catch you later, baby,” he says, low enough so Jackson won’t hear before he too, turns around and walks away.
Left in the alleyway all alone, I have a hard time staying on my feet. My knees threaten to give out. All the wounds that were healing, have been ripped wide open. I feel so broken, shattered into a million tiny pieces that no glue in the world can put back together.
I thought I could heal, thought I could get better, but now I know that it was all an illusion. There is no redemption for me. I killed my best friend, and now I’m being punished. Forever punished, and I guess that’s what I deserve.
Shut it off. My brain screams as the sadness threatens to consume me.
When I can finally make my legs work again, I use that energy to take myself home. I’m so tired, so exhausted by simply trying to live.
I walk through my door, barely remembering the way to my apartment. My mind and my body feel disconnected somehow. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to do this. Fight to live, struggle to breathe.
I just want silence, peace…
On autopilot, I walk into my bathroom and strip out of my pants, remembering his words… “Cut yourself a little deeper next time.”
With shaking hands, I open the medicine cabinet and find the razor blades in their usual spot. Maybe part of me expected this to happen since I never threw them out. I guess my subconscious knew that my healing was only temporary.
I step into the bathtub and sit down. This will be easier to clean up, I think to myself as I look down at my thighs. It’s been a long time since I had a healing scab. Not having cut myself in days has left me without any fresh wounds. I take my legs in one last time, knowing that I’ll probably never see them like this again.
My heart pounds against my ribcage as I find a smooth spot on my thigh and bring the blade to my skin. With one flick of my wrist, the sharp razor slices through my skin like a hot knife through butter.
I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the edge of the tub. The cut burns, but my mind relaxes, a calm washing over me in an instant. The constriction on my chest eases, and I feel like I can breathe a little better now. Everything vanishes from my mind, leaving nothing but momentary silence behind. I invite the peacefulness in, trying to hold on to it as long as I can, but like everything else in my pathetic life, it slips from my fingers.
Guilt, sadness, and hopelessness return to me all too soon.
He despises me.
He hates me while I can’t stop loving him.
Does he know I love him?
He probably wouldn’t care either way. His face enters my mind, and I can’t shake how he looked at me with so much disgust and hate.
He doesn’t love me, and he wouldn’t care if I died. No one would care if I wasn’t here. Not him, not my parents… no one.
No one would care.
Finding another spot, I make another cut. Slicing so deep, that blood trickles down both sides of my thigh. Another wave of serenity washes over me, drowning my mind into silence. My eyes roll back, and my head lulls to the side. I feel sated, calm, and satisfied, but I know the feeling won’t last long. I want it to last forever. Each slice is like another hit, another pulse-pounding euphoria.
With my eyes shut and my head leaning back, I bring the blade back to my skin without looking or thinking, slicing again before the bad thoughts and feelings can return. I don’t want to let those demons back in, it’s too much to take.
I can’t do this anymore.
I continue cutting myself, never even opening my eyes to see what I’m doing. I just keep cutting, banishing everything ugly away and welcoming the peace and quiet I desperately long for. I slice and slice until the blade slips from my fingers, and my hands slide off my leg.
I try to move, try to find the blade, but my fingers won’t listen to my commands. My limbs feel impossibly heavy, my mind drowsy like my head is underwater. Trying to open my eyes, I can’t. They’re weighed down with cinder blocks. Movements are impossible.
My body is useless, just like my existence.
No one wants me.
No one needs me.
Everybody will be better off when I’m gone.
That’s the last thing I think of before my mind slips into the darkness with open arms.
25
Jackson
Walking into the pit, I feel nothing. Not a damn thing. I’m so far from gone when it comes to my emotions, I might as well be in another universe. Blocking out everyone around me, I don’t hear the chants or feel the thundering beneath my feet. I bounce on my heels, cracking my neck and stare off into space, waiting for Franco to announce the fighter.
Tylor is standing just outside the pit with Talon. They’re whispering to each other, and I’m getting more agitated as the seconds pass.
