by Fields, MJ
“Okay,” I say, breathing in slowly through my nose as my mouth curves, my lips closed.
Memphis reflects my expression, and lets the moment be while his eyes flit between both of mine with their focus. He’s being thoughtful with his words. I’m sure of it. My stomach tightens in anticipation, but somehow, I know it’s still going to be okay. Everything…Memphis and me…we’re going to be okay.
“The other night, when I was looking for you, I saw…something…in Leo’s house.” His lips hang open and his head tilts slightly while my eyes narrow, pushing a wrinkle onto the bridge of my nose.
“Something.” I repeat his vague choice of words and smirk a little.
His eyes roll as he chuckles, but he holds on to my hands, eventually coming back to our quiet.
“I saw them…more than kissing.” His lips fall shut and he waits for me to catch up. The strangest sensation washes right through me—it’s similar to amusement, but it’s tinged with a little disgust too.
“You…you knew, didn’t you?” Memphis asks.
I breathe in deeply, and hold my breath while I think about it. Perhaps I did. I’m certainly not surprised.
“I’m not sure. It…” I pause to think, and my eyes move from my lap to his face as I breathe out a small laugh. “It feels like nothing, so maybe I did. If that makes sense.”
He holds my stare for a beat then begins to nod slowly.
“It does,” he says, his eyes settled on mine. “I meant to tell you days ago, and I would have…or I didn’t mean to keep that from you. I just needed to find the right time or way, and I had to make sure it didn’t hurt you to hear it.”
“Thank you,” I say before he begins to worry any more than I think maybe he already has.
I pull my hands free only long enough to crawl closer to him and lean forward and press my lips to his briefly. I hold his gaze for a full breath while I’m only a few inches away, and I let the feeling settle in my chest. There’s a balance inside of me, and as gross as my family’s behavior is, it isn’t surprising to me anymore. I don’t think it has been for quite some time, since I was a little girl forced to grow up fast and see people for their ugly sides.
“You, mister, need to get some miles in.” I smirk as I back away and let my right foot feel for the stepladder out of his loft bed. “Those lungs of yours have a handful of days left to grow as big and strong as they can be. So hit the pavement, champ, before it’s so hot that it feels like hell outside.”
“It always feels like hell outside,” he grumbles, rolling to his stomach and wrapping himself in his blanket. Once my feet are both on the floor, I pull the edge of the quilt with a hard tug, leaving him without any cover at all. God his naked body is something to behold.
“Fine, but when I’m done, you and I are going to do a bunch of lame couple things,” he says, climbing from his bed without the use of the ladder. He turns to face me and presses my cheeks between his palms, forcing my lips to pout just before he kisses them. “I mean I want to do the most cliché, dumbest couple shit you can think of.”
“Like sharing a soda with two straws?” I shoot him a wry smile because that sounds awful. I like my own soda, and usually nobody likes the same flavors as I do.
“Exactly!” His smile grows, and I instantly regret suggesting that.
“Goody,” I mutter, pulling one of his large shirts over my head and searching for a pair of sweats to borrow. He hands me one, but doesn’t let go until I roll my eyes and laugh.
“Fine, I’ll be a good sport,” I say, and he leans in for one more kiss, then lets me have his sweatpants. I snap them at him as he walks away.
“Careful,” he taunts.
Our eyes lock one last time before he pulls the slender door closed on his bathroom. I slip into his pants and loosely tie my sandals to my feet before gathering my clothes from the night before in my arms. I slam the door closed loudly enough behind me to alert him that I’ve left.
It’s already warm outside, but Memphis will run far anyhow. He’ll push himself to dangerous levels. I’ve watched him do it for days now, and I know that he’s been pushing himself like that since the day he found his father’s gloves.
He doesn’t know any other way.
