by Tracey Ward
Kellen faced forward again, his head dropping as he looked down at his clenched hands. “I grew up in the foster system in L.A. because my mom died when I was a kid. She was my only family. It was just her and I in a tiny apartment on the wrong side of The Strip. We didn’t have much. Most of what we had was left over from my grandpa. He was a low talent boxer who drug her to Vegas from Ireland when she was only seven, right after her mom disappeared into thin air. My dad…” Kellen sighed violently, sitting back hard against the couch. “That son of a bitch was never around. I never met him. All I have of him are my eyes and a bank account full of dirty money. He opened the account in my mom’s name. Dropped large sums of money in it every month to help her with me, but my mom refused to touch it. Even when things got hard.”
He paused. The room felt darker in his silence. “She started getting sick when I was eight, right when I started boxing. I wanted to be like my grandpa because I didn’t understand yet what a piece of shit he’d been. As she got sick she had to stop working as much. Money got tighter but we always managed to stay afloat. Even when she quit entirely and moved us out here to California. She started staying in the hospitals longer and longer. She started shrinking. She was pale and fragile. By nine years old I was bigger than her. I weighed more.” He quickly ran his hand over his mouth. “She was wasting away in front of me and I couldn’t stop it. Then one morning she didn’t wake up.
“I was alone after that. I went straight into the foster care system. It wasn’t bad at first but I was a kid crying every night. People didn’t know what to do with me. I got picked on for being a baby and I started lashing out. I started fighting. I was good at it. Better than my grandpa ever was. I got in trouble for fighting. Families wouldn’t take me in because I was considered violent. I started being put with different types of families. People more prepared to handle my aggression.”
“People who were aggressive themselves,” Dr. Phillips said quietly.
Kellen nodded. “Yeah. Yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder slightly again, still not fully looking at me. “I took beatings in those homes. A lot of them. I learned to dish them out and I learned to take them but I hated it. I always hated it. It’s why I fell in love with boxing. It took all of that anger and violence and it structured it for me. It organized it until I could deal with it and I didn’t feel like I was drowning in it. Once I figured that out, I stopped fighting back. I took the beatings. Along with everything else.”
Kellen stood suddenly as though he’d been shocked.
“I can’t talk about this with her here,” he snapped at the doctor angrily. “I thought I could but I won’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s fucked up. It’s ugly and I won’t let it anywhere near her. You can put a pin in it and maybe someday you and I will talk about it, but I’m never discussing it in front of her.”
“Kellen, are you afraid of her judging you? Of seeing you differently?”
“I’m afraid of tainting her with it!” he roared. “She’s perfect and I’ve ruined that.”
“You haven’t ruined her, Kellen.”
“I’ve been inside her. I’ve held her. I’ve kissed her. Everything that was done to me, everything that I’ve done, has been done to her now.” He drug his fingers roughly through his hair as he cursed over and over again.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My heart hurt for him but my blood boiled as well. Imagining Kellen as a kid going through what people had put him through… someone touching him roughly…taking from him. I wanted to kill.
“We need to talk about this,” Dr. Phillips said firmly. “This is why we’re all here, Kellen. This is the root of the way you approach sex. Why you use it to distance yourself from people. You’re using it to take control, make it your choice but you’re unable to feel anything in connection to it because you’re afraid of the emotions that go with it.” The man paused, watching Kellen as he towered before him, his eyes on the floor. “You’re afraid of sex, aren’t you? It stirs fear inside you. Hate. Anger. The violence you work so hard to keep in check. Which is why you shut down. Why you choose to feel nothing.”
Fuck her like you hate her.
I remembered Kellen saying that about a girl he’d been with. At the time I’d thought it was an off color joke, a shocking statement that served me right for poking and prodding at him and his history. But now… now I wasn’t so sure it was a joke at all.
Kellen shook his head back and forth slowly.
“When you had sex with Jenna, what did you feel?”
I blushed in the darkness. Neither of them could see me very well tucked in this dark corner, but even ghosts got embarrassed when their sex life was discussed with a stranger.
“Pain,” Kellen told him reluctantly. “It hurt more than anything else.”
“Because you were trying to connect with her. Kellen, the fact that you felt anything at all is a breakthrough. Even better that it wasn’t anger. What else did you feel?”
“Grateful.”
“Why grateful?”
“Because I knew… I knew if I fucked it up, she’d still be there.”
“You’ve been left a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re not worried Jenna will leave you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she loves me.” He sat back down again slowly, the anger leaching out of him. “She loves me the way I love her.”
“And how do you love her, Kellen?”
His breathing was labored. Heavy.
“Completely.”
I pressed trembling fingers to my mouth, stifling the sounds of my crying. I cried for him the way I had when he’d shown up at our house in the middle of the night. When once again I’d stood in shadow, watching and listening. When I’d seen him and I’d known him and I’d ached for him. I’d cried silently then as I did now because the last thing on earth he ever wanted was pity.
