Dances with Monsters

by D. C. Ruins

  "Oh," Heath replied. For some reason, he always felt a little bit of annoyance whenever Connor referenced Frank Campano or his gym. He didn't know why; Connor could work out and train with whomever he wanted. Maybe it was because Frank had spent the entire time along the side of the ring during his bout with Connor at Ultimate Warrior, screaming for him to finish Heath off. And whenever Heath saw him now, even though his relationship with his older brother had significantly improved, Frank always seemed to either look through him like he wasn't there, or stare at him suspiciously. Heath didn't appreciate any of it and expected that the day would soon come when he'd have to put Frank in his place.

  "So you feeling pretty good about everything then?" Connor went on. "John says you've been training really hard, plus you're doing great running that gym."

  "Yeah, it's all good," Heath said, leaning back in his chair. "I'm just tryin' to get in the right frame of mind for the fight. Couple guys on the ticket that I gotta keep an eye on, study their film pretty close. Otherwise, it'll be what it will."

  "You don't have to play coy, man," Connor said. "If you're nervous, you can tell me."

  "I'm not nervous, really," Heath replied, beginning to get annoyed. "Just need to keep my eyes open around them."

  "Right. Well, Lana and I, and John, would love to come see you in Buffalo. Is that okay?"

  "Of course it's okay," Heath said. "You guys are my family." The words felt strange and foreign on his tongue, but far from unpleasant.

  "Great. Which day you headin' up?"

  "Probably head up the morning before," Heath said. "It's only a two, two-and-a-half hour drive from here. Try to get there before noon."

  "Why, you doin' interviews this time around?" Connor exclaimed, and Heath could practically hear the grin in his voice. "Day before is always a press day."

  "Fuck you think?" Heath replied scornfully. "Those vultures can have at it with the other guys. I'll go for the pictures because Carter says that's in my contract but I ain't doin' any fuckin' interviews."

  "No shit," Connor said. "The day you give an interview is the day I'll bet my life savings on red." He paused. "You know, tons of papers and magazines have been tryin' to get me and you to do an interview and photo shoot together for a while now." He paused again. "Lot o' money to be made in that, brother."

  "Connor…." Heath sighed.

  "I know how you feel about it. But there's a lot of interest out there in our relationship and the progress we've made with each other, and with John. I know TapouT contacted you for an endorsement deal—they contacted me too, and they said if we could do an ad campaign together, they'd increase our payout and give us a percentage of the sales for a year."

  Heath paused. It was a tempting offer. "I don't know, man," Heath said. "It sounds good, and that's a lot of money I could send to Aida and the kids but at what cost? Exploiting myself? You? John?"

  "Just think about it, Heath," Connor said. "Okay? Just think about it, is all I'm asking. Not everyone is a vulture."

  "I'll think about it," Heath said, and his voice indicated that was all the discussing about it he was willing to do.

  Connor wisely took notice and changed the subject. "So, how's it goin' with Drew?" he asked. "You survive meetin' her family yesterday?"

  Heath couldn't help a tiny half-smile at the mention of her name. He glanced at the corner of his desk where the sack with the pie she'd brought him still sat. "Yeah, things are good," he said, surprising himself with how easily he could talk about her. "Met her family. Her old man threatened to kill me, sisters threatened to chop my balls off, but it wasn't anything I didn't expect or couldn't handle."

  "Good," Connor replied. "Things getting more serious between you two?"

  "I mean, things are cool," Heath said evasively. "We're still getting to know each other and all that. She's a good girl."

  "She seems like," Connor agreed. "Lana and the girls want to meet her. So does John."

  "You told John about her?" Heath demanded.

  "It was kind of an accident. He wanted to know why you didn't come by yesterday." Like Drew's family, Heath's had a habit of getting together on Sundays now as well which was mostly Lana's influence.

  "Dammit, Connor," Heath said, truly annoyed. "I wasn't ready for John to know about her yet. You and Lana and the girls, I don't mind, but not John. Not yet."

