Rise

by Paige VanZant

  I’ve cried so much that my eyes are puffy to the point of unrecognition, but my angel Alan tells me that I have never looked more beautiful. My whole body is still quivering, and my mind staggers somewhere between past and present. One of the cops explains the logistics of “what’s next,” which would involve a long, arduous, and complex process of going to trial, complicated even further by the fact that I no longer live in Oregon. They explain that I can press charges whenever I want, and they agree to keep my notes and statement for whenever I feel ready. They tell me they are proud of me for being so brave. A female officer stands up and comes around to where I am sitting, and puts her hands on my shoulders. She tells me it’s going to be OK. “You’ll see,” she says, squeezing my shoulders with a motherly touch. “Now that you’ve spoken about it, you can start to let it go.”

  WALKING with a friend

  in the dark is better

  than walking alone

  IN THE LIGHT.

  —Helen Keller

  ANGELS & WARRIORS

  The act of giving my statement to the police feels like ripping fresh stitches from my chest after surgery, my whole body cracked open for a public viewing, the skeleton of my soul exposed. I should feel better, but the opposite is true. Knowing that the truth is out in the world, somewhere filed away in a drawer, terrifies me, and there’s this unshakable feeling that it’s up for grabs somehow, that people can really know it, hold on to it, remember it, and, worst of all, identify me with it. But there is no turning back, and it’s out there, officially a part of police records, which means I can never again pretend it didn’t happen. Alan says that telling the police should make me feel better, but I can’t help it, the opposite is true. What I tried for so many years to bury is now at the forefront of all my thoughts.

  I start to realize that the notion of going to school—anywhere, not just in Newberg—still massively fucks with my head. Maybe it’s just not for me. I have exactly zero school spirit, I ditch classes all the time and still manage to get decent grades, and when I am in school, it just feels like a giant waste of time. I have lost all interest in academia and idle on with mostly gloom. My mom hears about Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC), which offers an education program in Reno in which high school students can attend college early. She says all I need is a high GPA and recommendations from teachers. “Those are no-brainers for you,” Mom assures me. If I get in, it will be my third high school in three years, but at this point I don’t even care.

  High school teens get the chance to experience university life—and even the professors themselves don’t know which of their students are high schoolers. It might be weird but I can see that Mom really wants me to give this a go.

  She asks me to come downstairs to check the mail with her one day. We’re both quiet on the walk to the mailbox. I know she’s concerned because it’s all over her face every time she looks at me lately. But when she grabs the stack of mail, suddenly I notice her face light up. She pulls out a letter and looks at the return address and holds it up to the light.

  “What is it?” I ask, eager now.

  She tears it open and starts reading out loud. “Holy shit!” she screams. “You got in, baby!” She can’t contain herself and starts to cry, her whole body shaking, tears streaming down her cheeks, raining little saline circles right onto the acceptance letter. She grabs me close, the paper crumpling in her grip. I can feel her heart racing. I can feel how much she loves me. I fall into her, and we cling to one another in tears and quietly celebrate the prospect of new possibilities for me, and maybe for the first time we feel a tiny bit hopeful.

  One day I’m settling in to my desk in a college debate class, when I see this tall, quirky-looking girl walk in. She’s wearing rubber cowboy boots with skulls and roses on them, and has a look like she doesn’t give a fuck. She’s at once eccentric and brazen. I’m not sure why, but I have a strong compulsion to be her friend.

  “What’s with the boots?” I ask her, half smiling.

  “What’s with the questions?” she jokes back. And both of us laugh, for that split second feeling a unique connection. I haven’t had a girlfriend since middle school, but Alexa feels like home. And even though I have misgivings now about female friends and their cattiness toward each other, with Alexa it’s never like that. Alexa is simply the best.

  She listens without judgment and she’s all in when I need any kind of support, be it emotional or logistical. Her family takes me in as well, and they even give me a job working with plants at their nursery and doing some basic customer service. They open their home to me and always make me feel welcome. I don’t even have to call in advance. Alexa’s mom runs a tight ship, and their house is always spotless, with everything exactly in its place. Her mom even feels comfortable enough with me that they tell me where the secret spare key lives! I love that and bake for them as a thank-you for being so great to me. The whole family feels like relatives from day one, and right away the presence of this new cast of characters in my life feels like a move in the right direction.

  Alexa and I carpool to school together and sometimes grab breakfast at Denny’s or IHOP after first period. During some of these quiet drives, we listen to music and I think about our closeness and how lucky I am to finally have someone like her in my life. A friend. A real friend. Not just someone who will hang out with me, but someone who loves me and whom I love back, who makes me laugh, who gives me time, who shares her life. The more time we spend together, the more inclined I feel to really talk to her, to tell her everything.