I wanted to die then. I wanted to never know the rest of our story because I didn’t know how it would turn out, how he could possibly recover from the things he’d been through. I wanted the knowledge that he loved me through and through to be the end of us because it was everything I’d longed for and I hoped it was at least one beautiful thing in his world. It was a silver lining to all the years we’d spent apart, all the hurt and the missed chances and poor timing. This was the victory to the fight we’d been in for half of our lives.
But there were others. Battles he was fighting alone and I would help him if I could. If he’d let me. So I stayed silent and I stayed alive because you have to keep moving, keep fighting, because as a wise man with bloodied knuckles and a brilliant smile once told me, it’s not always about winning. It’s about not giving up. You have to see things through to the end to find out who you really are, what you’re truly made of. Maybe you’ll win, maybe you’ll lose, but when you know you’ve given it everything you’ve got, at least you have no regrets.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Can I ask a question about what you said tonight?” I asked, digging into my ice cream and staring out at the ocean.
The sun was close to setting, its wan yellow rays glistening off the water and winking like diamonds. I was happy. I was content and it was partly because I had my favorite ice cream, partly because my toes were sunk deep into the cool beneath the top layer of sun-warmed sand, but mostly it was because of Kellen. Because he was eating his own ice cream which he had correctly ordered and was loving it. He was happy and he was there beside me and life was lovely.
“You can ask,” he allowed.
I smirked at him. “But it doesn’t mean you’ll answer. I know. It’s an easy one. I think.”
I wasn’t stupid enough to ask about the real things he said in therapy. About the things he’d warned me he would never speak of again. I knew better. I knew those things were buried deep just as they’d always been and maybe he’d let them go someday or maybe they’
d always be there, but for now he was lighter than I’d ever seen him. He was buoyant. Free. It was beautiful.
“Hit me.”
“My dad didn’t give me the money for my tattoo parlor, did he?”
Kellen froze, his spoon halfway to his mouth. He pinched his lips together for a second then opened them to slide the spoon inside. He shook his head faintly.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I pressed. “You did it with the money your dad gave your mom.”
“We never touched it,” he said reluctantly. “It sat in a bank account for my entire life building every time he gave us more, which was every month. He was some high roller that came through the casino she worked at. He didn’t have a family and he didn’t want one but he told her he’d always take care of her. I didn’t know about it until I was eighteen. Your dad helped me manage it. I’ve invested some and it’s been building. I give to charities a lot. I paid for college with it. I offered to pay for school for you and Laney but your dad wouldn’t let me.”
“Thank God!”
Kellen chuckled. “Your dad is doing just fine. He didn’t need my help. But I wanted to give back to you guys somehow for everything you’d given me. And money was all I had.”
“It’s not all you had,” I protested, bumping his shoulder with mine. “You were my tutor, remember? You had knowledge.”
“I guess that’s true,” he said grinning.
“Thank you,” I told him, turning serious.
“You’re welcome. You didn’t need my help that much. You’re smart, Jenna. You just needed focus.”
“No, not for the tutoring. For the shop. I’m going to pay you back.”
“Like hell,” he laughed.
“I mean it.”
“Me too.”
“Kellen.”
“Jenna.”
I sighed, knowing it was a losing battle but one I’d never stop fighting.
“Can I ask another question?”
“Go for it.”
“Why’d you ask Laney to marry you?” I asked, feeling mutinous to my sister but I had to know.
“Going for a tough one, huh?”
“I’m striking while the iron is hot.”
“Hmm.” He sighed, putting down his ice cream and sitting back on his hands.
I watched him stretch his long legs out in front of him, wiggling his toes until the sand dusted off them. I did the same, stretching my legs beside his. My feet almost reached as far, the long length of them looking to me like they went on for miles. Kellen nudged my bare foot with his.
“I love your body,” he mumbled, staring at our feet side by side.
I laughed, disbelieving. “There’s a lot to love.”
“You’re so hung up on your height.”
“It’s hard to miss it.”
“I know. It’s one of the things I love about the way you’re built. You’re tall. You’re strong. But you’re so fucking graceful too. Like a whisper.”
I had no words. Kellen shifted closer until his hip was against mine. Until our legs were pressed together and our feet were touching ever so slightly. I looked back over my shoulder at where he was leaning back and I found him watching me.
“I love the way you’re built too.”
He grinned crookedly. “Because I’m so big and tough?”
“I wasn’t talking about your body. It’s beautiful, but it’s not even the best part of you.”
“What is?”
“Your mind.”
He reached up and tapped the spot under his hair where the scar from his accident was hidden. “It’s not what it used to be.”
“You know what’s really sexy to me about you in the ring?” I asked, ignoring him. “It’s how fast you are. And yeah, that’s your body and your muscles and hours and hours of training. But what it really comes down to is your mind. It’s how fast you can react, plan, implement. You’re playing an elaborate game of chess out there and you’re doing it on fast forward. It’s amazing to watch.”
