by Devon Ashley
She’d been doing better this past week, actually letting me hold her, even kiss her a little. But I wanted more. Needed more, if I was going to get out of this funk of a hole I’d wallowed myself into. I’d never be able to forgive myself for failing to protect her, but I could lessen the hold that horror had on me, if she’d just let me in again.
But I’d keep waiting. Because I had to. Because I couldn’t make her mend herself back together any faster than it was going to happen.
When Megan came through the laundry door that led to the garage where she stored her car every night, she looked utterly miserable. She winced as she pulled the bag off her shoulder. There was no control of it going down and it landed with a heavy thump. Glad her gun had a safety. “Oh, shit. You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, but even the word seem to pain her as she made her way to the bar with uncomfortable steps. “Advil. Stat.”
A single chuckle passed my lips as I went to our bathroom to grab the bottle. When I came back out, her hands were gripped around the edge of the island, leaning back awkwardly, like she was trying to stretch out her back out or something. “How much do you want?”
“Oh, my God, please, give me the full 800 mg.” She leaned her butt against the barstool cushion to help support herself. “And remind me to stretch before my next class.” I slid her the pills and watched her swallow them dry like a pro. “Seriously,” she added, almost annoyed with herself for being so sore.
I filled her a glass of water from the refrigerated filter. “So you’re going back then? You liked it?”
“Hell yeah I did,” she replied with a little more excitement. She took the glass I offered and took a few sips. “I mean, all I mostly did tonight was hit and kick on one of those punching bags. But I got to watch some of the other pairs working out and I liked what they were doing. Some of them were girls my age. I figure if they can fight like that, there’s no reason I can’t.”
“Sure you can.” I leaned over the opposite side and silently watched her. Her hair was still pulled back in a ponytail, but her hair was matted down with dried sweat. Several strands had fallen loose, which probably pained her too much to reach up and re-secure, and that was if she even took the time to notice. A few short hairs along her hairline had dried and curled, each and every one of them frizzy. And it made me smile, because I doubted she even cared.
She caught my grin, a soft smile turning her mouth up at one end. “What?”
What? She may’ve been sore as hell, but her face looked bright and dewy after her workout. There was just something sexy about the way she looked right now. I wanted to storm across this kitchen and crush my lips against hers and make her feel every damn emotion that was swarming inside me. The good and the bad.
But I didn’t. I simply said nothing, kissed her on the forehead and went to draw her a hot bath to soak in.
“Hit me.”
Aghast, I blurted, “What?”
“Hit. Me,” Jesse repeated more firmly, pointing to the side of his mouth.
“In the face.” It wasn’t a question. More like a way of saying Are you fucking crazy? without the verbal expletive.
“It’s cute that you’re worried, but I’m pretty sure I can take your punch. It’ll be like someone’s flicking my face with their finger.”
My jaw dropped and I huffed with slight annoyance. I knew he was joking, because that was how he kept the air light between us. I also knew he was baiting me. Making me want to hit him. I threw my left hand to my hip and tipped my head away from him. He was on the verge of mocking me even more when I let my right hand fly. There was only a soft smack as my glove nailed his face, but there was enough force and surprise behind it that his head actually spun to the side.
“Flick!” I sarcastically spat. I would’ve flicked the air with my fingers for effect had they not been stuffed inside these hot, black mitts.
His hand went to adjust his jaw. His laughter was silent, but I saw the way his chest rapidly bounced in and out for a minute. Soon his head was nodding up and down, because he had clearly asked for that. “Alright, Million Dollar Baby. Now that you’re ready to actually engage, I want you to keep doing that. Try to get a shot in wherever you can and I’m going to try to block what you do.”
“Can I kick?”
“No, not yet. Right now I just want to work on the punching.”
I did what he asked, but it wasn’t easy getting in a shot now that he knew it was coming. I may have sucker punched him before, but now he was ready for every jab, hook and upper cut I could dish out. He slapped most of them away. I got in a few shots, but only when I was fast enough to follow up one hit with the opposite arm. But in the end, I hardly put up much of a fight. It was a little demeaning, actually. Quite the kill joy.
“Don’t get discouraged. This is why you came to me in the first place. Soon you’ll learn to anticipate my moves and be quick enough to get some real shots in.”
I let out a frustrated groan and hung my head back. I knew he was right. People always talked about getting from point A to point B when achieving goals. What they failed to mention though was how much the distance between those two points totally sucked.
We kept sparring like that for the rest of my hour, eventually letting me kick. Personally, I thought he added kicking just to have the joy of sweeping my feet out from under me. Which he did – twice. With just fifteen minutes to go, he had me trade out the punching gloves for my normal pair, the one that protected my knuckles. I could see why he waited so long to make me switch over. We didn’t get much done those last few minutes because it was way harder on my hands, now that they had to absorb the impact of each punch. And suddenly, without all the excessive padding, it felt like I wasn’t punching correctly. Like I was nailing his skin at the wrong angle or something, so nothing I did was that effective.
One more thing to go over next time, he said – addressing my form.
I said thanks and goodnight and headed back to my bag, grabbing the second towel I’d learn to bring with me for after class. I dropped the saturated one onto the bleacher.
