by Leanne Davis
“No, I’m not kidding you.” The man’s voice is even and cool, almost as if he’s offering me a glass of lemonade in his parlor, and not staring at me across an empty locker room. The weird echo effect of the outside drama keeps rising and falling.
I glance down. “I’ll just ah, you know, wait for him to wake up and we’ll leave.”
A weird smile twists the man’s mouth. “You’re not going anywhere.”
My mouth drops open. I step back again and my butt hits the tiled shower wall. I am literally trapped in there with Max bleeding and unconscious at my feet. This man’s silky, cool voice and threat finally dawn on me.
I realize I’m in the kind of trouble I never pictured. Not in our small town. I’ve always been a naive, fucking fool; I finally, realize that. Only it’s too late.
Chapter Twelve
~Max~
I FEEL THE PAIN in my face first. Groaning, I try to take stock of where I am. I recognize the freezing cold of the tiles in the locker room. I lost, I realize and start to fully feel the pain engulfing my body, but mostly in my head. Third damn time. I hate losing. My heart sinks as I swear through clenched teeth. God. Damn. My nose hurts. A pain I can’t explain hurts my face. But no water. I crack an eyelid open. It’s hard to see because it’s so swollen, and so is the other one. The shower isn’t running. That’s unusual. I finally manage to see the top of a head from the corner of my eye. I turn my head slowly, and my stomach pitches and rolls like I’m about to be sick. But it all fades. Everything fades as I finally turn onto my side and see to whom the dark head belongs.
Christina? I blink. But she’s still there. I’m not hallucinating. She is there. But she’s not even looking towards me. She’s staring off and her eyes are huge with fear. I glance to where she’s looking. Fuck! Simon. He’s standing there, staring at Christina with a weird smirk on his face. Simon owns the gym, so he hosts and sponsors these lovely events. Bruce gets a cut for bringing in fresh meat; and the fresh meat? They get a teeny, weeny cut of that. It’s a strange cash cow comprised of entrance fees and betting in its own underground ring. Surprisingly, they do well away from the cities and in small spots like this, where people aren’t looking for or expecting it. In places where gyms like this one are all but left alone. You’d think they’d prefer a much more nefarious location than the local gym where kids learn karate or taekwondo and stay-at-home mothers take their Pilates classes. That’s all during the daytime, however. Nighttime brings out the snakes, like me.
I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why Christina came here. I am so confused. What is this? And why does she look so terrified of Simon? Tilting my head, I moan as the pain shoots through me again. Christina hears me. I see the moment she realizes I’m conscious, her eyes always tell her story. Relief. There is so much relief in her eyes when she looks at me, along with apprehension and worry and anger; but when she glances at Simon, the fear in her expression returns.
“Tell your girlfriend why we don’t call the cops.”
Oh shit. That’s what’s up Simon’s ass. I lay my head flat to minimize the misery and mumble at Simon, “She won’t call the cops. She just didn’t know… Anything, actually. She didn’t know I fought here. Just leave, Simon, I’ll handle this.”
Simon is a petty criminal and I really detest him. He doesn’t care about anyone’s safety, not his fighters, nor his teachers, nor the little kids that take the classes the gym provides. He cares exclusively about making money. But he is a small town criminal in Nowheresville. I find him laughable compared to the real criminals I dealt with back in California. And that was when I was a freaking kid! Those were the real shit. Those were the ones that broke your legs, or worse, when you fucked them over, or for any reason, accidental, or on purpose; they didn’t distinguish between the two.
I turn slightly at Christina’s muted whimper. She is really terrified, standing there huddled against the shower. What happened while I was out? The anger, so basic a part of me, starts to percolate in my gut. “What did you say to her?”
Simon shrugs. “She had her phone out and was ready to dial. Not good business, Salazar. Any idea how much I don’t need the sheriff showing up here? Why must I always stress that you have to keep your damn girlfriends out of this?”
He’d just pay the cops off. I know he has at least one on his payroll; otherwise, how could they run these midnight activities? Still, I don’t like hearing he scared Christina. He’s harmless. Like a cockroach. No one likes them; they always scurry into the darkest spaces.
I put my arm under me and kind of crawl and pull myself up to lean against the wall. Christ, my face hurts. My side hurts. My stomach hurts. I’m a mess. “Well you’ve succeeded in scaring the shit out of her. Now leave.”
Simon turns with a last leer towards Christina and walks out. Her shoulders fall like she’s about to pass out. She stares after him as if she’s unconvinced he’s not going to harm her. It stabs my heart to see her so scared, so worried, so terrified because of this place, that I exposed her to. I can’t fathom how she got here. Here, as in this gym, this fight, and most incredibly, this shower. She turns towards me with huge eyes and a trembling mouth. Her tears are real and they fall over her already reddened eyes.
She suddenly lets out a kind of moan and almost throws herself at me. I’m lying against the wall with my feet in front of me. She’s beside me, on her knees, getting wet, and her arms are around me, her face is pressed on my chest as she sobs against me. Her entire torso shakes as she cries and her arms are holding me, her fingers digging into my skin. I’m shirtless, I feel every spot that her skin touches mine. She’s crying so hard, she’s nearly hyperventilating for air. I don’t think she even realizes she’s holding onto me. She’s completely out of it. I hurt, but it’s even more painful to have her clinging to me this way.
I start to push her off me and my skin begins to tighten over my body like it’s shrinking and I’m about to simply explode. It makes me claustrophobic, like I’m trapped in my own body. I want nothing more than to eject her off me. But I don’t think she knows she’s grabbing onto me. She needs me. I know that as much as I need to breathe; she needs to hold onto me. I’ve traumatized her. Finding me here, like this, and hearing whatever Simon said to her has literally traumatized her. She’s shaking and gulping for air.
