She sniffed a couple of times and I reached for the box of tissues she kept on the coffee table and handed her a couple. Ari wiped the tears away and blew her nose long and loud. It seemed very uncharacteristic for her, but I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“It’s not nice to make fun of people’s misery!” she grumbled. It was more front than anything else.
“Oh stop it! It’s hardly the end of the world. We’ve just got a few bumps to work out.” Then she looked up at me strangely. “What?”
“Why are you still here? Marcel would have stormed out or worse…” A cute little hiccup escaped her trembling lips.
“We had a disagreement. So what? You said stuff. I said stuff. A lot of it in anger. It’s passed. Now we work through it and figure out how to fix it. It’s not that complicated.” Arianne looked at me as if I was speaking another language. “It’s only as complicated as we want to make it.”
I could tell she still wasn’t getting me.
“But we’re arguing!”
“Were—past tense. We’re onto the let’s work shit out component of this conversation.” I purposely didn’t give her time to question or challenge. “Okay let’s knock these things off one at a time. I’m going to assume you’re comfortable with Isaac spending time me?” She nodded a couple of times without hesitation. “Can we agree that Isaac is fine with my parents if the need arises?” Ari nodded once more. This took her a little more, but it looked more to me like pride than any real concern.
“Good, see that was easy.” I pulled in a breath. “Now let’s move onto something a little tougher. What are you going to do about the school and the bullying? He can’t possibly feel safe at school knowing it’s not outside the realms of possibility that he could cop a fist to the face.”
Ari let out a pained sigh. “Way to make me feel good Dane. What am I supposed to do, besides talk to the school?”
I could think of a few things but I wasn’t sure they’d go down too well. “Talking to the school is certainly a start,” I offered diplomatically.
“You obviously think I should do more?” Fuck, she was pushing me into dangerous territory again. Whatever was between us was never going to work if we held back. Best to put it all out there. If we couldn’t discuss shit, we might as well end it now before it really began.
“Yeah, there’s something more I’d do if he were my son,” I offered carefully.
Her big glassy eyes sort mine. “What?”
“I’d teach him how to look after himself.” I said as unemotionally as possible.
“To fight you mean?” The disdain was evident.
“Bullies always pick on those that are different, weak or not prepared to stand up for themselves. It’s not necessarily about fighting. It’s about self-defence. Why should he cop a punch to the face when he could deflect it if he knew how? This has happened twice now that we know of. Tell me, when is enough, enough? You surely can’t expect Isaac to keep heading to school happy and carefree knowing that he’s likely to get picked on, quite possibly physically?”
I probably wasn’t playing fair, but Arianne needed an attitude readjustment where violence was concerned. Bullies were bullies and talking or threatening rarely did anything.
“I don’t want him to become mean and nasty. I don’t want him to become like Marcel,” she all but whimpered as her bottom lip quivered.
Now we were getting to the bottom of it.
Was she really that worried something would trigger in Isaac and he’d become like his father?
“Answer me this, Ari. Did Marcel study martial arts?”
Her head shook—no.
“Then why the hell do you think Isaac will become violent? Have I ever been violent or physically aggressive towards you?”
“No, anything but,” she admitted quietly.
“And I’m a soon to be professional fighter. Just because you study a fighting art doesn’t mean you become violent. I need you to understand that.”
“But you’ve never been bashed and helpless…you haven’t been on the other side of it.” It came out as a whine.
“No I haven’t, and the reason is because I’ve always been able to look after myself. Just because I could give someone a fair hiding doesn’t mean I ever have or will. Do you see the difference?”
A heavy silence sat between us for a few moments. “I guess. But you need to understand Dane I’ve held these views for a long while with good reason.”
“I get that Ari. I do. But you need to give me a little credit for knowing something about this stuff. I’ve lived it, eaten it, slept it and breathed it for the last twenty odd years.”
“So you think you should teach him some stuff or whatever you call it?”
I couldn’t contain the sigh any longer. “Yeah. I think that would be a good start. He won’t be brilliant overnight but there’s some stuff I can show him that will quickly make him less of a target.”
Ari remained silent for a few long moments, thinking over my suggestion. “Okay. I don’t want him to get hurt.” Her voice was quiet and she sounded defeated which I hated.
I squeezed her tighter in my arms. “It’ll be fine Ari. It really will.”
“I hope so Dane. It really scares me. What if it’s the wrong decision?”
“What if it’s the right one?” I shot back instinctively.
“I don’t want to screw him up. He already has so many challenges and the whole craziness with Marcel…he doesn’t deserve that.” Equal parts love and fear rolled off Ari and my heart broke for her. She was walking along what must seem an impossible line.
“He might hate martial arts!” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Haha…hardly likely. Isaac already hero worships you and now you’re doing some big fight. As if that’s going to happen.”
I chuckled. “You’re probably right.”
I’m not sure if she realised she was doing it, but her fingers were tracing the “v” neckline of the shirt I wore. It was incredibly distracting.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had some big fight?”
