by BB Easton
Ken spread his arms. “Hey, whatever helps the Falcons win.”
I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was the beer. Maybe it was the isolation. Maybe it was sheer gratitude. But, for whatever reason, as soon as Ken spread his arms, I took two steps forward and wrapped mine around his waist.
I expected him to freeze or do that awkward get-the-fuck-off-me back-pat thing that people who aren’t huggers do when they feel uncomfortable, but the moment my cheek touched Ken’s chest, his arms immediately pulled me in closer. He was hard and warm underneath all that soft, dryer-scented cotton, and he held me the way a five-year-old holds on to a balloon string. Like I was precious. Like my very existence made him happy. Like the thought of watching me float away would break his ornery, apathetic little heart.
I wanted to stay there, feasting on Ken’s unexpected affection for as long as he would let me, but I couldn’t. I had to let him go. I had to take a step back, and smile, and tell him good night. Not because it was the right thing to do, but because the man who’d been starving me was watching us from across the parking lot.
I could feel Ken’s eyes on my back and Hans’s on my front as I crossed the expanse from one man to the other. I was usually overjoyed to see Hans, but something in his posture, in his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, something in the flex of his jaw and the straight line of his mouth told me that this would not be a happy homecoming.
“Hey, baby,” I said, full of false cheer as I approached.
Once I got close enough, I could see that he was still wearing his eyeliner and stage clothes from the night before. Hans hadn’t come home; LDH had, and he’d clearly been partying like a rock star.
“Who the fuck is that?” Hans snapped, his bloodshot eyes flaring as they looked past me toward Jason’s building.
“Just a friend.” I smiled and held up my flash cards. “I needed a study buddy for this test—”
“Oh, you got all kinds of new friends, huh?” Hans’s words were acidic.
He cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes at me, daring me to take the bait. Motherfucker was looking for a fight, but he wasn’t going to get it out there in the parking lot.
I grabbed Hans’s arm, which was completely bare despite the November chill in the air, and hauled his ass inside the apartment. I didn’t look back at Ken as I closed the door behind us and locked the dead bolt.
I didn’t want him to see my fear.
“It’s nice to see you too,” I quipped, trying to sound more annoyed than anxious.
I flipped on the light above the stairs and watched Hans recoil like a vampire in the sun. I hated this version of him. Still in LDH mode, coming down off the high of performing and the high of whatever he’d taken that kept him up all night after performing.
I headed up the stairs, trying to get some distance from him.
“I know about Jason.” His words were sharp. They stuck in my back like porcupine quills as I continued up the stairs.
“What about Jason?” I asked flippantly, crossing the living room to turn on the lamp.
“Don’t give me that bullshit! Victoria told me you’ve been hanging out with him behind my back, and I just saw you leaving his fucking house!”
I continued making my way through the tiny living area without giving Hans a second glance. “It’s not like that,” I said, flipping on the dining room light with a shaking hand. “He’s our neighbor.” I walked into the kitchen and turned on the harsh fluorescent bulbs. “He’s the only person I know in this complex, and he has people over every Sunday. If you were ever home, you could come with me.”
I realized my mistake a moment too late. By walking into the kitchen, I’d painted myself into a corner. Hans was now standing in the doorway behind me, blocking my exit.
I knew he would never hurt me. At least, my brain did, but my nerves and heart and muscles and lungs remembered other fights, terrifying fights, with a very different boyfriend. They told me I wasn’t safe. They told me to run.
“Are you fucking him?” My gorgeous, high-contrast boy was now more black-and-white than ever. His skin was pale from weeks spent sleeping during the day and partying all night. His black beard scruff shadowed the hollows of his cheeks. His black eyebrows were pulled down into a V. And his black pupils were still swollen from whatever the fuck he’d been pumping into his bloodstream all weekend.
“No!” I yelled, taking a step farther back into the kitchen. “Why the fuck would you even ask me that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve been spending every weekend with him while I’m out working my ass off and fucking lying to me about it!”
“No, I spend Sunday afternoons with a group of people that just happens to include Jason, and I didn’t tell you about it because I knew you’d act like a jealous…fucking… asshole!” My words were aggressive, but my posture was anything but.
I backed up again, bumping into the wall at the end of our skinny kitchen. My heart was pounding in my chest as the tunnel vision of a panic attack began to cloud the edges of my awareness. I could feel myself beginning to hyperventilate. My eyes darted left and right as Hans approached, looking for a way out. Looking for a weapon.
I considered jumping over the counter into the living room, but Hans would catch me pretty easily. I considered trying to dart through the opening next to him, but those long arms would snatch me in an instant. So, instead, I pulled the biggest kitchen knife we owned out of the wooden block on the counter to my left and held it in front of me like a sword.
“Stay back!” I screamed, unable to catch my breath.
There would be no snapping of fingers. No invisible Stop sign in my mind to save me. I was too far down the rabbit hole. In my history, fights like those ended in bruises and bloodshed and humiliation. I had to protect myself. No one would save me.
No one ever saved me.
Hans froze where he stood in the center of the kitchen and held his hands up. “Jesus, BB! What the fuck?”
