by Amity Cross
“Oh…” I was sure I was meant to comfort her or say something nice, but I wasn’t sure what to do.
“You can go see him if you want.”
I glanced over her shoulder at the stairs and desperately tried to think of something to say that would stall. “How is he? You said he was struggling…”
“The doctor put him on medication,” she said, eyeing me. Probably watching for my reaction.
“Medication for what?”
“His anger, depression…he was going out of his mind being stuck in here. Things just…snowballed.” She sounded regretful, like she hadn’t agreed with the doctor’s opinion.
“And has it helped?”
She shrugged. “Yes and no. He’s pretty out of it most of the time. If he’s not asleep, he’s in the gym. The medication makes him confused.”
“Confused? So, it’s not working?”
“I don’t want him on it,” she replied. “But being here without an outlet…he couldn’t cope. They’re going to re-evaluate when his sentence is over.”
“And when’s that?”
“About five months. They gave him a year.”
A year. It didn’t sound that long in the grand scheme of things, but five minutes was too long for a man like Ash. How the hell had he coped with four years in prison?
“Please,” Violet said. “Go see him. I know he wants to see you…”
“Has he said that? Because if he wanted to he would’ve called...”
“Not in so many words, but-”
“Then how do you know?”
“He’s my brother, Ren. We’re close. Always have been. I know when he’s trying to be a stupid pigheaded asshole.”
I snorted. They were close? So close he hadn’t bothered telling me about her…
“Upstairs,” she said. “Third on the right.”
Grunting, I spun on my heel and ventured out into the hallway, more to get away from Violet’s pleading than anything else. I forced myself to climb the stairs, one step at a time, my fingers tightening on the bannister. He was in this house, meters away from me. I wanted to go to him, but I wanted to run away, all at the same time.
Slinking down the hall, my stomach churned. The third door on the right was closed. I had no idea what I wanted to say.
I cracked the door open, turning the handle as quietly as I could. I just wanted to see first…I just wanted to see him before he saw me. The door glided inwards and I peered through the opening into the bedroom. His bedroom.
I didn’t see anything at first; it was like the room was empty. If it wasn’t for the covers all messed up on the bed, I would’ve thought he wasn’t there at all. It smelt like Ash…all musky and male and memories that I’d been trying to forget slammed into my brain like a sledgehammer. My head swam with thoughts of him and my fingertips began to tingle with the memory of his skin against mine. Fuck.
A large set of windows took up most of the opposite wall, letting in the sunshine and brightening the room to almost unbearable levels. The curtains fluttered inward as the breeze ruffled through them and that’s when I saw him.
He sat in a chair; his bulky form slouched into the plush leather. He was looking the other way, out the window to the freedom he was denied and hadn’t noticed me at the door. I could see him plain as day and Violet was right. He looked defeated…empty.
He was like a wild animal that had been locked up and was pining for his home. He was like a lion that should be stalking the plains of Africa with his lioness, but instead of endless skies all he had was a cage. He was wasting away in captivity.
My heart twisted painfully in my chest and I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned and padded down the hall, trying to sneak away before he realized I was there, like the coward I was. I didn’t want to see him like that. I was afraid to see him like that.
Fucking coward.
I treaded lightly down the stairs, keeping an ear out for Violet. The last thing I wanted was for her to see me running away from her brother after the courage it must’ve taken her to come and face me. That would look bloody fantastic.
I’d made it out the door and into the yard when she called out to me.
“Ren, wait.”
I turned and waited for her to catch up, embarrassment flaming in my cheeks.
“Please don’t give up on him,” she said coming to stand beside me. “You know what he’s like.”
“A stubborn, secretive asshole?” I retorted.
“Yeah,” she said with a smile. “All of the above.”
“Don’t tell him I was here.”
She tilted her head to the side, squinting in the elusive spring sunshine. “You didn’t talk to him? Why?”
I shook my head, not knowing how to answer when I didn’t understand the emotions I was feeling. “Don’t give him any hope when there mightn’t be any.”
Before she could reply, I wrenched open the gate and made my escape.
I leaned my head against the window as the number eight tram rattled down High Street Prahran, taking me away from Ash and his fancy house, all the way back to my denial at Beat. Back to the life I was using to try and forget for all the wrong reasons.
When I was ten, I remembered coming home from school and finding my mum unconscious on the kitchen floor. I was just a kid so it would’ve been understandable if I’d been afraid, but instead of crying and hoping that she’d wake up on her own, I picked up the phone and dialed triple zero. The lady on the phone told me how brave I was and how proud my mum would be for knowing what to do. She stayed on the phone until the paramedics knocked on the door.
It wasn’t the first or the last of those calls and every single time, I was the brave one. I kept a cool head, called the number and saved my mum’s life. It’d became like a routine and it wasn’t until later that I understood she had been trying to hide how bad things had gotten from me. I guess she figured I had enough to deal with without having to worry about her not being around anymore. Except it never went that way.