I take my time making my way back to Leo’s, already missing the small camper behind me that feels so much more like home than anywhere I’ve ever slept. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to sleep there…in Memphis’s arms. I feel like I’m close. The act of closing my eyes and giving in to the pull of slumber under someone else’s watch is one of those things for me—it’s a wall I have a hard time scaling. Even with Enoch, before the world came crumbling down, I didn’t sleep soundly. It’s like I always had one eye open, or I kept dreams at bay in case I needed to jolt awake.
There has never been trust.
I trust Memphis.
I start to smile at the thought, the way trusting him sits in my chest and makes it feel warm and right. I easily push open an already-unlatched door to Leo’s house.
“Olivia Valentine?” A man in a dull blue suit stands at the side of Leo’s kitchen table the moment I step through the door. There’s a coffee mug resting on the table behind him, and it’s still steaming, which means it’s fresh. He hasn’t been here long.
My mom and uncle are sitting with him, and there’s an eerie vibration in the air—they’ve been talking about me.
“What’s going on?” My steps have turned into slides, my feet like magnets on a metal floor. Something isn’t right in my gut, I just can’t tell what.
“Are you Olivia Valentine?” The man repeats his question, walking directly to me, his jacket over his arm, sweat stains on his dress shirt.
“That’s me,” I say, sliding a foot or two back as he approaches.
In a smooth motion, he unburies an envelope from beneath his coat and hands it to me.
“You’ve been served.”
My eyes flutter and I get dizzy, instantly feeling my mother’s eyes drilling holes through me with her judgment. The process server leaves and my uncle leans back in his chair and takes a long sip from his coffee. He smiles at me over the mug, somehow satisfied by this. No matter how many things I’ve been through, there is always something new to drag me down.
“Why did you let him in?” I shake my head and squeeze the envelope in my palm. My stomach clenches with a brief wave of nausea, and my head grows hot. The sick feeling shifts into anger quickly.
“My job is not to worry about your problems,” my mom says, standing and turning her back to me as she whisks her half-filled coffee mug off to the sink to pour it out and rinse. She’s here for the show. She lives for this tension, and I don’t want to give it to her. I hate how I get sucked in—what our push and pull turns me into.
“Right, my bad. You’re only my mother; why would my problems concern you at all,” I say, moving quickly to the stairs.
My foot lands on the first step when I’m suddenly yanked backward by my hair. The painful tug surprises me at first, and I scream from the sting.
“What’s wrong with you?” I shout.
My mom slaps the envelope and my clothes from my hands then grips the center of the shirt I’m wearing, pulling the material closer to her seething eyes.
“What is this? Are you whoring yourself out to our fighter now? You walk in here, into this house that we were kind enough to let you stay in, wearing his shirt and…and…you’re wearing his pants? Where did you get this?”
My mother kicks my beautiful new dress, and I hear some of the stitches tear.
“Stop!” I yell through gritted teeth, bending down to pick it up, my hand never reaching it because her knee comes up to kick me.
“Oh!” I cry out and cover my eye, my cheek burning and a bruised sensation beginning to throb at my brow.
With half of my face covered, I stare at her. Her eyes are red. I’ve seen her like this before. This is how she reacted when Charles left our gym, and it’s the way I imagine her face looked wh
en she found out Enoch had stolen her money. It’s a mixture of shame and hatred for me and everything I’ve made hard in her life.
“None of this is my fault,” I say in a low tone.
Her brow draws in, forcing a deep line between her eyes. Her lips look as if she’s tasted something sour. Something…bitter.
I lunge at her, causing her to flinch, and then I reach down to pick up my damaged dress and the envelope. When I stand back up, I make myself tall, only inches between us. I’ve never been afraid of her. She hates that, too, because she’s powerless.
“You had me on purpose, and it just kills you that none of it worked out like you thought it would.” I smirk, then take a step up, forcing her to lift her chin to keep her eyes on me. “Dad never really loved you. Leo uses you, because he’s just as empty as you are. And Memphis is never going to stay here and make money for you like you think he will. He’s going to win, and he’s going to move on to something bigger—to better people.”