I dragged my hand through my hair and debated how much I should tell her. “There’s no simple answer to this one, Ari. I’m going to tell you the truth because you’ll find out anyway with what’s going to happen over the next few weeks and I don’t want there to be anymore secrets. But I really think you’re not going to like a lot of what you hear.”
She said nothing and kind of braced herself. That worried me even more. “I was offered the fight on Saturday morning. I agreed to take it Sunday night.”
“Was that why you were quiet when you came home with the takeaway?”
“Yeah, Reed and I spoke while I was out. I’ve never fought pro before. It was always Xander. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, other than me mentioning him, but he’s a big deal. Or at least he was in the fight fraternity. He hasn’t been in the ring for 3 years. So I’ve kind of been out of it, too.”
Her eyes lifted up to mine in with confusion written in them. “I’m his training partner and his corner man during the fight. That basically means I’m training with him every step of the way for the fight.”
“Why’s he not fought for so long?” It was the obvious question but it if anything set her off it would be this one.
“Please don’t freak out on me when I tell you this.” She pushed off my body a little, until she could look at me directly.
“What?”
“Xander accidentally killed a guy in his last fight.”
And that’s the moment I knew the shit was about to hit the fan.
Arianne
I couldn’t believe my ears. Had I really heard him right?
“What did you say?”
He nodded. “Unfortunately exactly what you thought I said.”
Stunned didn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling. “How…?” I couldn’t even finish because I couldn’t comprehend it.
“It really was an accident, Ari.” The words spill
ed out quickly, as if that somehow made it lesser or better or whatever. Why did people do that? “The guy did something he shouldn’t have, something we’re all trained not to do. Xan tried to pull the punch, but he just couldn’t lose enough momentum in the split second he had to realise the guy had turned his head.”
My eyes felt like they were popping out of my head. “What happened then?”
“Well, it was a sanctioned title fight, the incident was investigated by all the appropriate authorities including the police and Xander was cleared of everything. It really was a tragic accident.”
“And you want me to have my son involved in this?” My voice had gone up about three octaves. “It’s bad enough that you seem so intent on doing it yourself.”
I watched him visibly cringe.
“I know it sounds bad and the death of The Cobra was terrible. But every sport has its totally unthinkable incidents, if enough people are doing it and enough time passes. Motor racing, football, surfing, horse riding hell—you can even get struck by lightning playing golf or run over crossing the road. There’s no guarantees in life ever.”
He was right about that, but why did you need to tempt fate?
“Why the devil do you guys feel the need to be beat the hell out of each other whether it be in the ring or in some other situation? I just don’t get it.” And I didn’t.
Dane shrugged, “I guess it’s left over from evolution. The testosterone kicks in and we have a need to be physical. There’s nothing quite like beating the stuffing out of a heavy bag to let off some steam.”
“Still not getting it, Dane.”
“Maybe you need to try it,” he suggested with a raised eyebrow.
I snorted. “Can you really see me hitting a bag?”
He gave me a cheeky little grin. “I think you’d look hot hitting a bag.”
Oh, he was a flirtatious devil when he wanted to be. “Get on with the story, Dane. Or is there more that’s worse?”
“No that’s the clanger! But Xander decided to get back in the ring, so I’ll be his training partner again. That’s means I’ll be with him training every day up to his fight. I’ll also be there in his corner when he fights.”
“It sounds like a really big deal. I’m struggling to get my head around it”
“It is a big deal. Xan’s a bit of a celebrity. Certainly in fight scenes anyway.”
Dane was about to step up to that level. Was he about to become a celebrity as well? It was too much to take in. My mind was spinning out of control.
“How does your fight fit into all this?” That was the bit I wasn’t getting. Everything he’d told me was about this Xander guy.
“Well, I’ll actually be training for my fight at the same time I’m helping Xander train for his.”
I guess that made sense. Well it seemed to, but my knowledge base of fighting was zero.
“When’s your fight again?”
“About four weeks after Xan’s. So I’ll be training all the way through then when his fight is done, the training focus will really switch to me. Xan’s a machine and Reed, our trainer, is an absolute drill sergeant when it comes to training. It’s going to be really tough going—already is”
This whole conversation was surreal. My emotions were all over the place. I had no idea what to think or feel.
To make it worse, Dane just sort of looked at me as if waiting to see me start screaming and running from the room or something.
“How much are you freaking out now, Ari?’
Where did I start? “I’d almost come to terms with the martial arts. Well, that’s not correct. I was trying to make an effort to be more open minded about it. But Dane, martial arts at a suburban dojo is a lot different to the fighting on television. I find out tonight that a guy that I’m sort of seeing. Shit, I’m not even sure what we are, is a professional fighter. You tell me—how am I supposed to feel?”
“It’ll only be on one of the sports channels on pay TV.”
“And that makes it so much better?”
He shrugged and dropped his eyes. “Xan’s fight will be bigger admittedly.”