She was getting sicker with each passing episode and all it did was create more problems. She left it too long one time too many and it was game over.
As I sat on the tram all the way back to Beat, I knew I was doing the exact same thing. I was my mother’s daughter through and through. I was leaving it until it was too late to stop the tumor from destroying everything.
My tumor wasn’t cancer or anything life threatening and it was even more heartless of me to compare my mum’s illness with this thing with Ash…but my fear was eating away at me in much the same way. My fear of abandonment would destroy everything.
I had to get a fucking grip.
Ren Miller was the strong one. I was there for people and stood up to everything life threw at me. I stood up and kicked life in the balls when it tried to shove me down.
What was I really afraid of?
I was there for my mum until there wasn’t anything left to do but let her go. If I was there for Ash and he didn’t want me…he’d still be there living his life without me. Could I go on knowing that? It was bad enough now, so what would a total meltdown look like? More than ever, I wanted to talk to Mum and ask her how she did it, how she got over Dad, because I couldn’t remember a time that she was ever sad, even when she was at her worst with her cancer.
Seemed like I took after my mum in more ways than one.
Would I go back and try again? I didn’t know.
I didn’t know shit.
Chapter 10
Ash
“Ash?”
My eyes cracked open and I groaned.
“Are you okay?”
Violet was staring at me, her eyes level with mine. She was on the floor, clutching the edge of the bed like a scared little rabbit.
“I saw a ghost,” I whispered.
“A ghost?” She mimicked my tone. Utter disbelief. Crazy talk. It was the drugs. Had to be the drugs.
“She couldn’t be here…”
“Who?”
I frowned, my mind foggy. “Spitfire.”
Violet reached her hand over the bed and stroked my forehead. She was checking my temperature, but she should’ve been checking for a pulse.
“You mean Ren?” she asked after a minute.
“It’s the fucking drugs.”
“Do you love her?” she asked.
I grunted.
“Ash?”
“A beast can’t love,” I mumbled.
“Yes you can,” Violet said, her brow furrowing into a scowl. “You love me.”
“And look what happened to you.” If I wasn’t so out of it, I would’ve rolled over so I couldn’t look at her.
“You’re such an asshole,” she hissed, tears springing into her eyes.
“All of this is my fault.” I was only good for breaking people’s hearts.
“No,” she said, brushing away a stray tear. “No, it wasn’t your fault. It was theirs.”
It was still because of me, how couldn’t she see that? They came after her to get to me.
“It was never your fault Ash,” she argued, wrapping her small hand around my arm. “You never did anything but follow the rules. They were jealous assholes. It was them. It was never you.”
I grunted.
“What do I have to say to get you to understand?”
“I’ll never understand your capacity for forgiveness,” I muttered, closing my eyes.
“You shouldn’t underestimate your own,” she retorted.
The mattress dipped when she sat next to me as I drooled in my drug induced haze. I hated anyone seeing me like this, even Violet. She was right about everything…as usual. Still, we were both trapped in this house together for at least another few months.
“What are you going to do once your sentence is over?” she asked after a beat.
What was I going to do? I didn’t have much of anything to welcome me back once I was able to step through the front door without triggering an alarm. Could I go back to fighting? There was no chance in hell that I could get back on any kind of pro circuit and The Underground…no doubt that would be Ren’s stomping ground. I’d be as welcome there as-
“Ash?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I don’t know what I want.”
I knew exactly what I wanted, but I wasn’t so sure she wanted me back.
Chapter 11
Ren
I’d never run from anything in my entire life.
Ren Miller was a fighter from the first moment she was put onto this earth. I never backed down when things got rough. I picked up the phone and called the ambulance when I needed to, I stood up to my fears...I kicked life in the balls when it tried to bring me down.
I went to one of those public high schools where there was no uniform, so the segregation between the cool kids, the nerds and the poor kids was even wider. One day in year eight I turned up to school wearing the same clothes as the day before because I had run out of ways to make my few things look different and the mean girls had instantly latched onto me. They’d teased me all day until I bit back and somehow I’d gotten myself into a fight after the last bell had rung. It was a case of turning up to fight the bullies or run like a coward and be teased for the rest of my life.
They never thought I’d actually go through with it because I was the girl who constantly kept her mouth shut to go unnoticed. I was the quiet one in the corner too afraid to speak up incase it made me a target.
Needless to say I turned up, punched the most popular girl in school right in the face and promptly got suspended. The bitch got a black eye and I got grounded for a week, but they never bullied me again.
Yesterday was the first time in my life that I’d run and I felt like throwing up.
I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering how a man was able to break the things inside me that I thought were unbreakable. Rolling onto my side, I glanced across the room and pushed the negative thoughts to the back of my mind.
I kept refusing to move out of Beat, so a few weeks ago Dad had extra storage built into the kitchen. Now the storeroom looked a lot like an actual bedroom. I had a rack to hang up my clothes, a set of drawers and a lamp, which was all I really needed. I still slept on a queen size mattress, but now it had a base. When I closed the door, it actually looked like a bedroom. It was my own space.