“I suppose you’re going to make sure he does?” Her eyes dim, heavy makeup weighing down wrinkled lids. She works so hard on the façade. I see right through it—everyone sees right through it.
“I won’t have to. It’s just how your life is going to go,” I say, turning and leaving her there to be pissed and throw a tantrum at the bottom of her brother-in-law’s stairs. I don’t turn around until I get to the top, and when I do, her eyes are like lasers waiting to burn a hole through me. The effect is nothing.
I don’t need her. I don’t need my uncle.
I never did.
Sixteen
Memphis
I don’t think she sees me. I’ve been watching Liv through her window for the last ten minutes, ever since I got back from my run. I’m supposed to be drowning myself in water to stay hydrated, but I think I may be drowning in her instead. It’s a good way to die.
She’s on her phone, and I think maybe she’s pissed about something. She likes to use her hands when she talks, and she’s dropped her phone twice so far because her movements aren’t subtle. She keeps pointing downward, and I feel pity for the poor soul on the other line who is getting an earful to match her gestures.
I tip my water bottle back and let the last few drops fall on my tongue before tossing it inside my place and pulling myself up to stand. My legs are teeming with the blood pumping in my veins, my muscles primed from fast miles that didn’t make me breathless in the least. Omar is in for a rude awakening—my biggest weakness in my last fight was endurance. I’ve erased that for him. Nothing tires me—not even the body of that angel born in hell one story above.
It’s going to be hard to stay away from her for two weeks, though. Superstition or not, I think I’m going to need every weapon at my disposal, and pent-up sexual frustration does wonders for a right hook.
I step back into my doorway, my hands holding the top of the frame, giving my bent arms a place to stretch. When she sees me, I’ll head in to shower, but I don’t want to go just yet. She walks by the window, pacing, a few more times, and I stare intently trying to draw her gaze to mine. I start to laugh silently, because she’s come close to looking at me a few times but our eyes always just miss each other. Then she pulls her hair back and tucks it behind her ear; my mood shifts in an instant.
There’s a fucking bruise forming on her cheek and her lip is a deep red, most likely busted. I don’t remember leaving my place. I have no idea how I got inside Leo’s house. But my hands are on his throat now, his back jammed into his refrigerator. Spilled coffee and a busted mug mark the trail I took him on when I lifted him from his now-broken chair and shoved him several feet backward. I know Angela is here, and I recognize her screeching voice, but I’m so wired with fury that I can’t stop to decipher what she’s saying.
“You are a fucking coward, you hear me? You want to teach me a lesson, you use my face! You don’t touch her, you sick motherfucker! You…don’t…touch her!” My face is throbbing with heat and my teeth are clenched as I growl at this man I could so easily kill with my bare hands right now. I can feel how fragile his windpipe is under my hands.
He kicks me in my stomach with his knee, and it knocks the wind from me a little, but I don’t let up my grip. My head is swimming with what I just saw, Liv’s voice echoing in my ears. She’s come down stairs, and her mother and she are both pulling at me.
“No! He doesn’t get to touch you. These people…” I’m shouting so loudly that my words echo throughout Leo’s home. I push into Leo again, and his face begins to glow pink, a sick sound gurgling from his lips as I push air from his body with a thrust.
Liv’s hands are furiously gripping at my arms, and that’s the only thing that stops me from slamming into him again. I hear her words.
“Stop!”
She’s pulling one of my hands free, and I begin to breathe hard now. I’m not winded. I’m manic. I’m…not here. Rage blanketed everything else, and all I could see was her pain, and I had to fix it. My fingers begin to unfurl, and Leo pushes me away as I stumble a few steps. He slides to the side and begins coughing as Liv grasps the front of my shirt and coaxes me to the other side of the kitchen.
“Stop it, Memphis! It isn’t what you think. It…it wasn’t him!”
