by Hunter Rose
“Sorry,” I say with a shrug. “It’s an effective alarm.”
“Who’s calling you this early?” he asks.
“I have a feeling I know,” I mutter, stepping away from him and reaching out for my phone. I look at the screen and nod. “Yep. Damien.”
Talon narrows his eyes at me.
“Why is Damien calling you at this time of day?” he asks.
I can’t help but notice the suspicious note in his voice. I press the button to ignore the call and tilt my head at Talon.
“I can ask you the same question. What do you think got me up this early?”
“A deep desire to make me breakfast?” he asks, some humor coming back to his voice. “Did he call me, too?”
“At least three times. I answered, but he refused to tell me anything. Just said he needed to talk to you,” I say.
“You answered my phone?” he asks.
He sounds angrier than I would have thought, and I pull my head back, looking at him strangely.
“He called three times and woke me up. The only reason that people call repeatedly this early in the morning is when bad things are going on. I figured we should probably know if something exploded or there is an invasion or something.”
“Are you planning on something invading any time soon?” he asks.
“Do people generally plan on getting invaded?” I ask. “If so, there are a lot of sci-fi movies out there that are woefully under-researched.”
He smiles and reaches out to gather me against him again.
“What are you making?” he asks, moving the conversation away from the phone calls.
I’m more than happy to go along with the shift. I don’t like the look in his eyes when he questioned me about answering his phone. It seems there’s still a lot I need to learn about him.
“Zucchini carrot muffins,” I tell him. He makes a face. “What?” I ask with a laugh.
“Why would you put vegetables in a muffin? That’s just cruel.”
“To which one?”
“Both. Cruel to the vegetables because they’re reminded they aren’t a sweet, delicious muffin, and cruel to the muffin because they have to be embedded with vegetables and be ruined,” he says.
“Well, they are my favorite,” I tell him.
His fingers on my hips draw me closer to him. “I thought I was your favorite.”
His kiss starts soft, then turns more insistent. I reach to the side to set the bowl on the counter and slide my hands up his chest to come to rest on his shoulders. He tightens his hands on my hips and lifts me up to set me on the counter, pushing the hem of the shirt up my thighs to my hips. His fingers are finding the soft, warm inside of my thigh when the sound of the front door of the apartment opening makes us jump apart.
“What the fuck?” Talon growls.
He stalks out of the kitchen, and I jump down from the counter. I don’t even have time to get out of the room before Damien stalks around the corner. My hands grab onto the hem of the shirt, pulling it down to cover me.
“What are you doing?” I gasp.
“She is here,” he says, a cruel smile curving his lips. “I have to admit, Talon, I didn’t think you could do it. I guess you proved me wrong.”
“Shut up, Damien.”
I try to move around him, but he stands in my way. Talon reaches out and grabs him by the front of the shirt to pull him to the side.
“What’s wrong, Talon? Haven’t told her yet?”
I look between them. “Told me what?” I ask.
“Go get dressed, Wren. I need to have a talk with Damien,” Talon growls low in his throat.
“Yeah, it’s probably better if you’re wearing clothes for this,” Damien adds, the words sounding slimy as he says them. “Besides, I’m owed some details. Isn’t that right, Talon?”
“Talon, what is he talking about?” I ask.
“Go get dressed.”
His voice is stern, and I follow it, hurrying back into the bedroom and putting on the first clothes I can get my hands on. I run my brush through my hair and sweep it up into a ponytail. I don’t bother putting on any makeup. Something’s going on, and I need to find out what it is.
Talon is facing off against Damien when I walk into the living room. His jaw twitches, and his hands clench tightly by his sides, but the look in his eyes that isn’t anger. It almost looks like fear.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Do you want to tell her, Talon? Or should I?” Damien asks.
“Leave,” Talon snaps.
“How did he even get in?” I ask.
“Door’s unlocked,” Damien explains. “I guess Talon was just in too much of a hurry to fulfill all the requirements he didn’t bother locking up. It’s very irresponsible of you, you know. This is a nice place; you wouldn’t want unscrupulous people just wandering in.”
“Why are you doing this?” Talon asks.
“You have no idea how you impact people, do you? You fucked up with your rich daddy, so he sent you to live with your aunt, and you came sweeping into our school like you owned the place. You walked on people and didn’t even care. You still do.”
“Talon, what is he talking about?” I ask.
“Remember Lisabeth?” Damien asks. “Probably not. She was just one of a string. An addition to your collection. You tossed her aside when she didn’t amuse you anymore and never thought of her again. Did it even occur to you she’s a person? She exists even when she’s not in your bed?”
My stomach turns. It’s not like I’ve forgotten Talon’s past or think it disappeared the second he made a commitment to me. Or who he is and who he was. I just don’t like to think about it.
“What does this have to do with her?” Talon asks.
“She’s my cousin. But we were raised together. She might as well be my sister. You got to use her and toss her away without a second thought. But who was there for her? Who had to be there to clean up the aftermath?”
“That was over a year ago. You never said anything to me before. Why bring it up now? Why do all this?” Talon asks.