Between gasps of air, I pleaded, “Just…stay back. Please.”
“Baby, I’m not gonna hurt you.” Hans took one hesitant step closer, holding his hand out as if he were trying to earn the trust of a frightened animal.
“Stay the fuck back!” I pointed the knife at him, now violently shaking in my puny grasp.
I hadn’t touched him, but Hans looked wounded nonetheless. His mouth fell open as if I’d just stabbed him in the gut. His hands hung, lifeless at his sides. And his eyebrows lifted in an expression of pain and remorse.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.” His voice was quiet and sincere.
I didn’t answer, just watched his every move with stinging, tear-filled eyes as my chest heaved and my body jerked.
Hans spread his arms, leaving himself open and vulnerable. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry. I just…I can’t lose you.”
I lowered the knife and concentrated on trying to slow down my breathing. My heart rate. My racing thoughts.
“I love you so fucking much,” Hans continued, taking another hesitant step toward me. “It kills me to be away from you. I live in constant fear that you’re gonna find somebody else while I’m gone. You’re so beautiful, and smart”—Hans looked down at the knife dangling in my hand—“and strong. Why would you sit around and wait for me?”
“I’m not strong,” I admitted with a sniffle. “I’m fucking scared.”
I’m scared to be here by myself.
I’m scared of the dark.
I’m scared to lose you.
I’m scared I already have.
Hans took another step toward me and held out his hand in a silent request. I wasn’t sure what he wanted, so I gave him my free hand.
The knife I kept.
Hans lifted my knuckles to his pale, chapped lips and gave them a gentle kiss. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said. “C’mere. I missed you so much.”
I closed my eyes and let Hans pull me flush against his chest. His arms circled my
body. His chin rested on top of my head. It was the second hug I’d received from a man that night, but it felt nothing like the first.
Ken’s embrace had fed me.
Hans’s drank me dry.
December 2000
Georgia State University
Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education
Dear Ms. Brooke Bradley,
Congratulations! Our acceptance committee has reviewed your application and is happy to offer you admission into the School Psychology M.Ed./Ed.S. program. Due to the high volume of applications, we were only able to accept ten percent of our applicant pool this year, but your grades, test scores, essay, and accelerated graduation rates appear to be exemplary. Please accept our warmest welcome…
I sat, or rather fell, onto the couch as I read the words a second, third, hundredth time.
I got in.
I fucking got in.
I lifted my head and looked around, hoping beyond hope that someone would magically appear for me to tell my good news to, but, of course, no one was home. It was just me and the sad, short, plastic Christmas tree I’d bought at Walmart a few days before. It had about fourteen branches, each of which bore maybe one plastic silver ornament, also purchased at Walmart. The tree made a mockery of Christmas, and I’d kind of wanted to burn it as soon as I put it up.
Fuck this.
I tucked the letter into the back pocket of my jeans, shoved my textbooks back into my backpack, threw on some makeup, and headed over to Jason’s house.
In hindsight, it seems like I should have called my parents first. Or Juliet. Or Hans, not that he would have answered. He was “camping” that weekend with “the guys” and wouldn’t have “any cell coverage” for “a few days.” Which was obviously bullshit, considering that it was “December,” and people could “freeze to death” in the North Georgia mountains without the “right kind of gear,” which Hans and his bandmates most definitely did “not” have.
I usually didn’t even get the courtesy of an excuse—Hans simply left on Friday night, played a show somewhere at some point during the weekend, and came home on Sunday in a shitty mood and reeking of brown liquor—so the fact that he’d felt the need to come up with an airtight alibi for whatever he was doing made me feel physically ill. I hadn’t slept all weekend. All I’d eaten was a box of Velveeta Shells & Cheese. The only liquids I’d ingested were Diet Coke, Jack Daniel’s, and tap water. And nicotine had officially edged out fruits and vegetables as a major food group in my life.
Jason welcomed me in with his usual slurry, sleepy-eyed greeting. Allen was on the phone, pacing back and forth next to the pool table. The Alexander brothers were more than happy to get me a beer and try to impress me by telling the most embarrassing stories they could think of about one another. And I laughed politely while scanning the apartment with my eyes for someone else.
Someone sipping purple Gatorade.
Someone with turquoise eyes.
Someone who refused to let me see Cast Away for free because I’d called him an asshole.
When he hadn’t arrived by halftime, I threw in the towel and left, giving Jason some lame-ass excuse about how I wasn’t feeling well.
It wasn’t a lie.
I wasn’t feeling well.
In fact, I felt like complete and utter shit.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs to light a cigarette when I heard somebody say “Hey, Brooke.”
No, not somebody.
Pajama Guy.
I looked up to find Ken standing in front of me on the sidewalk. He had his hands in the pockets of a black wool coat that was definitely too nice to be worn with running pants and Nikes.
“Why do you call me that?” I asked, trying not to act as happy to see him as I was.
“It’s your name,” Ken replied.
“Well, yeah, but everybody just calls me BB.”
“Not everybody.” Ken’s aqua gaze was direct and challenging.
I’d never met anybody so quietly defiant before. It was like he was calling me Brooke simply because I wanted to go by something else.