I actually liked waking up and knowing I was already at Beat. It’d taken a while, but it was more like home than that shabby rental in Deer Park ever was. Home had been wherever Mum was, but I had finally come to terms with what I had right now.
There was a crash downstairs and the sounds of the Twins laughing their asses off filtered upstairs as I sat up in bed frowning. Glancing at the clock on my phone, I saw the hour and wondered who let the cat out of the bag. Those boys were gym junkies, but even they weren’t that keen to come in at six am.
Pulling on some clothes, I shuffled downstairs and had to rub my eyes, confused at the sight of the Twins, Dad and Josie standing in the middle of the studio, a whole bunch of stuff strewn over the benches along the wall. At least half a dozen plastic bags and boxes were piled up, waiting to be opened.
“What’s that?” I asked and everyone turned around with big grins on their faces.
“Happy birthday Ren!” Dean exclaimed.
I groaned. “I thought I was going to get away with it.”
“Not on my watch,” Dad said with a smile.
Last year I didn’t have a party, or presents. I had a funeral. Birthdays were always an ‘under the radar’ event, but that was until I turned up at Beat.
“Thanks,” I said awkwardly. “But let’s not make a big deal out of this.”
“Why?” Lincoln asked.
“I don’t like birthdays.” They were just a reminder of how poor we’d been and how alone we were in the world. Now it was a reminder of how Mum wasn’t around anymore. It didn’t seem right to celebrate. A year older, a year wiser and another day that was now marked with me beginning my new life as an epic coward.
“You don’t like them?”
I shook my head. “What’s in the boxes?”
“An athletic company sent them over for you,” Josie said, pointing at the pile of stuff.
“What...”
“It’s a birthday gift,” she explained. “There’s a fancy gym bag, new gloves, shirts, tops, hoodies, hand wraps...all kinds of stuff. They really want you to sign.”
I stared at the pile of equipment and clothes from the newest sponsor to try and win me over and my mind actually misfired. I couldn’t look at their ‘gifts’ after a lifetime of having to scrape every cent together to pay the rent. I couldn’t look at them after seeing Ash so powerless.
Everything just seemed so...futile. I couldn’t see the point anymore.
“You okay?”
I glanced up at Josie and smiled thinly. “Yeah.”
I caught sight of Monica in the background and glared at her over Josie’s shoulder. Her eyebrow rose slightly and she disappeared into the kitchen.
“Open it up Ren,” Dean said, drawing my attention back to the semi-party.
“I can’t,” I said. “You guys have a look for me.”
Backing away, I shrugged at Dad who was staring at me with a disappointed expression. I figured I’d have a shower and by the time I got out, all the stuff would be packed away where I didn’t have to look at it. I wasn’t a fan of things. Things weighed me down.
“Ren,” Josie called out behind me.
I slowed down, but I didn’t stop.
“Did you go?” she asked once we were out of earshot.
I nodded, my chest tightening.
“And?”
I shook my head as we walked into the change rooms.
“You didn’t go in?”
“I went in,” I said, curling my fingers into the hem of my tank top.
Josie frowned. “I don’t like that look on your face. What happened?”
“I couldn’t do it.” I bowed my head to try and h
ide the flush of shame that was turning my skin a flaming shade of red.
“Oh, Ren…”
“I went in, I saw him, but he didn’t see me… He…” I shrugged, biting my bottom lip.
“He what?”
“He looked so…defeated. It wasn’t him. Not like I remembered.”
“Oh, Ren,” she crooned.
“I ran away Josie,” I blurted. “I fucking ran away before he could see me.”
“Then you need to go back,” she declared like it was a no-brainer.
“I ran away,” I exclaimed. “I’ve never run...”
“If you’re so torn up about it then you must still feel something for him.”
I blinked hard. I did, didn’t I? But what that was exactly, I didn’t have a bloody clue. Maybe my heart was too broken to go back.
“I can see the doubt on your face Ren Miller and it doesn’t suit you.”
“Fuck,” I said, glancing away. “It’s all just so…overwhelming. I’m not used to all this pressure. I was a nobody for so long and now there’s all these people...”
“If you need to take a breather, just say the word. I’m sure your dad will understand.”
I sank down onto the bench. “Don’t say anything. I don’t want them knowing and I’m sure Ash would gut me if he knew I’d told. You’re the only one who knows.”
“Okay, but fair warning, your dad has organized a surprise dinner tonight.”
I raised my eyebrows and Josie shrugged.
“Try to look surprised, okay?” She laughed.
I just wanted to crawl into a hole and hide until all of this blew over, but it was never going to be that simple. I was in the middle of a shitstorm and everyone was expecting me to step up yet again. Life wasn’t going to give me an easy ride, no matter how much I wanted it to.
“Sleep on the Ash thing, okay?” Josie said. “Give it some time to process. You don’t have to decide straight away.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
Josie gestured over her shoulder. “I’ll deal with that lot. Take your time.”