  “I’m pretty sure I was sexually assaulted when I was fourteen,” I say one day, almost too matter-of-factly and taking an overtly noisy slurp of my Frosty immediately afterward, to obscure the weight of my own words. Alexa pulls off the road sharply and stops the car. She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes tell me to go on. “It happened on Halloween,” I say. And I proceed to let her have the whole thing; every shred of every detail that I can summon comes tumbling out of me now, and my new friend receives it, absorbing some of the hurt for me so that I don’t have to bear it all—if only for that brief moment. She holds me, she lets me cry. She cries, too. And then, as if on cue, as if our worlds were meant to collide at this precise time, she says, “It happened to me, too.” And in that moment, Alexa and I fall into a deep understanding of what it means to be a woman, and we lock into a sacred sisterhood. She listens without judgment, her eyes glossy and serious. This is what friendship is supposed to feel like, I think to myself, as if tasting the most basic of fruits for the first time.

  Things at school feel a lot better. This new program works out perfectly because we receive both high school and college credits for all our classes, so even though I’m technically in community college, I’m also getting all the credits required to earn my high school diploma. Switching schools means I’m busier, more active, and have less time to wallow. Sadly, it also means that I see less and less of Alan. I have way more schoolwork, and it’s a lot harder; I have Alexa in my life now, and there’s just not a lot of extra time. I feel like I have stuff to figure out, and maybe what I need right now is just some me time.

  There’s an expression: “Some people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.” Alan came into mine for some very special reasons. He saw me for the person I am. He nurtured the best parts of me. He opened his heart. He believed in me. He rooted for me. He went out of his way for me. He dug me out of my own grave and brought me back to life. He was the angel who helped me confront my demons, and for this I’ll always love him. But I have to let him go. Life feels too complicated and textured and messy for me right now—there’s no reason to drag him down, too.

  “Maybe you should take Paige to Ken Shamrock’s place,” Mom says to Dad one day, the words “Ken Shamrock” spoken in a way that suggests I should know who he is. She’s sick of seeing me mope around all the time, and I know she also wants my father and me to spend a little more time together. He’s been so bus
y with work since we moved to Reno, but Mom knows he and I have a bond and that we’re good for one another. Lately, she’ll try anything to get us to hang out. I’m tired and not particularly in the mood to go to any gym, but I pull myself together and head out with my pop.

  Dad says Ken Shamrock, the owner of the gym, is a world-class legend. Cool, I think, not particularly impressed, but mostly because I feel indifferent to just about everything. When we arrive at the gym, it’s Ken himself who greets us. The guy has small, deep-set eyes and a wide nose that looks like it’s been broken at least fifty times. He’s all shoulders and pecs, and his muscles are so fibrous and dense that he has the carriage and demeanor of a bull. He cracks jokes and unleashes a smile that says, “I’m smiling like this because if I want to, I can kill you.” But despite all that grit, a certain warmth emanates from him, and right away I feel at home in his care. Dad says Ken Shamrock is a UFC Hall of Famer, a retired pro wrestler, one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time, and often referred to as “the most dangerous man in the world.”

  “Welcome to the Lion’s Den,” Ken says to me, his handshake so firm I can feel it all the way up to my jaw. Looking around, I feel both intrigued and intimidated. The place isn’t a regular gym—it’s a grungy, dirty, musky dungeon with a stench so potent I almost gag when we first walk in. It’s as if a man’s dirty reeking armpit has literally just hit me in the face. But rankness aside, something about this place is strangely comforting to me.

  There’s a sparring ring, a fighting cage, cardio machines, weights, and tons of beaten-up black punching bags hanging from the rafters, swaying in the space like hunks of drying beef in a meat locker. There’s not a lot of talking, but there’s plenty of grunting and heavy breathing, the sounds of kicks and hits, the sounds of air being chopped by the swoosh of a sharp strike. A giant and menacingly realistic lion made of brass sits proudly on the mantel of Ken’s office, flanked by photo collages of famous fights and fighters—a history of victory, a time line of glory. But what I notice most is that this is a girl-free zone. Not a female in sight, save for Ken Shamrock’s wife, who works in the gym. No girls means I can just be me. I don’t have to chat. I can relax into my athleticism. The tomboy in me perks up.

  The fighters are all focused in their own realms, whether it’s weights, boxing, karate, wrestling, sprints, or deep core work on a mat. There are battle ropes and gargantuan kettlebells and giant tires and racks and racks of rusty-looking weights. There are shelves lined with pads and gloves of various styles and sizes, all of them worn out and stunk up to high hell. There are young scar-less fighters with smooth baby faces and pitbull-puppy fervor, and there are more seasoned fighters with jagged faces like Picasso paintings. Their busted limbs taped up and wrapped in crazy patterns on their bodies. The real common denominator here is that absolutely everybody is working his ass off. Whatever the task, the room as a whole feels like a constellation of individual missions, every man focused on his next big goal. This isn’t a regular gym—this is a place to grind out progress. It’s exciting to be here with Dad, too, a small peak into the world I know he loves. Being by his side here almost feels like a rite of passage.

  Ken teaches us how to do heel hooks, which is when you wrap your opponent’s leg with both of yours, and hold his foot in his armpit. Ken explains that you basically have to use your legs to control all his movements while his foot is twisted by holding his heel and forearm, and then you use his whole body to generate a twisting motion, which properly busts up his ankle. This, I think, is cool. From the start, my body knows what to do. As he explains, I start to understand anatomy as a kind of puzzle.