Who does that?
I turned my head and exhaled away from him. “How do you even know my name anyway?”
Ken shrugged, dodging the question. “Are you heading out?” He tipped his head toward my apartment building. There was a hint of disappointment in his voice that made me want to smile.
“Yeah. The Falcons were up by twenty-one at halftime, so I figured my good-luck charm duties had been fulfilled.”
“They’ll probably still find a way to lose,” Ken said with a smirk.
“Well, if they start slippin’, you know where to find me.”
That was my cue to leave. That was Ken’s cue to go upstairs, but we both just stood there, looking at each other.
“Hey,” I said, breaking the silence, “I wanted to tell you thanks again for helping me study. I just found out today that I got into grad school.”
Ken smiled. Not with his pretty teeth, but it was a smile nonetheless. “That’s awesome. For psychology, right?”
“Yeah. School psychology actually. I want to help kids.” I paused, debating whether or not to divulge the rest of that thought to Ken. “Like Knight. You remember him, right? I think he was in your grade.”
Ken’s eyes hardened. I could see his exhalations in the cold night air, coming out in quick, steamy bursts as his chest rose and fell.
I was beginning to think he wasn’t going to speak to me again when he finally spat, “Yeah. I remember him choking you in the hallway.”
The already-frosty air dropped fifteen degrees in an instant. Or maybe it just felt colder, thanks to the humiliation flooding my cheeks. All I’d wanted was to put that event behind me and bury it down deep with everything else Knight had ever done to me, but Ken had seen it.
And that made it real.
I was transported back to C Hall immediately. Knight’s steroid-swollen body loomed over me. I could feel his hand around my throat, the darkness tickling the edges of my vision at first, then opening to swallow me whole. I could feel the cold, gritty institution-grade tile under my cheek when I awoke and the splitting headache that followed. But my injuries were nothing compared to the mortification I’d felt upon seeing how big the crowd was that had gathered to watch me get belittled and assaulted by my ex-boyfriend.
“I chased him. I pushed through the crowd as soon as I realized what was happening, but he ran off. Just left you on the fucking ground and ran off. I chased him all the way to his truck, but I was too late.”
Ken’s eyes darkened with remorse.
Mine filled with tears.
“I looked you up in the yearbook that night and found out your name. I tried to find you at school the next day to make sure you were all right, but I never saw you again. It fucked with me for a long time.” Ken’s jaw muscles flexed beneath his smooth, clean-shaven skin. “I don’t know what bothered me more—what he did to you or the fact that nobody even tried to help.”
Ken’s aqua eyes bored into me in a way that made me feel seen. “I would have helped you. If I had gotten there sooner, if I had known, I would have helped you.”
Those five little words wrapped around my heart like a bandage. “I would have liked that.” I smiled, my face aflame with shame and the prickly heat of unshed tears.
“Sorry if I was kind of an asshole when we first met. Seeing you just reminded me of that day, and I got pissed off all over again.”
“Yeah, you were kind of a dick.” I laughed, trying to ease the tension as I wiped my eyes. “I’m just kidding. You got me a drink. Anybody who feeds me alcohol is automatically my friend. Even if they are a Jehovah’s Witness.”
Ken’s didn’t laugh at my joke.
He didn’t even crack a smile.
Instead, he asked, “Do you still talk to him?”
“No,” I answered honestly, letting my fake levity fall to the ground, “I don’t.”
I can’t
.
I want to.
I won’t.
“That’s good,” Ken replied with a curt nod.
We both just stood there, hands in our coat pockets, needing to put our conversation out of its misery but not knowing how to do it.
“Does seeing me still piss you off?” I wondered out loud.
Ken never really seemed all that happy to see me, but Ken never really seemed all that happy.
“No. Fuck no,” he answered automatically, his features turning upward. “The Falcons need all the help they can get.”
“Fuck you.” I laughed.
I reached out to smack him on the chest, but Ken leaned away from me, easily dodging my swing.
“Ugh!” I stomped my foot and crossed my arms over my chest.
Ken arched a sandy-brown eyebrow at me and smirked. “Are you pouting?”
“No.” I glared at him.
“You’re pouting because I wouldn’t let you hit me.”
“So?”
Ken smiled and spread his arms. His wool coat parted, revealing a tight white T-shirt wrapped around a slender V-shaped torso. “Here. If it means that much to you, take a shot.”
His gaze was challenging, his features guarded. I studied his face, trying to figure out if he really wanted me to hit him or if he was just waiting to make an ass out of me again. As I held his obstinate stare, something unspoken passed between us.
I think it was consent.
Ken was mirroring his stance from the last time I’d stolen a hug from him.
He wanted me to do it again.
I didn’t know why Ken couldn’t just give me a hug like a normal person, but as I plunged my hands into his coat and wound them around his warm, dryer-sheet-scented body, as I felt his jacket close around my back and his arms tighten like a vise, holding me inside, I didn’t give a single solitary shit.
I walked home feeling like I’d been put back together a little bit. Like the pressure from Ken’s embrace had kind of shored up the loose parts of me that had been ready to crumble. Like maybe I wasn’t as alone as I’d thought.