Love Me Like You Do: Books That Keep You In Bed

by Fields, MJ

  Memphis leads me through four or five bag drills until my body is spent, and his phone is ringing from his locker. I wait while he rushes to it, patting the butts of my hands against the bag a few times, wondering how I had so much energy an hour ago.

  “Shit, I didn’t realize the time!”

  I glance to the clock when he says that and note the hour hand between the seven and eight. He has work soon, and I’m sure he wanted to check on Miles.

  “I can visit the hospital. I’ll see if they discharged him,” I say as he gathers his things into his gym bag.

  “They said they’d call me when they did, but you never know,” he says, slamming the metal door of his locker shut and flinging his bag over his shoulder before jogging back to me.

  “Wait for me,” he says.

  His fingers feather out toward mine, one of them catching one of mine and shaking it a few times. The nervous, awkward flirtation between us is a rush. This is always my favorite part, though. Enoch flirted, in his own way. He was nothing like Memphis, though. Nothing is quite like Memphis. He’s full of the little things, all of those little things that come in between big gestures. The stuff you wish someone had a year down the road, when you’re over the newness and struggling to hold on.

  “We’ll check on Miles together, if you’re up,” he says, eyes moving from our hands to my face.

  “I’ll be up,” I promise. I will literally put toothpicks in my lids like a cartoon to stay awake for him.

  He leans forward and my mouth tingles with hope, but he kisses my cheek. He’s still waiting. He’s making me stronger. I won’t be broken.

  “I’ll call you when I’m on my way,” he says, holding his phone out for me to type in my number.

  I smirk and type it in, then add a text to myself that reads: LIV OWNS THIS BITCH. I hit send and hand the phone back to him.

  “Funny,” he muses, winking at me and sliding his phone in his pocket. “Of course, you sent it to your phone, so…”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll send it back just to be sure.” I strike a cocky smile and wiggle my head a little, making him laugh.

  “All right then. I’ll be sure Amy sees my phone,” he says.

  “You do that.” I answer fast, not that I’m jealous of Amy. I’m not really, but I’m also a little possessive suddenly. Memphis is nice to her, and she flirts in her own way. But he’s waiting for me.

  I’m stronger than I think I am.

  It’s the time when I’m alone that’s always been the hardest. I’ve always had so much time alone. This is when my mountains feel impossible. I’m standing at the foot of one now, a literal fork in the road with one path leading into Leo’s house and one to my parents’.

  I have been home for almost a month now, and I have yet to breach my father’s door. My mom has quit asking me to, and I’m sure she’s not expecting me after today’s meeting with Memphis. It’s exactly what makes now the perfect time. I know that seeing him is the first of many steps I need to take. It’s also the hardest.

  Without giving myself a chance to change my mind, I veer to the left and take long strides through the rocks and dirt that were never quite a lawn, pushing open my parents’ door. It’s dark inside, and Leo’s sipping a brown liquor from a clear glass at the kitchen table.

  “You here to inspect the place?” he says, laughing at his own stupid joke.

  I sigh.

  “Mom upstairs?”

  Leo’s brow pulls in, and I know it’s because he’s surprised I would ask for her. I’m not. I’d prefer her to be gone is all.

  “She ran to the store. I wanted chops tonight, and eating alone sucks. We didn’t expect you to be around, otherwise I would have had her get three,” he says.

  My eyes slit.

  “Uh huh,” I say.

  That was all bullshit. I’ve been around, alone, pretty much every night. I have a loaf of bread at his house, and some strips of turkey and cheese. I’m almost out of the mustard.

  “You want me to tell her you were looking for her?” I ignore his question at first, instead pushing on to the stairs, my hand gripping the bar and my chin tilting up.

  “Nope,” I say, taking the first step, followed by the next.