  Ken looks on with focused eyes as I practice my heel hook on my dad. Having Dad as a training partner feels good, and for the first time in a long time, he and I are back where we’ve always been, father and daughter locked in the thrill of a fight. I zero in on the strength of my own grip, moving my body with the force of certainty. I listen to Ken’s words as he walks me through the move, led by my intent and my curiosity. I’ve got my dad good. And for the first time in what feels like a decade, I swear I catch my father smile.

  I KNOW who I am, and

  that NEVER changes.

  —Urijah Faber

  THE HOTTEST LOVE

  has the coldest end.

  —Socrates

  DRUNK ON CHAOS

  I still feel a dull pain in my heart. It’s one that I’ve grown accustomed to living with, like a recurring migraine—it’s just always kind of there. But spending time training at Ken’s gym and Alexa’s friendship are the only things that feel somewhat good. The seriousness of the gym lures me into a tranquil, focused zone. Ken runs a tight ship, with a zero-tolerance policy for cussing or pouting. There’s an air of unapologetic discipline in the gym, which helps keep me steady. I’m mostly boxing for now, but when Ken says I’m ready, I’ll get to start grappling and trying some other basic martial arts moves. Even on the days when I feel most down, I go there and try to draw up some energy.

  But while the tomboy side of me thrives at the Lion’s Den, the sixteen-year-old teenage girl is eager to play, which is perfect, because that’s when the mysterious and sexy Seth walks into my life.

  “’Sup,” a sly-looking guy says to me one day after school, leaning on his BMW, looking as casual as can be. There is intrigue laced into his gaze. There’s something simultaneously handsome and punk scruffy about him. I recognize him, but I can’t tell how. “We were in high school together,” he says, as if reading my mind. He’s got a tinge of an accent, but hard to guess from where. He’s not very tall, but he is sinewy and strong in his compactness. His muscles are fibrous and taut like dolphin flesh. There’s a confidence in his gait, and he’s not afraid to hold eye contact. He doesn’t smile at all. I pick up on something broken about him, a sadness maybe. But instead of running the other way, I want to know more.

  “I’m Paige,” I say, offering a hand.

  “Hell of a handshake,” he says, with my hand still held in his. His skin feels good, the perfect combination of cool and warm. I don’t want to let go.

  Oddly enough, he’s nothing like Alan. Seth is one of those hotheaded, rough-hewn, rebellious types, and for reasons I don’t really grasp, I’m totally drawn to him. I like his fire, his fuck-you-ness, his way of walking around like he could literally give a shit about all of it. As if the rules don’t apply to him.

  He comes over to our place and plays pool with my parents, carrying himself like a king. He has a lot of free time, which he says is because of some lawsuit—he’s waiting on a possible million-dollar settlement. He doesn’t go to school or work, and wants to spend every waking minute with me. There’s something about his passion and full-throttle approach to life that turns me on. It’s beyond feeling wanted—for the first time in a long time, I actually feel alive.

  For the first six months, he clings to me, stuck to me like a piece of Velcro wherever I go. The texts start at seven a.m. and go on until I’m getting into bed. If I don’t text right back, he calls. If I don’t pick up, he calls again until I do. This goes on until he has my undivided attention. One would think that might get annoying, but there’s a protective quality about him, a persistence, that makes me feel loved and unconditionally safe.

  “Where were you between the hours of four and six p.m. on Tuesday?” he asks me one night. I have to look in my phone calendar to remember.

  “I don’t know, the gym probably?” I reply, not realizing that for Seth these types of details are important.

  “I was trying to call you. What if something had happened to you and I couldn’t get in touch? You gotta be smarter than that, Paige,” he says, always with an air of I’m here to protect you even against yourself. Instead of feeling squelched, I allow his intensity, I am maybe even flattered by it. It makes me want him more.

  He also doesn’t approve of me taking the bus alone, or even walking, insisting that he drive me wherever I need to go. He behaves as if someone has appoin
ted him to the role of my lover, chauffeur, and bodyguard, and anything I do to challenge this trifecta of duties is often met with extreme anger and heavy bouts of tension between us. He blows up and I calm him down, the two of us caught in this up-and-down landscape of lusty emotions. It’s exhausting, but it’s also sexy and passionate.

  He even complains whenever I’m with Alexa.

  “What about me?” he meows when I announce that I am going to her place, which I often do. Why wouldn’t I? I love Alexa and her family—they happen to be one of the main reasons why I feel settled in Reno. “What does Alexa give you that I don’t?” he asks rhetorically with a fiendish smirk, stretching the word “Alexa” out like it’s a joke in his mouth. But each time I make a plan with her he seems even angrier, and at one point he literally blocks the doorway of his house so that I won’t leave. At first, I think he’s joking. Who would really do that? But he presses his weight hard against me when I try to make it out. Seth, I learn quickly, is not here to fuck around.

  Alexa doesn’t like his vibe one bit, but she’s happy for me so she mostly stays out of it. We learn to navigate that sacred space between girlfriends where there’s a certain amount of respect given to the “guy” in one another’s lives. Even though he makes her mad, she gives me the room to figure it out.