“Do all what? Talon, I need to know what’s going on,” I say.
“It wouldn’t have meant anything to you if I confronted you back then,” Damien says. “People tried to call you out on your shit all the time, and it didn’t matter. But this was too perfect. My chance to let you taste a little of what you put people through every day.”
Over the next few minutes, the world seems to move in slow motion. Damien’s dark eyes meet mine, and I try to ignore what he says, try to find solace in the hypnotic blue of Talon’s stare, but I can’t. He can’t deny it. He can’t pretend Damien’s lying.
The next thing I’m fully aware of, I’m running down the sidewalk outside Talon’s apartment. I didn’t even put on shoes. The concrete cuts into the bottoms of my feet, and the sharp pain of stepping down onto a rock makes me stop. Talon’s chasing behind me, and he reaches out, his fingers brushing down my back. I whip around, stepping away from his touch.
“Don’t touch me,” I scream. “Don’t you ever touch me again!”
“Wren, please. Please listen to me,” he says.
“There’s nothing you can say.”
He holds my shoes out to me, and I snatch them out of his hand.
“Just give me a minute to explain,” he begs.
“Explain what? I was a bet? A dare? This was all a game to you? How are you possibly going to explain that to me? There’s absolutely nothing you could say that would make that alright.”
“I know. I know it’s not alright, but I can explain it to you. Come back to the apartment with me,” he pleads. “People are watching.”
“I don’t care!” I shout. I throw my arms open to the sides. “Let them. Doesn’t that seem like the appropriate conclusion to all this? Maybe one of them has their phone out, and we can post the videos alongside each other. That’s how this all started, isn’t it? The video of me breaking up with Isaiah and walking aw
ay from you? So let them watch. It doesn’t matter. I’m sure everybody on campus is going to know about this by the end of the day, anyway. If they don’t know already.”
He opens his mouth to defend himself, but I keep yelling before he has a chance to. “Tell me, Talon, how long were you going to wait to tell me? If Damien didn’t show up today because of some ridiculous end of the school year deadline, how long would you have waited? A few more years? Maybe after we were married? A couple of kids?”
“You’re being ridiculous now,” Talon says.
“Maybe I am. But I think I have the right to be a little bit ridiculous,” I say.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “You need to understand I didn’t want this to keep going. Yes, I made the bet. I took the dare. But it was only after you’d hurt me.”
I let out a shocked, incredulous scoff.
“I hurt you? Are you kidding me? You’re seriously going to try to blame me for this?”
“I’m not blaming you. This is on me. I did this. But it was after you got back with Isaiah. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
“I don’t care what it did to you. I never should’ve given you the time of day. He was right about you. It doesn’t matter now. Get out of my life, Talon. I don’t want anything to do with you ever again. Never.”
44
Talon
Not even riding my motorcycle alleviates the misery. Pounding down highways and peeling around dead man curves at dangerous speeds provides no thrill, no enjoyment. It’s just another thing I do. Having spent most of the day riding and it not doing a damn thing, I decide to try to get through yet another night of trying to not think by going to the gym. I park my bike at the small, dilapidated building and go inside.
With my wealth, I could afford to go to nice gyms. Gyms with shiny new equipment and buxom personal trainers who motivate primarily with their cleavage, but none of it interests me. I don’t go to the gym to create some sculpted midsection or to get bigger arms. I go to hit things. I go to hit things hard, and often. This gym, off in the no man’s land between Richmond and one of its seedier suburbs, is ideal for such a purpose.
The gym itself is a converted warehouse in an office park a few miles from the airport. The main street nearby is a grungy collection of fast food places, payday loans, and cell phone stores. Graffiti adorns almost every building, either elaborate and impressive or cheap, shoddy tags littering the landscape. The haphazard zoning leaves pockets of trees and asphalt jungles living in checkerboard for miles.
Inside, the gym is clean, if run down. It’s shared by a local MMA group, a wrestling training school, and guys who show up whenever to smack the bags and work out frustrations. Today there is a class of wrestling students practicing landing on the hard mat. It sends reverberating, heavy thumps of bodies on canvas around the room. It’s rhythmic, and I allow my mind to zone out as I listen to the slams and put on my gloves.
My interest is not in the pre-determined nature of their training but in the heavy body bags. I want to hit something without pulling back, and as I stand in front of the open bag, I take a boxer’s stance. I won’t be doing much footwork or any of the other things I learned from boxing. I will just be wailing on this bag while my brain screams at me for my mistakes.
I try not to obsess over exactly how much time has passed since I have seen Wren, but I can’t help it. It’s like a stopwatch running inside of my brain at all times. The minutes roll over into hours, the hours into days. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t focus on anything. Nothing brings me joy. Only this brings any measure of peace.
Time passes, but I barely register it. The wrestling school has already ended their day, and I am soaked with sweat. My arms are sore, and my hands feel like raw hamburger, but I still burn with fury for myself. I brought this on. I invited this at every turn. There is no one to blame but myself, and I want to punish myself for it as much as possible.