  Each time I climb higher, I think about stopping and turning back. I might have if I didn’t hear Leo move from his chair so he could watch me. I won’t look back at him, but I sense he’s there. I won’t retreat from this in front of him, because he’d like that. There’s a certain satisfaction they all get from the fact that I can’t bring myself to look at my dad. It’s this dare they hold over me, like when I was a kid and they all used to tease me by shutting out all of the lights and forcing me to feel for a switch.

  I reach his room and slide my fingers against the grain of the door. Mom’s TV is off, so I know she’s definitely gone.

  The door sticks a little, but the man on the other side won’t jump. Even before the stroke, very little scared him. I honestly think the only thing that really ever frightened him at all was the idea of being a father. It scared him so much, the reality never took hold.

  The light is dim in his room. The walls are lined with his things, like a museum. Bronzed gloves, headlines framed, and belts hung—his room is filled with everything that ever mattered to him and my mom. There’s a television in the corner, the cabinet doors half opened. I doubt he watches anything. That’s how it was before I left—Mom wanted to watch shows together or inspire him with young fighters that he could judge. He’d always look away.

  The chair near his bed looks comfortable, and well worn. I wonder who sits here more, my mom or Leo?

  I can tell he’s heard someone come in. His movements are small. The doctors told my mom that it wasn’t that it hurt, but that his brain just couldn’t give his muscles enough direction. When his brain said to point, the message his finger got was to twitch. He can’t feed himself because of it, and he hasn’t spoken a word since the ambulance took him away.

  “It’s me,” I say from the comfort of the doorway.

  His body twitches. He recognizes me.

  My eyes scan the room, one side heavy with the things that are distinctly my father, the other side clinical—like a hospital. The clutter of equipment that is supposed to help my dad gain his strength and practice his balance isn’t set up to be used. Blankets hang from bars, and a walker holds old sweatshirts and jeans. Archie could be doing more than existing in this room. He’s able to walk. That’s the one thing that seems to be unaffected, the strength in his legs. Maybe my mom exaggerates it because she doesn’t want him living down in the sitting room where he would be the first thing anyone would see. I don’t really think she has suddenly taken on visitors, though. The truth is probably closer to her not wanting to see him when she walks into her home.

  “I’m sure Mom’s told you, but I’ve been here for a while.” I continue to look around while I drag closer to the bedside chair. She’s added to the collection of things for him to look at. They told her it was good for him to be surrounded by familiar things, but I think she thought it meant that he would suddenly be cured and snap out of his new normal.

  Strokes don’t work that way.

  I fall into the seat and sink into its softness, leaning back and stretching my hands out along the armrests. Archie’s eyes hit mine, and a jolt hits my chest. My eyes have found their mates.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  It’s only ever taken a subtle movement or two for my dad to express himself through his eyes. He could always get his way with just a glance—one that said he’d love you forever or another that warned someone to back off. He’s frightened of me. His eyes are telling me he’s afraid.

  “I didn’t tell her. I know that’s what you’re afraid of. But I didn’t.” I roll my eyes and shift in the chair, leaning to one side and resting my chin on my elbow. “She wouldn’t believe me anyhow. She believes what she wants to believe.”

  His breathing never picked up, but his eyes dim a little and his body
sinks deeper into the bed, his head rolling in the pillow. I’d tuck it up higher to prop his neck so he could see me better, but I don’t really want him looking at me. He doesn’t really care to look. Those things I said were all that mattered to him. The rest of this visit is just for me.

  “I think I need to tell you how everything unraveled from my point of view, though,” I begin, my eyes moving from him to a small thread at the end of the chair’s arm. I touch it with my finger, then start to pick at it to pull it free.

  “You never really cared about what that lie meant, about what it drove her to do in retaliation. You just knew that you couldn’t let her know you were ever weak and felt something for someone. Not Archie Valentine.”

  His breath stutters a little. I’ve learned that’s his laugh. His eyes fall shut and the little control he has of his facial muscles tugs at the cheek closest to me, drawing it up in disgust.