Her eyes are pleading with me, her stare close as my focus moves from one eye to the other. Leo continues to cough behind her, and I can make out shadows of action behind her, but Liv is the only thing I can see clearly. Her eye swollen, her cheek purple, her lip divided with a line of blood—dried.
My breathing slows and her hands press flat against my chest, but my fists are still tight at my sides, my biceps primed so much I can’t relax my arms. My nostrils flare.
Liv centers herself in front of me, her chin tilted up and her eyes never letting go of mine.
“It wasn’t him,” she says faintly.
There’s a resolve to her expression, and like a tsunami, everything falls together in one wave that crashes over me and my eyes move from this special woman in front of me to the terrible one with her back against the wall ten feet behind her.
“What is wrong with you?” My voice shakes as my body comes down from the high and a sadness takes over my chest. I’m so sad for Liv—and I’m sad for Angela, too. What must have happened to make her the way she is?
“Memphis, this is what she does…”
Angela’s words come out desperate, and I actually interrupt them with laughter.
“You are a terrible person. You…you’re actually rotten to your soul, and…and evil. You’re just evil.” My lips bend in sickness and my hands relax, automatically moving to Liv’s elbows, and holding her to me.
Angela shakes her head slowly, and her eyes move from me to her daughter, dimming in disgust. I don’t know how Liv survived this, how she’s able to have so much compassion inside of her despite never having anyone to learn it from. Somehow, she was born with good and nobody destroyed it.
“Get out,” Angela says, her eyes now on Leo, but her hand waving at both Liv and me. “You’ve done enough here. Your fight is soon, and you’re not thinking clearly.”
I turn to Leo and his heavy eyes look drunk, his lip turned up on one side as if I’m the one who got a lesson here today. Perhaps I did.
My arm shifts. I pull Liv in close to me, and I begin to guide her out the door with me.
“I need to take care of something; hold on,” she says, her hand dragging along my chest as she leaves my hold and rushes up the stairs. I sway where I stand, somehow surprised by these people, though I shouldn’t be at all. I’ve watched the disguise deteriorate for a year now.
“I’m not signing the deal, Angela.” I decided I wasn’t taking the sponsorship during my run, probably before that, if I’m honest with myself.
“Don’t be a fool,” Angela seethes.
I smirk.
“You just want the twenty percent.” I shrug.
She rolls her shoulders and Leo spits in the sink before turning around to defend her.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he says, a messy stagger in his footsteps as he tries to fold his arms and look tough. He has a tell; it’s the way his hands tremor when he’s unsure. Leo’s a tough bastard, but I think he’s also gotten his ass kicked plenty of times. I’ve thrown him off.
“I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m holding out for more because I’m worth more. And that’s why that deal is coming now; because Paul and his company want me cheap.” I shake my head with tight lips. “Speaks volumes about him if you ask me…that he plays the game cheap.”
“That’s business, son. You best get to understanding it, too, or else you’re gonna find yourself living in that shithole on wheels for the rest of your life.”
“Ha,” I chuckle, shuffling my feet and looking off to the side. He just doesn’t get it. I don’t care about any of those things. I care about my legacy, and starting something that might make the man up in heaven who gave me life feel like he left one behind for his son. I care about leaving one for my son one day. And I care about the way Liv looks at me like I’ve made her proud.
I care about Miles, and about where I’m going to be a year from now as a human being. I won’t be here. There was a time when I thought I would be, but no—they don’t deserve me, and I sure as shit don’t deserve their judgment.
“That’s not how I do business,” I say as Liv takes the final few steps until she’s next to me again. She glances at me and I smile faintly on the side closest to her. Taking her hand, I lead her through the kitchen door down the side alley back to my home. My “shithole on wheels” that I wouldn’t trade for the world.
She follows me inside and pulls the door closed behind her as I move to my freezer and pull out a frozen slab of beef wrapped in plastic. Liv sits on the small bench for the eat-in kitchen, and I shove aside the cups and wrappers from days of protein drinks and bars so I can kneel down and rest my forearms on the table across from her.