  "Why?" Connor asked. "I mean, what's the problem?"

  Heath thought of Drew's past and winced. He didn't know how she would react to his previously abusive father. "She's…she's had a rough time in the past," he said. "I don't know that she's ready to meet him anytime soon."

  "Well, Lana wants you two over on Sunday for a barbecue," Connor replied. "Which is the real reason why I'm calling. And John is gonna be there."

  "Then I'm not sure I can bring her," Heath answered simply.

  "Talk to her, man," Connor insisted. "I don't know what happened to her, it's none of my business. But Lana really wants to get the family together before you leave for Smackdown, sort of a 'good luck Heath' party, and she told me in no uncertain terms that I can't get off this phone until you promise to come and to bring your new girlfriend."

  "She's not my girlfriend," Heath replied automatically. He paused, thinking, then sighed. "Tell Lana I'll talk to Drew. And you tell John he better be on his fuckin' best behavior."

  "Give the man a break, Heath," Connor said quietly. "He's not the same man. If you would just let go of the past a little…you'd see that."

  "I'm tryin', Connor," Heath said abruptly. "I really am."

  "All right. Well, go call your girlfriend and let me know later what she says. Don't make me look bad in front of my wife."

  "Later," Heath said darkly and hung up the phone. He leaned back in his chair and yawned deeply, his mind whirling. Between the tournament's recent turn of events, the higher stakes and now this family get-together, it was a lot to take in.

  He glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost nine. He frowned. Drew had come by around six, and said she was only going to be at the studio for a couple hours. Shouldn't she have made it home by now? His mind turned to other thoughts, less pleasant, and wondered if she'd run into trouble.

  As if by magic, his phone went off for the third time that night and he snatched it up. A genuine smile crossed his face as he read her message.

  "Made it home—I fell asleep or I would have texted you sooner! I'm sorry. Hope you liked the pie. Call me tomorrow. Sweet dreams. Xoxo"

  "Was starting to worry about you," he typed. "Glad to hear you're tucked in. I will talk to you tomorrow. Sweet dreams to you."

  He wanted to add some x's and o's like she had, but he didn't. He wished he could kiss and hug her for real, but he'd settle for thinking about it instead. As he set his phone back down, he wondered when he'd be able to see her again, and decided it would have to be tomorrow.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Drew left the café twenty minutes early the next evening, eager to get home, change her clothes, feed Rocky and get to the studio. She had made quite a bit of progress the previous night, actually finishing the dance. Tonight, she would put all of it together and begin working on cleaning up the choreography. Creating a dance was a challenging yet fulfilling activity for her; it demanded discipline and patience, as well as draining her creativity in order to make it as perfect—to her—as possible. It wasn't uncommon for her to create an entire dance, only to end up completely changing half of it because she was no longer satisfied with what she had originally come up with. Moreover, she tended to have a short attention span at times, and locking herself into a dance studio for a minimum of two hours with few other distractions forced her to concentrate on the task at hand and buckle down for the work. Earlier that day, she'd finally told Bunz that she would do the showcase, although her stomach twisted in fear at the idea of performing in front of God only knew how many people. Naturally, Bunz expected no other answer and merely lifted a shoulder at her, saying, "Yeah?"
r />   Now, Drew stretched out on the wooden spring floor in her favorite studio at the Y. She knew she was lucky that there were no other dance or fitness classes being taught at this time in this studio. Save for her Wednesday night and Saturday morning classes, the older studio was rarely used and was tucked further back into the building than the other, newer studios. She preferred this one, with the chipped wooden floors, the rickety barres that she constantly had to remind maintenance to come tighten, the exposed wires in the ceiling. She loved it for the simple fact that it was quiet and set apart from everything else in the large, busy building, and it had several panels of windows lining one side that allowed her a fantastic view of this part of Pittsburgh. She especially loved it at night, when she could see all the city lights. It was in these moments that she missed New York, dreadfully.