Kellen didn’t respond so I let it lie. I looked out over the water and watched the sun dip closer to its rolling surface. When Kellen spoke again, I’d forgotten I’d asked him a question.
“I asked Laney because I was copying a pattern. I didn’t know it then, but I was following after your dad. I’d idolized him. That’s why I wanted to be a lawyer. It’s why I wanted to marry Laney, even if we obviously didn’t work. But then that kiss with you, how I felt about you… I don’t know. If you’d been eighteen, I think things would have turned out differently. I wouldn’t have stopped it. But I also don’t know if we would have survived it. I probably would have run in the end. I wasn’t ready to see what I was doing to my life. To see that it wasn’t mine. But then the wedding started closing in and I gave up boxing and I couldn’t ignore it. I hated my own life. I wasn’t enjoying my job, I wasn’t in love with Laney and what finally opened my eyes to all of it was the accident and the couch.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “The brown couch? The one you decided you couldn’t stand?”
“Yeah. Laney swore up and down that before the accident I said I loved it. Maybe I did. I still can’t remember buying it. But when I saw it I couldn’t imagine ever liking it. That was the last straw for some reason. The second I saw it I knew I was breaking things off with her. That’s why when I saw you in the bathroom I couldn’t stop myself. I was so fed up and just fucking done. I wanted you, I’d known that for years, and when I saw you there… I lost it. But what really got me was when I woke up from the coma. You were the first face I saw. You were exactly who I needed. It should have been Laney, but it was you. That moment clarified a lot of things for me. That’s when I owned up to exactly how I felt about you.”
I sighed shakily, glancing back at him. “Wow.”
He grinned. “What?”
“You just told me a lot. Like a lot a lot.”
“It’s not as much of a win as it seems like. I just talked about all of this with Ben in our last session. You should have seen him trying to help me sort through it all.”
“Sounds like therapy is working then.”
“It is,” he agreed, nodding but not looking at me.
“What is it?”
“What is what?”
“What’s bothering you about therapy?”
He sat up straight beside me, his shoulder brushing against mine. “I’ve got a long way to go. I wanted to have my life back before I started anything with you. I wanted a job lined up and to give you and Laney a chance to be okay again.”
“I can wait. I told you I would.”
“You already have been for years.”
I grinned sadly. “I’m very patient.”
Kellen looked up at me, his eyes dark in the bright sun. “I’m not. I’m done. You already know about the job,” his eyes clouded over, “among other things. I don’t want to wait anymore, Jen.”
“Are you asking me to be your girl, Kellen?”
“I’m asking you to let me try to be your man.”
My stomach flipped. “I think I can do that.”
“It won’t be pretty,” he warned me.
“I don’t like pretty. I like real. I’ve never asked you for roses and sonnets or chocolates. I know who you are and all I’ve ever wanted is you.”
He leaned in and kissed me slowly. It was brief, just his lips brushing across mine for a moment, but it was bliss.
When he pulled back his eyes were still dark and doubtful. He was worried. I understood why. I was worried too because he was right, it was going to be ugly at times. Being with Kellen was never going to be easy, I’d always known that. But I wasn’t blind and I wasn’t weak. I was full of piss and fight and no bout was ever won by never stepping into the ring.
“What does Dr. Phillips think of this?” I asked. “Does he think you’re ready?”
“He’s been telling me that if I could make it through a session like today with you there then he would consider me ready so that’s what I�
�ve been shooting for. I would never have let Laney in that room so I guess he’s right.” He grimaced slightly. “He wants me to contact my dad to get some closure. I’m not ready for that yet. Not by a long shot. He also asked me to try to find some of my family on my mom’s side. Get that sense that I’m not alone in the world, I guess.”
“That makes sense.”
“Does it? I think it’s stupid. I’m not alone. I know that.”
“But family is different. They’re your blood. You should know them if you can. Do you know where any of them are?”
“Ireland.”
“You found them already?”
He looked away, toward his truck. Toward an escape. “Yeah. I found some cousins. I have an aunt. Two uncles.”
“I thought your mom was an only child.”
“From that marriage, yeah. But my grandpa was married once before. My grandma was his mistress who he left his family for. Then she left him and he left Ireland.”
“When are you going to go?”
“To Ireland?” he asked incredulously. “Never.”
“Seriously? You have family out there and you won’t contact them?”
“I already did. They want me to come meet everyone. I’m just not going.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I don’t know those people.”
“Do you know how you get to know people? You meet them. In person.”
He didn’t answer me and that didn’t surprise me. He stared out over the ocean, his face blank. Detached. He was gone.
I went for the knockout punch.
“Wouldn’t you like to watch the sunset over your mother’s ocean?”
I listened to him breathe beside me, his shoulder shifting slightly with the rising and falling of his chest. It felt in sync with the waves. Like the tide was breathing into him, pulling out of him. Calling to him.
“Will you go with me?” he finally asked faintly, his eyes fixed on the water.
I nodded. “I’ll book our tickets tonight.”