Good Things: An Urban Fantasy Anthology

by Mia Darien

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  He chuckled, sitting next to her. “Why are you here?”

  “I want to be able to fight,” she answered, not willing to tell the truth of it to a complete stranger.

  “How long have you been split from him?”

  “How do you know this has to do with Steven?”

  He smiled. “I didn’t until you answered that way. I’ve been coming here for years and I only see women fight like you do when they either have something to prove, or someone they need to protect themselves from.”

  “I see.” She wiped the sweat from her eyes. “Well, then I guess you have me figured out.”

  “Look, I don’t mean to bother you. I just thought I would offer you some advice. It’s not much, but I can help you out if I’m here when you are. I can give you ten, maybe fifteen minutes if I see you here.”

  “What, are you saying watching YouTube isn’t going to help me?” She was only half-serious.

  He laughed. “I like your sense of humor just as much as that oversized heart. I’ll see you around, kid.”

  Kid? He looked around her age, and she had just turned twenty-six. He didn’t look nearly old enough to be calling her a kid. She was far from it.

  She watched him walk away, still chuckling at her lack of knowledge or skill, depending on how a person wanted to look at it.

  She grabbed her bag and tossed her towel over her shoulders. She would take a shower when she got home. Normally, she took one before leaving, but today she would just wait until later.

  The walk home was great. Living in NYC was as far away from him as she could get. Well, technically she could have gone a lot further, but she figured the larger the city, the better off she was.

  Her apartment wasn’t anything to brag over. It was nothing more than a studio apartment with a bathroom that had walls. She didn’t mind, though. It was large enough to split the bedroom area and the living area. She didn’t have a kitchen table because she didn’t need one. She never invited anyone over. In fact, the only person to see the inside of her apartment was her neighbor Jess.

  Jess and Kamry had hit it off from the start. Jess was also twenty-six, a small town girl who was also running from her past. They spent their evenings when Jess wasn’t working talking and having popcorn slash scary movie festivals in one of their apartments.

  Jess worked two jobs as a waitress, so they only met up about once a week, twice if they were lucky. Thankfully, Kamry was an occupational therapist and found it rather easy to find all the work she needed. Sure, she could afford a larger apartment in a better neighborhood, with all the bells and whistles, but she didn’t want that because she knew if Steven ever came looking for her, he would look in nice areas. The only thing that scared her about work was him finding her address, if he wanted to dig enough.

  She couldn’t go on living her life without working, though. She had for a while, but after six months of NYC prices, her savings were about out and she missed working anyways. It was a risk she didn’t have a choice but to take.

  After her shower, she flopped on the couch. She stared at the ceiling for a minute then reached for the remote. She didn’t have many favorite shows, but she enjoyed house hunting, remodeling, and cooking.

  She flipped through the channels and when she found a show she was interested in, she grabbed a pillow and cuddled it as they began stripping out the bungalow the couple had just purchased.

  At some point, she fell asleep. It wasn’t until she heard a loud crash and shattering glass that she was startled awake.

  For a moment, she froze. Unable to move. Barely able to breathe. Her heart raced and the fear was almost crippling.

  Without moving her body, her eyes searched what they could see. With a sigh of relief, she sat up.

  “Damn it.” She ran her fingers through her hair and then went in search of the broom and dustpan. She had left her water glass on the coffee table and must have knocked it over.

  She swept up the mess and headed back to her original spot. The rest of the day was going to be straight up lazy and then back to work tomorrow.

  * * *

  Kamry looked over her schedule for the day. She worked mainly in long term care, but because she required a full work load, she worked for a company that would send her to three different locations to get her hours in.

  She smiled. She would be visiting Brook Haven today and that was one of her favorite places to go. She loved Ms. Maybelle.

  Ms. Maybelle was an eighty-seven-year young lovely lady who could light up Kamry’s day with just a smile. Her blue eyes were always twinkling and she was never in a foul mood. She told stories of how she had been an actress back in her day, and Kamry would soak it all up. The woman had a knack for telling stories. Whether they were true or not, Kamry didn’t care. She loved her and that was all that mattered.

  She really loved the stories about how Ms. Maybelle met her husband. He preceded her in death, and it had been seven years, but she loved him just as much today as she did the day he had gone to Heaven.

  The minute Kamry walked into Brook Haven and around the corner to the therapy department, she saw her and smiled.

  “Good morning, Ms. Maybelle.”

  “There’s my favorite young lady. How are you today?”

  “I’m fantastic. How are you today?”

  “Didn’t sleep well last night. I keep getting these headaches that just won’t go away.”

  “Did you tell the nurses?” Kamry asked, raising an eyebrow because she knew Ms. Maybelle hadn’t said a word.

  “No. They are so busy. Them girls run and run and run some more. I feel sorry for them, actually.”

  “Ms. Maybelle, we have had this discussion before. That’s their job, and obviously they love doing it because it’s the field they have chosen to work in.”

  “Just because you work here doesn’t mean you love it.”