  She crawled toward the window to continue her floor stretches, her legs splaying wide as she leaned forward, her flexibility allowing her to rest her stomach flat on the floor. She leaned her elbows on the bottom of the window, peering out. Many large, east-coast cities reminded her of New York at night. She hadn't been back since the day her family had packed up and left for Pittsburgh. She wondered if she'd ever be able to one day return and appreciate her home city again, without allowing the horrific event that had befallen her to define her interpretation of what home really was. She hated feeling like a victim; hated her anxiety, her depression. Hated that it made her harm herself and feel like she couldn't deal with life at all. Hated that it made her withdraw into a shell of her former, vibrant self. Hated that she didn't know how to move past it fully. What was an appropriate length of time to get over being brutally raped and almost murdered? How long was it supposed to take until she could get over the deep, horrible ache of knowing she'd never be able to have children of her own? How long until some semblance of faith, trust and belief in humanity could be restored? These were the questions that kept her up at night, and no matter how long she mulled over them or how many times she spun them over and over and over in her mind, she simply didn't know the answers.

  Idly she reached over and drew her fingers over her ankle, over the tightly tied ribbons of her pointe shoes. It was the ankle that she sometimes used to take her inner abuse out on, the one that Heath had seen. There were other places, like the soft flesh of her belly below her navel, her hip, high inside her thigh, over her ribcage, directly over the top of her breast. As of late, her ankle had been her go-to spot simply for ease of access, but the other locations showed scars, some pink, some white, depending on their age. Since that night, she'd made good on her promise and not harmed herself anywhere. Granted, it wasn't that she'd ever harmed herself on a daily basis before; it had been once, maybe twice a week. When he'd seen them, the cuts had been three or four days old. It had been over a week since she'd last harmed herself, and as her fingers smoothed over the satiny ribbon, she realized with mild surprise that it had been that long simply because she hadn't felt the urge to need to do it.

  Heath seeing some of her cuts and scars had been a blessing in disguise. Previously it had been her secret shame, her dirty little secret, one that she carried with her all day, every day. She knew her parents would be heartbroken if they knew; her sisters would be hurt and pissed. Even Bunz, who was notoriously calm and collected no matter what the situation was, had been moved almost to tears when Drew had shown her. But now that at least two people knew her secret, it gave her a sense of accountability. She didn't care much if she hurt herself, but between Heath and Bunz, she didn't care to hurt either one of them. And while she knew that she wouldn't be subjected to strip searches—although, Drew knew better than to put anything past Bunz—she also knew that if she were to harm herself again after it had been brought to light would make her feel horrible and guilty, and disappointed in herself, whether anyone knew about it or not. She knew that even if she recovered emotionally, a part of her would always want to hurt herself when her emotions went "dark side". But she knew she had to begin to develop the strength to move past that, because disappointing people she never wanted to disappoint would be far, far worse than any emotional trauma she could suffer.

  Drew pushed off the floor and drew her legs in, stretching her arms gracefully overhead as she leaned to either side. She got to her feet and gripped one of the barres that spanned the entire studio, still looking out the window as she began some strengthening and toning exercises to warm her legs and ankles. She did plies, tendus, rond de jambes, and just started some vigorous grands battements when she heard her cell phone tinkle from across the studio.

  She lowered herself from her en pointe position and hurried across the room, humorously noting that even while not dancing, she ran like a dancer—toe to heel. She reached for her bag that she'd slung against the wall with her vegan leather jacket and pulled her phone out. She had a text message from Heath.

  "Hey. I know you're at the studio tonight but I was wondering if I could come by later on when you're home. I've got some clients for a couple hours so I'm not sure exactly when I can leave, but I wanted to see you."

  A warm fluttery feeling filled her lower belly as she read the message. She checked the time; it was a quarter after six.

  "Sure," she replied, her thumbs moving furiously. "That sounds great. I'll be home around eight tonight."

  "I'll let you know when I'm on my way," he responded. "See you soon."