“Where the fuck is this guy, Franco?” I snarl.
“I don’t know,” he replies without looking away from his phone. “If he’s a no-show, then we’re fucking screwed. Bets have already been placed, and everyone is already here. I’ll look like a joke if I don’t find someone to replace him within the next five minutes.” Sheer panic shadows his features.
“You’ll also be dead because if I don’t have someone to fight, I’m taking out your ass.” Franco looks away and starts typing out something on his phone.
Talon and Tylor jump down into the pit. Talon turns to me first. “What’s going on?”
“Franco’s guy is a no-show, and I have no one to beat the fuck out of. Who the fuck is this guy, not showing up for a ten-grand paycheck?”
I need someone, anyone, because if I don’t get this fire out of my veins. If I don’t drain the anger from my body, I won’t be able to stop myself from going to her. From truly hurting her in the same way she hurt me.
My muscles tighten with tension that needs to be released.
“Ten-grand?” Ty asks, rubbing his chin. “I wouldn’t mind that kind of paycheck.”
“Depending on what bets are made, even more. Jackson made twenty-five grand the last time he fought,” Talon explains.
“I’ll fight you, dude,” Tylor interjects, shocking the hell out of me.
“You’ll fight me?” I almost laugh. “You’re joking, right?”
It has to be the money talking.
Tylor’s features become serious. “No. I’ve been working out a lot more, and I know you need someone to fight, so let’s do this.” Pulling his shirt off, he starts stretching his arms. I glance at Talon, who looks just as surprised as I feel.
“Dude, I’m not going to take it easy on you because you’re my friend. Inside the pit, you’ll be nothing more than my opponent for the night.”
“Are you scared I’ll beat your ass in there and embarrass you in front of all your new friends?” Ty asks, confidence dripping from his voice.
Does he really think he stands a chance against me?
If I wasn’t so hell-bent on fighting, I might care that I’m about to smash one of my best friends’ faces in, but I don’t. If he thinks he can take me, then I’ll gladly show him otherwise.
“Let Franco know that Tylor is going to step in,” I tell Talon.
He nods and walks away to find Franco while I push everything to the back of my mind again. I let Talon wrap my hands and watch him do the same for Ty. Since he doesn’t have a mouth guard, I don’t put mine in either. Doubt I’ll need it anyway.
A few minutes later, Fr
anco’s voice fills the warehouse.
“We had a no-show, but no fear, we’ve found a replacement.” The crowd erupts around us, and Tylor shakes his limbs out, looking at me a little too gleefully.
Doesn’t he realize that I’m out here to win? This isn’t a pissing contest.
We both enter the pit, and I breathe deeply, shutting down all my thoughts, telling myself that the guy in front of me isn’t my friend. He is the enemy and nothing more.
Franco talks some more, and there is another loud eruption from the crowd, but I hear nothing. Silence settles in my head. I’m focused, determined, and ready.
“I’ll take it easy on you,” Ty says, grinning, bouncing around in front of me. Franco rings the fight bell, and the world fades away from me.
I take one small step toward Ty while he takes two large ones toward me, fists raised, ready to fight. His inexperience comes through right away as he takes a wide swing, giving me plenty of time to duck down and jab him in the ribs instead.
He doubles over and stumbles back, looking at me like he didn’t expect me to hit him. What did he think this was? High School wrestling?
His cockiness is quickly replaced by his anger. Charging for me, he swings again, a little bit better than the first time, but still nothing I didn’t see coming. I easily avoid his fist, twist around and punch him in the side of the head.
This time, I think he is going to fall over. Uneasy on his feet, I give him a minute before hitting him again.
“Dude,” he growls, throwing up his hands.
“I told you I wasn’t going to give special treatment. You knew what you signed up for when you stepped into this ring.”
Blood drips from his busted lip, and he wipes it with the back of his hand. “Wow, that bitch really did a number on you.” I know he is bringing her up out of desperation, hoping to throw me off and give himself a chance. What he doesn’t realize is that the mention of her only fuels my anger, making me stronger, more vicious.