“Will you quit with this Xan guy? I get that he’s your friend, but this is about you.” I watched his head snap up.
“What do you mean?”
He looked seriously confused. “I mean everything you’ve told me has all centred around this Xander guy. What about you?” It sounded to me like Dane was an afterthought in all this, but I wasn’t sure voicing my opinion was the right thing to do. I hadn’t even met him and he seemed to be a huge influence in Dane’s life.
“Well, it is my first pro-fight. You need to understand, Xander’s at a level that he fights on the biggest stage. I’m still very much in the national arena and only just stepping into there.”
Slowly my brain started to put it all into context. If he was training for this big fight then, he certainly didn’t have time to be worried about my problems with Marcel. Dane still had his own business affairs to worry about as well.
“Where does this leave us, Ari?” he sounded uncertain, which was at odds with the Dane I knew.
“I don’t know, Dane. I really don’t. I’m feeling so conflicted about everything. For the last two years I’ve solely focused on sorting out and doing what’s best for Isaac. The two years before that it was getting away from Marcel. The four years before that it was putting up with a situation that was getting worse and worse. I’ve been to hell—I’ve no intention of revisiting it for anyone.”
He looked as if I’d struck him. “So are you suggesting that a life with me in it would be hell?”
I let out an almighty sigh. “No Dane…I’m not. What I’m saying is my life, our life, has been well and truly fucked for want of a better term. I don’t want to go back to living in that sort of environment nor do I want Isaac to be part of it. We need consistent, settled, everyday—normal I guess.”
“Exactly my life before I took the fight,” he grumbled in a low voice and I was sure it was meant more for him than for me.
“I can’t deal with anymore craziness in my life. It’s just too unsettling for Isaac and in turn me. I’m doing my best to put it all behind me, not wade into it again.”
He nodded resignedly. “Well regardless, I’m not going to leave you to deal with the Marcel situation alone. Once that’s done, I’ll back out quietly.” He moved me gently off his lap. “Goodnight, Ari.”
With that he retreated to the spare room. So why was I fighting a round of fresh tears? And why did my belly feel like it was being clawed apart, not to mention my throat that was taking big gulping breaths?
Why did things always have to be so hard?
Chapter 13
Dane
The days after our discussion were as close to rock bottom as I could remember. It seemed now that Arianne had made it clear she didn’t want me, the more I craved her. I wondered why the hell we couldn’t have had that conversation a week before.
Before I agreed to take this fucking fight.
Would it have changed my mind?
I didn’t know so now I was questioning everything of importance in my life.
Just this week after a torturous training session that left both Xander and I beyond exhausted he asked the question that I knew he’d wanted to ask for the last few weeks.
“What’s going on with you?” We’d been hanging in his office after everyone had headed off just regrouping, chilling.
“Nothing really, mate. Just got some stuff on my mind.”
“You’ve been off for weeks. What’s going on?”
“I said nothing.” It came out sharper than I intended, but I was on dangerous ground with Xander. If anyone could get it out of me, it was him. I wasn’t ready to talk about it, not that I held much hope for ever being ready to talk about it.
My life was pretty much an open book and I was cool talking about stuff on a surface level, what I was feeling ran far deeper. Right to the bottom deep, and I doubted I’d ever be able to
put into words the feelings that were twisting my guts into more knots than mum’s macramé plant holders.
Xander held up both hands and I felt even more like a prick. He was just trying to help and I was being a surly shit. “Well, just know, I’m here if you need anything.”
I managed a nod. “Thanks man.”
That had been Wednesday.
Thursday and Friday were no better. There’d been no further sign of Marcel. It was almost as if I could sense the fucker watching us—waiting. More than once Arianne had suggested I head home. She was about as uncomfortable as me.
All I could think, was it must be one truckload of fear that had her putting up with me being in her house. Every day I called Mark for a progress report. I was beginning to think I would have been better asking for the no progress report. I was certain I’d spotted that black Merc more than once in the neighbourhood. Nuh, I wasn’t leaving until Marcel headed the fuck back to Melbourne and stayed there. I’d made that commitment to Arianne and myself.
She’d just have to live with it.
One thing that was starting to play more and more on my mind was the likelihood that this Marcel thing with Arianne wouldn’t be resolved before I left for Vegas. If that happened, I didn’t have a clue what I’d do to handle it.
All those things ran through my head as I made the twenty-minute drive over to the pub where we were meeting to have a few welcome home and birthday drinks for Seth. He was a mate that had a very promising pro career but tossed it all a couple of years back to go chase his other passion—geology.
With the mineral boom in this country and overseas, there’d been no shortage of high paying gigs for him. Unlike the rest of us who couldn’t wait to get out of school, Seth had hung in there and even stuck out uni earning a Masters in Geology.
He’d managed to fight as well and be the hardest partier I knew. Seth was the sort of guy that grabbed life by the scruff of the neck and shook the shit out of it. I hadn’t seen him in a while so I wondered if he was still the same.
Believe Page 17