  “I love it and I work here.”

  “But you, my young friend, are a special breed of woman.”

  “Thank you,” Kamry said, patting her hand before grabbing the back of the wheelchair and pushing her into the department.

  Forty-five minutes and a lot of hard work on Ms. Maybelle’s part later, her session was over. It always seemed like the time flew by during their sessions, because of the stories. She pushed Ms. Maybelle to the dining room where bingo was about to begin. After getting her situated, Kamry went to the nurse’s station and reported the complaint about headaches. They both frowned.

  “Its starting,” Suzy, one of the LPNs there, said.

  “What’s starting?” Kamry asked.

  “She has an aneurysm that is inoperable.”

  “Oh, no.” Kamry turned, looking to where Ms. Maybelle now played with the four cards she had chosen.

  “She doesn’t know. She has pain medication that she can ask for, but it’s obvious she isn’t going to, so I will call and get them scheduled.”

  “Thank you.”

  Kamry turned, walking back to Ms. Maybelle and kissing her head before going on to the next resident of the day.

  Kamry arrived at the gym shortly after six. She changed into her workout clothing and stepped up to the bag. The place was unusually empty, but she didn’t mind. She preferred it this way, because there were less people staring at her.

  She stretched her legs and then her arms. She didn’t know a lot about working out and learning to fight, but stretching was right up her alley.

  “Hey, you came back.”

  Kamry jumped at the deep voice behind her. She quickly turned to see the same man that had approached her before. “Um, yeah.”

  “So I was thinking, show me how you handle the bag and then I can help you with the technique. Then I thought maybe you would want to do some self defense on the floor. I’ve never had a need to learn to fight for the same reason as you, but I do know that when I am in the ring with my back flat against the mat, ju ju comes in handy.”

  “Ju ju?” />
  He smiled. “Jujitsu.”

  “Oh. Thanks, I think. I’m Kamry.” She held out her hand.

  “Jose, nice to meet you,” he replied, shaking her hand.

  That explained why he looked so tough then. She assumed when he said ring, he meant MMA. His body was definitely in shape, at least six foot one, maybe two or three. He was rather large, for sure. Probably weighing in at one-ninety or so. She didn’t know much about MMA, only what she had heard the guys in the gym talking about.

  He walked to the back of the bag and gripped it. “Well, shall we?”

  “Don’t laugh at me and don’t make fun of me. I appreciate your help or any advice you can give me, but I won’t be laughed at.”

  She watched his face turn serious as he let go of the bag and stood in front of her. He brushed a strand of hair from her face and locked eyes with her. “Everyone was a white belt at one point or another. I would never laugh at you.”

  She nodded.

  He walked back to the bag and she began alternating kicks and punches. When she was finished, she waited for him to begin criticizing her every move.

  “That was pretty good. My only thing is this...” He come to stand behind her, and then his breath was in her ear. “Don’t knock me out.” He placed his hands on her hips, pivoting them slightly. “When you kick, rotate just a bit like this. Go with the flow.” He reached out and gripped her hands. “Make a fist.” She did. He gripped her wrist, pointing to the ring finger and pinky. “These knuckles here, you can fracture them easily.”

  “Yes, a boxer’s fracture.”

  “Exactly, so you want to make sure you are hitting with these two digits.”

  “Gotcha.” She knew about boxer fractures. She just never really thought about the possibility of punching wrong and so had never paid attention to it.

  “Okay, let’s hit the floor mats.”

  She followed him to a set of mats.

  “Lay on your back.”

  “What?”

  He smiled and then lay down in the position he wanted her in. “Like this.” Then he stood and waited for her. He had laid flat on his back, knees bent and feet flat on the mat.

  She took a deep breath and then as she started to lay down, her body began to grow nervous, trembling. Tears began to pour from her eyes. Sweat broke from her skin to a point that it was like a water hose on a slow drip, just drizzling down her body. The feeling of pins and needles came across her body briefly before she felt numb, almost paralytic.

  The room began spinning and then the earth around her followed.

  She could feel the weight of Steven laying on top of her. All the control she felt she had in her life now was rapidly disappearing. Suddenly, all she could feel was the overwhelming need to get away. She needed to escape and run for her life.

  The next thing she knew, Jose was sitting next to her with the palm resting in his as he used the thumb of his other hand to massage it.

  She locked eyes with him and in that moment that she stared into his…it was as if she had just stared into his soul. There was something inside her telling her to breathe with him. She watched his shoulders move up and down in an exaggerated way. He was breathing slowly and deeply just so she could see his pattern and catch on to the rhythm.

  Slowly, the nervousness began to fade. The trembling was no longer noticeable. The tears dried from her eyes. The sweat was a glisten on her skin instead of a fountain. Her feet seemed to be okay with sitting still instead of running. She began feeling her limbs come back to her and with that, the control as well.

  She knew that she should have felt embarrassed for the reasonless panic attack, but then, most people who suffer from them seldom know the trigger for their attacks. They come on so sudden that most just deal with it the best way they can and move on.