Lights click off throughout the gym, and I toss off my gloves and throw them into the bag. I throw on the jeans I wear for riding and a new shirt but don’t even bother to towel off much. There isn’t much of a point. When I leave the gym, and the owner locks it up, I hop on my bike for the quick mile ride. There is a biker bar, just a little ride away, and I may have a motorcycle, but I stick out in a biker bar like a sore thumb.
It isn’t that I dislike bikers, not any more than I dislike almost every human being on earth, they just don’t seem fond of me. All too often, I have wandered into a bar where my bike was noticed, and by the end of the night, I am having a scuffle with some wannabe tough guy with a spiderweb tattoo on his elbow and an extra fifty pounds on his gut. Usually it ends with me landing a few punches, them figuring out they are in over their head, and everyone calling it off and returning to the bar for another drink. This time, it won’t. This time I am going to go pick a fight, and when it comes, I will end it.
I rev the engine loudly, letting the sound drown out everything else around me. The roar of the bike is the only thing louder than the voice inside my head, reminding me every few seconds of how stupid I am, and how I ruined everything good in my life. The voice that reminds me of Wren. The voice that reminds me of what I did to her.
I peel out into the street and speed to the bar. I don’t care if a cop catches me; it might just make the night shorter. None come, and I arrive at the bar in record time, hopping off in what almost feels like excitement. There’s no joy in it, but there is anticipation, and I find myself swinging the door open hard as I step inside. The bar is mostly full, and I relax a little. It shouldn’t be hard to find someone who will be interested in going toe to toe.
I take a seat at the bar, nodding at the bartender who heads over. No one asks for my ID. No one ever does. I’m not a drunk. I’ve seen the way it impacts my father and grandfather too much to want to do that to myself. But now seems as good a time as any to start.
“Whiskey,” I tell him. “Keep it coming.”
The bartender nods. He isn’t the gregarious television bartender interested in your life. He’s an old biker and an older grump. My money is the only interesting thing about me to him, and it suits me fine. Later on, he might need to recall what I was wearing to authorities, but only if it gets really out of hand. Usually, there are no snitches at these places.
I drink for a while, waiting for the right person. A few potentials have milled through, but none of them feel right. I need my target to be bigger than me, more menacing. Someone who I feel like can represent everything I have done to myself. Finally, I see him, a big lumbering brute, sitting alone and nursing a beer. To my surprise and small measure of joy, he slaps the waitress on her ass as she walks past him. Immediately, I am up and stalking over. The waitress tries to get between us, already knowing what is coming, but I blow pass her.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” he snarls, seeing me advance on him. It’s as if a switch has been flipped. No longer am I even human at this point, just a bundle of nerves and energy and rage. I hate him. I hate him as much as I hate myself. I don’t bother with asking him to go outside or for an apology to the lady. That wouldn’t quell the thirst for pain.
I launch into him, diving in with a right cross to his jaw and tumbling into the booth with him. He grabs me by my shirt and tries to lift me off him, but I keep swinging, putting my raw, sore hands to work by smashing against his jowls, ripping them apart on his cheekbones. We struggle and fall to the floor of the bar. He lands a few shots to my side and ribs.
It hurts, but I barely register it. I welcome the pain. Physical pain I can deal with. It hinders you, slows you, makes you think more before you move. The pain riddling me now has no end date. As long as I think about it, it doesn’t heal and scab over. It stays open and raw.
Wren’s face fills my vision, her lips pursed together and tears in her eyes. I can’t even register the man I am fighting, and my body goes on full autopilot. I am dimly aware he has the upper hand now, and I am struggling to get out f
rom under him, but all I can think of is Wren’s face. The hurt in her eyes. The hatred in her voice.
I deserve hatred.
I hate myself.
Time passes. I am not sure how much. I don’t remember the rest of the fight. I am outside now, a couple of bikers surrounding me, but none of them are threatening. They seem to be simply breaking up the violence. I look up to one of them.
“Did I win?”
The heavyset man with a long braid of dark gray hair looks down on me with pity.
“No.”
I nod. That seems right.
I close my eyes, just for a second.
45
Wren
The air is so thick and sticky; I feel like I can’t breathe. I’ve been tossing and turning most of the night, struggling to catch a few minutes of sleep. I don’t understand why it’s so hot. It’s October. We’ve still had a few days with temperatures creep up, but at night the air becomes crisp and laced with the scent of fall leaves. It shouldn’t be so hot in the house I can’t sleep.
Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I toss away the sweaty sheet tangled around me and climb out of bed. I look at the window. It’s closed. That doesn’t seem right. I always open my window in the fall. I’ve always slept so much better in fresh air rather than with an air conditioner. I’ll even keep the window open long into the winter, when everyone else is bundled up and relying on their space heater. I usually pile on an extra blanket just so I can breathe in the fresh air while I’m sleeping. But for some reason tonight my window is closed. That could explain why my bedroom feels so stuffy.
I walk over to the window and push the curtains aside. Turning the worn bronze lock out of the way, I reach down and lift the window up. It moves easily under my hands, smoothly following the path I’ve pushed up and down countless times in my life. It’s almost like the window has muscle memory and only needs a slight touch of my hands to know what it’s supposed to do.