Maggie was finishing up too, heading my way with bulging eyes. “Oh, my God! What the hell did we sign up for?” she asked excitedly. It was followed quickly by a groan as she leaned over to touch her toes, stretching out her back muscles. “Fuck it hurts,” she whined, carefully extending her biceps now.
I laughed, and immediately regretted it. My body was aching something fierce, too. I was getting used to the exertion, but the impact of each hit could be felt not only in my arms, but my neck, shoulders and back as well. Especially once I traded out my gloves.
“Still want to get that coffee?” she asked wearily.
I grinned. Those muscles seemed the only ones that weren’t currently screaming at me. “Only if we dose it with a muscle relaxer.”
It was a twenty minute drive to the coffee shop we always went to, but it was en route to both our homes, so we kept using it. The nights were beginning to get cold and the unforgiving breeze made me wish I had brought more than just my flimsy hoodie. The shop was mostly empty, given the lateness. I was all for late night coffee, but I understood why most people didn’t want to drink it this late. I often wondered if Maggie didn’t like sleeping either, because she always ordered some kind of caffeinated beverage like me.
We sat down in the two intensely bright velvet chairs we always aimed for and sighed collectively, followed by a bout a laughter over our synchronicity. “So how do you like Jay?” I asked.
“Hot to look at.”
“I meant as a trainer, dork.”
“Oh,” she said amongst laughter, “yeah, he’s good in that department too. Jesse?”
“I like him. He makes me forget why I’m there in the first place.” Despite his similar looks… “He knows how to playfully get under my skin.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind playing with him either,” Maggie added dreamily.
“Not interested. But you’re welcome to him if he
’s single.”
She threw her arm over the armrest, like she was too tired or sore to move it any other way, then pointed at me. “Find out for me. Be my winggirl.”
Her hand was close enough to smack away with my own. “Maggie!” A girl called out as she grabbed her drink from the barista. She stood in a rich burgundy wool jacket that hung open over her jeans and V-neck tee, a huge smile lighting up her eyes as her hand jerked back and forth with an intense wave.
As she made her way over, Maggie greeted her with, “Stanya, hey.” Motioning to me, she added, “This is Megan. Megan, Stanya. She works with me.”
We both smiled and said hello as she dragged a wooden dining chair next to Maggie. “So were you guys working out?”
“Yeah, we’re taking these…” she paused to look at me, eyes curious, “…I guess we can call them fighting classes now.”
“Extreme self-defense,” I joked over my mug, the soothing scent of coffee wafting through my nose.
“Extreme?” Stanya parroted. She blew the air over her mug, tiny wisps of steam curling with the breeze before breaking apart and dissipating.
“It means a real self-defense class and not those with basic moves and reading material crap they regurgitate for you.”
By the look on her face, Stanya had no idea what Maggie was talking about. Guess she’d been one of the lucky ones in life thus far. “You’ve been ziplining at one of those places around here, right?” Maggie asked.
“Yeah, of course.”
“It’s kind of like that. Sure, you get to do a few soft zips, but once they take you up there and start heading down, they’ve got you trapped and they go on and on and on about our impact on the environment and yada yada yada. Stuff you already know but they beat to death like a dead horse.”
Stanya softly giggled. “Yeah, that is annoying. Especially if you’re a repeat customer and just wanna zip. I sorta get what you mean now.” She took a sip of what looked like tea before asking, “So why are you two taking extreme self-defense and not just something like an aerobics class with kickboxing?”
Maggie looked at me and shrugged, but we both had our reasons why. I answered for her. “I guess we just want to be able to protect ourselves when we come across some jerk who doesn’t like to keep his hands to himself.”
Maggie caught my use of when, but Stanya was completely oblivious to it, her face beginning to cringe as she thought on it. “I don’t know. Doesn’t violence just encourage more violence? If the guy’s already bigger than me and I fight back, what’s going to keep him from killing me at that point?”
“But what if the guy is going to kill you either way?” Maggie argued. “If you knew that going in, you’d fight, right?”
“Well, yeah. of course. But aren’t the odds more in favor that he won’t?”
Maggie’s forehead furrowed. “Won’t what, exactly? Rape you? Kill you? Once he knows you’ll do anything he wants, he’ll take whatever he wants.”
My head automatically snapped Maggie’s way. Her use of take made me wonder if her nightmare was really all that different from mine. Maybe she’d been raped, too.
Stanya just stared at her, her face slowly grimacing as Maggie’s words sank in. Our huddle fell silent, and after several unbearable seconds passed, I said, “You know, I once read something in a book that’s really stuck with me. An officer will meet those women successful at protecting themselves. The coroner will meet those who aren’t.”
If I thought our little group was quiet before, I’d just slammed the coffin door so hard it didn’t require nails to keep it shut.
“That’s just…dismal,” Stanya finally muttered.
“No,” Maggie answered, “that’s just reality.”
One I feared Maggie knew just about as well as I did.
“Alright,” Jesse said as he neared me, punching his hand and burying his fist inside the other. “You’ve had a little time to learn the game, so I think it’s time we stepped things up a bit.”