  It doesn’t take me long to mentally drift back to being twelve. I’ve told the story to therapists over the years, and it always falls from my lips in crystal clearness, as if it just happened a day or two before. I close my eyes and relive it, every single time.

  When things started to dry up on the development side my dad had invested in, he and my mom turned to management through the gym as a way to dig themselves out of the financial hole they were falling into deeper by the bill. They owned the land, but the buildings were another story. They leveraged a lot to get work done, sometimes stiffing contractors. There were threats, too. I heard my dad bully people into jobs. By the time the gym was done, nobody was looking to build here, and the foot traffic he counted on for high-end clientele he could dazzle with his stories wasn’t around to pay for memberships.

  Fighters like Dad aren’t common, though. This business is hard, and when you make money, it usually goes right back into training for the next step. There were a lot of decent mid-level guys that worked with my dad and Leo. They took a lot to Vegas, too, and sometimes they won.

  Once you get greed in your veins, though…it doesn’t ever leave.

  “I sat there on those steps just outside this room, Dad, and I listened to you pour your heart out to a man who I know you loved. I listened to you beg him to stay, even though you and Mom had stolen everything from him. And you know what?”

  My father’s eyes flicker under their lids. If he rolls over to avoid me, I’ll drag this chair to the other side of the bed.

  “I was so proud of you. It might have been the first time that I was proud of you. I was proud of you for fighting for a person, not just yourself. I was proud to hear you admit to him everything terrible you had done. And I know it hurt that he left. I know it hurt like hell—it hurt you as a fighter who lost someone he believed in, and it hurt you as a human who loved another human.”

  That man’s name was Charles. He had a decent future in fighting, and my dad was in love with him. My mom shaved money off every deal they made for him, though. My dad let it happen, because he was afraid. And when finances started to get tough again, she shaved a little too much. Charles noticed, and my dad, for once in his goddamned life, couldn’t lie. He told him everything.

  He sure found a way when my mom asked who told him, though.

  “‘Liv’s always looking at the books,’ you said. Do you remember that? I was playing office, imagining running something like this one day. I liked the numbers. Hell, I just fucking liked math. I didn’t know what was really going on in those books. You could have said anything. You could have told her that he must have figured it out on his own. She wasn’t exactly a surgeon at theft, Dad!”

  His eyes slowly open on the ceiling, and I’m tempted to stand up to get a better view, but I don’t need the confirmation. He isn’t bothered by any of this in the least. He loved someone other than himself for a brief moment in time; other than that, he hasn’t loved anyone since. I am simply just a casualty for careless behavior in his mind.

  “Mom took the money Leo put in the bank for me, but she probably told you that. Technically, she had Leo take the money, but it’s all the same. I’m sure you agree that she deserves it. Just like how she took away my college money when you told her I was the one who ran off your best client. That was my punishment for hurting the family business. State school, instead of fulfilling my dream. I could have gone to Stanford, or Duke or any school!”

  Any school other than the one I went to that led me to Enoch. I ponder that last part, not wanting to say his name out loud.

  I’m breathing hard now, thinking about the dominoes of my life and how they all fell one by one. My dad’s mom was a decent woman, and she had set up a college fund for me. She was alive when they stole it, but too old and mentally fragile to do anything about it.

  My dad was dazzled by Enoch, and my mom loved the way he talked about money. I begged them not to invest, because I didn’t want them poisoning what was mine.

  Irony is such a bitch, I guess. Enoch walked away with all they had and turned it into nothing. I looked at those contracts quickly today, and I fought every urge to grab them in my hands and run. The numbers I saw looked right, though. And I’ve been through the books, and I’ve fixed a lot of messes. Unless my mom or Leo has magically gotten better at covering up fraud, they haven’t stolen from Memphis.

  Maybe it’s just that they haven’t stolen from Memphis yet, though.