  Drew clutched the phone for a moment before replacing it in her bag. She bit her lip as a smile spread over her face. Her desire to work on her dance immediately went away, as she suddenly wanted to do nothing else but go home and primp herself, but she shook the thought quickly and focused on what she was here to do. The dance wouldn't perfect itself.

  She went through it once to go through all of the choreography she'd created, piecing it together. She made some immediate changes as she'd blundered some of the counts of her dance against the music, making the corrections quickly as the solutions came to her. Once the initial round of errors was ironed out, she went over the dance again, not full-out, envisioning the movements in her mind as well as watching them reflected back at her. Then, she did the entire dance full out in her pointe shoes, and then again full-out in her dance footies. After that, she hesitated, torn. She loved dancing en pointe, had always loved it, and in fact had shown such dedication and skill in her early years as a dancer that she had begun training en pointe at the age of nine, as opposed to twelve like many girls. But somehow, the dance became more emotionally raw, more visceral, in the casual footies. They were like flesh-toned fingerless gloves for her feet, with holes to separate each toe and covering just the ball of her foot. They gave her the appearance of dancing barefoot, and for the song she'd chosen and the emotion of her movements as translated through the emotion of the song, she knew she'd have to use the footies for her performance.

  As she caught her breath, sweating, her hands on her hips, she began to wonder exactly what else she would wear for her performance. She hadn't performed in such an incredibly long time—not since just after graduating college when she'd worked with a fledgling dance company in New York. Although she had double-majored in dance and English, she hadn't been able to do much with either degree and simply couldn't make enough to support herself with the company, so she'd begun working full time in her family's café. Previously, for any performance she'd had, she'd ordered her costumes out of a ridiculously priced costume catalog. Even something simple could cost a hundred dollars or more. That was simply out of the question. She'd have to give it some thought, and she'd have to decide on something soon. The showcase was a few weeks away.

  She went over the dance three more time, trying to envision what sort of costume would best complement the song and the dance. She suddenly decided that the simpler she went, the better. The dance was good; she was proud of it. In fact, she decided that it was the best dance piece she had ever created, and that sudden knowledge and belief flooded through her and filled her with pride. She was barin
g her soul, baring her wounds, releasing her turmoil.

  Baring my wounds.

  Drew stared at herself in the mirror, stared into her own warm brown eyes. She watched herself frown. Her eyes slid slower down her reflection, stopping at all the "hot spots" on her body that carried her scars. An idea for a costume captured her mind, and she realized that it was the only costume that she could have ever worn for this song and this dance.

  Abruptly, she turned on her heel and crossed the studio. She stepped into her rain boots and slung her jacket on, and headed home to wait for Heath.

  ***

  She'd had enough time to shower and blow-dry her hair and change into clean and comfortable clothing. In fact, she'd had enough time to fall asleep on the couch before she jolted awake at the sound of a dull knock on her door. She shook her head quickly and hopped off her couch, Rocky at her feet, and made her way to the door. She looked through the peephole and saw a black hood obscuring most of a face, but the telltale toothpick jutting out from a pair of sinfully luscious lips was just enough identity for her.

  She smiled and unlatched each of her locks and pulled the door open, meeting his eyes right away. She knew he didn't really smile much in general, and she got an enormous kick out of the fact that he allowed himself to do so around her. Her eyes slid down and saw in surprise that he held a cardboard bowl in each hand, bearing the logo of her favorite yogurt place that was just down the street from the Y. In fact, she had thought about stopping there before heading home, but she had stayed at the studio a little too late and was afraid she'd run out of time, and showering and washing her hair was simply nonnegotiable.

  "What's that?" she exclaimed, stepping back to let him in. He shuffled the toothpick in his mouth to the other corner and leaned down to lazily press the side of his mouth into her cheek, making her dimple deeper. And that made him smile wider before he quickly looked away and shook his head. As she shut the door and relocked it, she glanced over her shoulder, pleased with the comfortable way he dropped onto her sofa, setting the containers on the coffee table to pet Rocky, who immediately jumped onto the couch and stepped into his lap.