  Before long, she could feel herself wanting to smile and she did. “Thank you. I don’t know how you knew or how you managed to help without even saying a word, but I sincerely can’t thank you enough.”

  “My mother used to suffer from panic attacks. It’s no big deal. I learned early on to give the person who is in the middle of losing their minds, or so they feel, every ounce of control I can and mainly something to focus on other than what is running through their bodies.”

  “It’s a nice trick. One that I should remember.”

  “Do you have them often?”

  “No.”

  “Can you share with me what you think might have triggered it? You don’t have to; I would just like to avoid that if I can.”

  She took a deep breath and went to move her hand from his, but his grip tightened and he slowly and very calmly shook his head as he continued to massage her.

  “Steven used to do most of the damage when he had me pinned to the floor.”

  “I see. Shall we work on that?”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Sure you can. You just have to make a choice, right here, right now. Do you want to be a survivor or a victim? The choice is yours.”

  “I’m a survivor.”

  “Not yet, but you can be.”

  She didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that. She knew. If she was a survivor, she needed to overcome her fears and put every single ounce of effort into moving on and forgetting him all together.

  Jose smiled as she returned to her position on the mat and moved to lay down next to her. “I just want you to look up at the ceiling for a moment. When you are ready, close your eyes and take a deep breath several times.”

  “Okay,” she replied, concentrating on one single stain on the ceiling where it was apparent there was a leak. When she was ready, she closed her eyes.

  “Keep breathing, relaxing, and keep telling yourself that I am here to help you. I will not hurt you. I am going to show you how to kick a man’s ass so you never have to fear abuse again.”

  After several minutes, she was ready to go. She opened her eyes and turned to look at him. He was staring up to the ceiling, patiently giving her the time she needed.

  “I’m ready.” She smiled.

  “Good.” He moved slowly and explained every last thing before he even touched her. The few minutes he was supposed to spend with her had turned into an hour before it was over. He continued to attempt to control her from the top and with his instruction that she followed so well, she was able to break away from him with ease before he smiled and collapsed to the mat beside her.

  “You did excellent today. I have some work to do, but I’ll be here next time you’re here.”

  “How do you know when I will be here?”

  “I don’t. I pretty much live here, though.”

  “Oh.” She stood and walked to the bench where her belongings were. She grabbed her towel and patted her head a few times before turning back and seeing he was gone. She felt a bit of disappointment because she hadn’t got to thank him. She would tell him tomorrow, though. If it was the last thing she did every day before going home, she was coming back to get all the help she could. For the first time since leaving Steven, she felt like she could actually partially hold her own.

  * * *

  It had been three months since she met Jose and began training with him. In that short time, she had transformed to a woman that wasn’t so jumpy around men. A woman that was in the best shape of her life. A woman that wasn’t in total fear of walking down the street and being found. She rarely thought of Steven anymore. The only time she needed to remember what he had put her through was when she was ready to quit training for the day and Jose would use him to give her the push he needed to finish.

  Over the last three months, she had found another friend. She had developed a bond with Jose that couldn’t be described. She trusted him with every ounce of woman she was, and loved him like a brother. He had been her angel in the dark when she needed someone the most.

  “Jose, I need to tell you something. Something that I haven’t told anyone.”

  He smiled, wiping his forehead. “Okay.
” He sat on the bench next to her.

  “When I left Steven, I decided that if I couldn’t get over it, I would end it myself. I didn’t want to live in fear of him finding me and I surely didn’t want him to find me and actually go back to what I had worked so hard to leave behind.” She took a deep breath and wiped a tear that was trailing down her cheek. “I had this bottle of hydrocodone. It was the last bottle that I had filled before I left him and the divorce was final. I had kept it and my plans were to take the entire bottle if I couldn’t cope. If he found me. I was going to end my life because I didn’t want him to have any more control and I wasn’t willing to give him the power to take anything more from me. I have stared at that bottle every night since then. But last night, I pulled the bottle from my nightstand like I always do and for the first time, I started laughing. I realized there was no way in hell I was going to take that bottle and do what his ultimate goal was. I found a new pep in my step as I went to the toilet and flushed them. I want to thank you. You really have no idea how you have saved my life.”

  She watched as his eyes glistened and his chin twitched. “No, it is you saved me. I am so glad that I found you. I have a confession to make now. Days were passing when I was searching for someone like you. Someone that needed me to help them. I was beginning to lose faith that I would ever find you. Then I looked across the gym and saw this woman who…well, since we are being completely honest with each other now, had no clue what she was doing and I knew right then, I had finally found you. My life hasn’t been the greatest either. I lost my way there for a long time and I found my way back in helping you. It’s you that I owe many thanks to.”

  “Wait, what? You’re not mad about my admission? About the pills?”

  “No. You never would have taken them. You’re too strong for that. You may have thought you would, but you are not a quitter.”

  He reached for her and pulled her into his chest. “If I had only met you sooner,” he whispered, kissing her cheek and then walking away.