  “I’m not coming up here to see you again,” I say, standing and peering over my father’s pale body, a fraction of the mountain it once was. His skin is spotted from sun abuse, and his hair is thin. My mom cuts it too short.

  “Memphis is a great fighter, Dad. He’s better than you.”

  I smirk and make sure he sees it. Once that jealousy and anger colors his irises, I’m satisfied.

  “Everyone is going to love him, and he didn’t have to screw a single person over to get where he is,” I say.

  There is no temptation to hold his hand, and no desire to embrace him and wish he’d suddenly be able to form his mouth into shaping words. There’s just a shell of a man who screwed my mom and got her pregnant with me. And the little girl who used to dream that she’d have some magical relationship with him died right there in that room when he threw her under the bus to save his own ass.

  The toughest champ alive is, in fact, a coward. He’s afraid of the truth.

  I step away from his bedside and move to the door, closing it behind me before I leave down the stairs. My uncle has returned to sitting at the kitchen table alone, and he toasts me with his newly refilled glass as I walk by. I don’t even bother to comment. I’ve said everything I needed to tonight.

  Now I’m going to wait for a better man to come home and visit a homeless veteran with me. I can’t wait for it, in fact. I wear the smile all the way to my room at Leo’s house, and then I wait by the window and pull out my phone to send Memphis a text.

  Liv owns this bitch.

  I type back the exact words I sent to myself from him, then I wait for him to respond.

  Liv owns a lot of bitches.

  I laugh loud, cupping my mouth and glancing out into the hall. Leo will be gone for a while. I stare at his words and think of the perfect thing to say. I type a few things that I delete, including letting him know that I visited my dad. Eventually I settle on simple.

  Liv owns just one.

  His response is almost instant.

  Guess I’m your bitch then.

  It’s such an unromantic way to tell someone they’re yours. It’s utterly perfect, and lacks all traces of fairy tales. It’s not how this awkward early flirting usually goes.

  It’s different.

  Memphis is rare.

  Twelve

  Memphis

  I could get used to pulling up to my home to find Liv waiting for me. She has something in her lap this time, and I swear to god if it’s baked, or involves more than a single ingredient, I will marry her on the spot.

  She stands as I shut off my bike, so I wait here for her. There’s something
about the way she walks. For a girl who’s been knocked down so often, she doesn’t show it in her body. Her steps toward me are bold and comfortable, and I’m grinning like an idiot by the time she reaches my bike.

  “Why do I feel like you’re making fun of me in your head?” She scrunches one eye, and I shake my head.

  “I was just admiring the view,” I say. The cheesy line earns me an eye-roll, but I’m still glad I said it. It’s true. I was.

  “What’s in the bag?” I nod down to the small wrapped bundle in her hands. It’s too small to be bread or cookies.

  “Oh, I uh…” Her lips purse and she bunches her face in thought, holding the flat package in her palms in front of her and staring at it. She takes a deep breath.

  “I went up to see my dad.”

  I let a second or two pass for her to feel the moment. I know how hard that was for her. It’s been a roadblock.

  “I’m proud of you,” I say.

  She chuckles a little.

  “I’m not so sure you should be. I wasn’t very nice.”

  Her eyes fall back down to the package in her palms, and my hand instinctively moves to her chin. I lift her gaze back up to mine, and I hate the shame cast in her eyes.

  “Sometimes, we have to just say the shit that’s on our minds, otherwise it poisons us. And I’m sure it wasn’t as mean as it could have been, and maybe, it was a little nicer than he deserved,” I say.

  I run my thumb along the edge of her jaw and dip my head to smile at her softly. Wide eyes blink open on mine, shame still there, no matter what I say this time it seems.

  “You didn’t wear a helmet,” she says, a change in subject I let her have.

  “It was nice outside. I wanted to feel it.” I shrug, knowing she’ll be right about every response she’s bound to have. It’s reckless, and I know it is. So is this sport, though.