My eyes sort of bulged. Seriously? Step it up? So far this guy hadn’t even broken a sweat during our spars and I came out so drenched I looked like I walked through a freakin’ waterfall. “What does that mean exactly?”
He pressed his smile as he cocked his head at me with amusement. “It means I’m going to be more physical with you now. I’m going to put more effort into blocking your advancements and I’m going to send a few more of mine your way.”
“Oh, goodie,” I sang sarcastically, digging into my bag, pulling out my hand protection. I’d been here two minutes and already my body ached just thinking about what he proposed.
“Nope,” he said, snagging the pads away. “No more protecting your knuckles. Time to hit without.”
“You’re serious?” I asked in disbelief, my lower jaw forgetting how to come back up.
“Unless you plan on wearing these twenty-four-seven from here on out, you’re not going to be able to use them against anyone who attacks you, so you’d better get used to hitting the old fashioned way.”
I grumbled as I rose on my feet. I only had one session with them and was just getting used to dealing with the stiffness and soreness punching with the luxury of gloves. Now I had to punch raw? This is so gonna suck.
“One more thing,” he added hesitantly.
I looked to him curiously, my arms instinctively crossing in front of me in a defensive stance.
“I’d like for you to tell me what happened to you.”
I think every muscle I had just went slack. How the hell my body stood firm on my own two feet was baffling. Tell him? I didn’t even like discussing it with Dr. Vitriz and she was a woman trained to deal with reluctant basket cases such as myself. At some point during my stupor, my eyes had fallen to the floor. I saw his feet slowly shuffle the last two steps between us and felt his hand as it gently gripped the side of my left shoulder.
Funny how I didn’t cringe away from him, despite my sudden unease.
“Megan,” he spoke softly. A little too softly. It was the same softness Nick used when I shut down on him. “I can see this upsets you, but–”
“Then why?” I found the courage to ask. Forcing my eyes to lift their way back up, I added, “Why would you need to know…that?”
“You’re here because something happened to you. You’re here because you want to feel empowered, to put your mind at ease that you can handle the situation better next time. Truth is, most victims won’t ever face a repeat occurrence, but you still want to feel that you’ll control the moment if you do.”
Repeat occurrence? Try thrice.
“Oh, there’ll be another round,” I replied bitterly.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because it’s happened twice already,” I answered, my response feeling bolder.
He paused to look at me, to seriously take in the pink burn on my arm and the pale, shimmering cut marks that still lingered on the skin above the rim of my tank top. He let out a long breath. “Is there someone hurting you?”
It was almost comical. Did he think I did these things to myself? Alright, the burns were my fault, but they only happened because there was no other way out of that psycho’s house. The cut marks? That was just because Zander was bored.
I shivered so intensely my goosebumps sprouted all along my arms.
Jesse wasn’t oblivious to it. Next thing I knew he was turning me and leading me away, the grip on the inside of my elbow light but authoritative. He guided me inside the empty weight room and closed the door behind us, removing his hand from my arm. Was it wrong that I had felt comfort by his contact; that the way he automatically made the decision for us to speak more privately and pulled me away made me feel more at ease with him?
My arms were still tightly wrapped around myself protectively, but he invaded my personal space anyways, standing right before me. His vivid green eyes were incredibly kind.
“Did your boyfriend do this to you?”
I inhaled a sharp gasp. “What? No!
Nick would never hurt me,” I blurted.
“Then who’s hurting you repeatedly?” My lower lip got sucked inside my mouth and my teeth slowly scraped over it, biting back the horrible image I saw in my mind. “Megan?” he demanded. “I can help you get this person off your back, but you have to confide in me first.” When I still didn’t answer, he tipped my chin to force my eyes his way again.
I shook my head slowly, my damn eyes stinging as tears threatened but didn’t run. “It doesn’t matter. He’s a ghost. I’ll never know where he is until he’s right on top of me.”
“I don’t understand. I can’t help you unless you’re completely honest with me.”
“Do you have a sister? Or a girlfriend?” Once he replied girlfriend, I asked, “What’s the worst thing that could happen to her in your mind?”
The tension in his jaw intensified before he finally settled on, “She could be murdered.”
I released a single laugh, my hand reaching out to rip his hand from my chin. “Believe me when I tell you there are far worse things than murder.” At least for the girl. A solidary tear pushed past each eye, with more aching to follow their lead. Through gritted teeth, I quietly said, “I begged for death every day.”
After taking the time to deeply think on my comment, he asked, “How many days?”
“The first time or the second time I was taken?”
That silenced him, and I took the moment to turn away and sweep the stream of moisture across my cheeks. Without turning to face him, I replied, “Six months’ worth.” Five months, nineteen days, to be exact.
I sighed heavily, my eyes closing as my head began to shake, as I began to remember that basement prison. The dingy white walls that were rough to the touch. The noxious air choking my lungs, incapacitating me body and soul. I tried to kill myself in that prison, aching for it to come to an end by my own hand. But Charles figured out I was slowly starving myself and threatened to do far worse things if I didn’t begin eating again.
I felt so hopeless. I couldn’t even die.