I finally, for the first time maybe ever, have to put someone else’s needs before mine. I clamp down on my discomfort and let her stay against me. I wrap my arms around her and rest my hands on her small, shaking back. She feels so tiny against me. I guess I probably don’t know since I’ve never hugged her. Or held her. I’ve never been this close to her for this long. And yet, I’ve had sex with her.
I center my breathing and try to let this be okay. Pressing my lips to her hair, I try shushing her, but it only makes her fingers grip more tightly into my skin.
Blood is still dripping from my nose and smearing in her hair now. I need to clean up. I need ice. But I know she needs my comfort more.
“It’s okay, Tiny, I’m okay,” I mumble over and over again. She shakes her head and it makes her cry harder.
“You are not okay. There is nothing okay about this. About wanting to do this.”
I rub her back and she finally, slowly, starts to calm down until she’s lying nearly limp against me. Tilting back enough so she can look at me, I imagine I must appear to her like a deformed monster. I can feel the swelling around my eyes and nose. Bruises that I won’t be able to explain so easily away. Her fingers leave my shoulders and come to my face. I brace myself, determined to let her have this; my penance for what I’ve done to her and made her feel like today.
Her fingers start at my forehead and oh-so-gently glide down the side of my face, past my temple and cheek, and down my neck. Her eyes ache as she studies me. She finally asks, “Why?”
“Why what, exactly, Christina?” I know there are about fifty questions on her mind.
“Why can I touch you now?” I close my ey
es at her soft tone. Her gentleness. Everything that shines for me in her eyes.
“Not easily. I owe you. For this.”
She shudders. “I thought he was going to hurt me… us.”
“Who? Simon? No. He’s a joke. He just doesn’t know it. This whole place is a joke. It’s nothing like where I grew up. Or what I came from.”
“You’ve done all this before?”
I shrug. “Yeah. Only then, it was harder because I was younger. This is me. This is more who I am than all the other things I’ve done while living here.”
“Then the life you had with me,” she states after a long pause, during which we stare at each other in profound silence. Her gaze leaves mine and travels over me. Every time she looks at me, her body trembles. She’s afraid. Of this. Of me. Of what I do and who I am.
“I’m sorry,” I finally whisper when I can’t think of what else to say. I don’t know how to ease the moment for her.
She stares up at me and I’m shocked when she lifts her head and her lips touch mine. They are soft and sweet at first. Just the touch of her turns my entire body to fire. It’s about the only touch that feels good to me. Her lips on mine. The tip of her tongue oh-so-softly outlines my lips and barely enters my mouth. I want to inhale her. I want her to know I am here. I want to be with her. Even if I can’t be a normal boyfriend. I literally don’t know how to accomplish that. I can’t touch her. I can’t be how she is. I can’t even talk the way she needs me to. Still, her comfort means everything to me.
She finally lets me go and scoots back to sit on her knees. “How badly are you hurt?”
“Not too. Can you grab me a towel?”
She stands. Her knees and shins are all wet. Her hair has fallen from the low ponytail she had it in. She changed from her pretty sundress and now has on jeans and a t-shirt. I close my eyes, suddenly exhausted. I feel too exhausted to talk about this. Or face what I do and why I do it. To even go back home. How do I handle Christina telling everyone? How do I face everyone after that?
She comes back and falls to her knees, heedless of the damp floor. She gently wipes my face and chest with a warm, wet towel. Then she comes back with a cold, damp one, which she leaves softly on my face. Her hands are cool and soothing. I want to lean into her. But I’m too focused on staring into her eyes and remembering it’s Christina, and I’ve hurt her. She can touch me. Nothing will actually happen to me. I need to let her do that. I need to do it for her… and maybe more so, I need to do it for me.
I finally lift my hand to hers, which is holding the towel to my face. I clasp her hand in mine and thread our fingers together. Her eyes fill with trepidation and concern, I know she gets what this means for me. “I am sorry.”
“I want to say, ‘fuck you’ again,” she says, her voice kind of raspy. “But my heart is screaming the opposite.”
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
“You shouldn’t fight here.”
I smile a little through my swollen face. Her counter remark is always that quick and dry. “How did you know where to come?”
“I took a guess; but I didn’t really think I’d find anything. Nothing like this.”
“No, there was no preparing you for something like this.”
She leans back and hovers near me, sitting on her knees. Biting her lip, her eyes fill with emotion. “I should have listened,” she mumbles as I wipe my nose.
I lower the towel. She winces before assessing the damage to my face. “To who?”
“The body builder woman who told me I should go home.”
Tanya. Somehow, I’m sure of it. I don’t answer. Christina finally says, “Is she your girlfriend?”
“No.” I try to hold her gaze, but the guilt gets to me, and I can’t do it. I drop my eyes to my lap.
She sighs. “I see. What is her name?”
“Tanya.”
“And Tanya doesn’t want things from you? Well, some things, but not the things that involve feelings and expectations and… love. She doesn’t want those things from you?”
“No. She doesn’t.”
“And that’s what you want?” Christina shuts her eyes. I can’t help watching her. Her face is pale, and she flinches. “You want this,” she spreads her hands out as if encompassing all that is on my face and in the shower, and her voice cracks when she adds, “over me?”
“No. Of course not. It’s not like that.”
“It kind of is. You want to fight and get all bloodied. I saw you taking those punches, I don’t think it was any accident you lost. I think you let them do that to you. I can’t imagine what could possibly motivate anyone to do that.”
I guess I underestimated her. She even knows this side of me. “Money.”
“And you let it happen?”
“Yes. This time. I had no choice.”
Sharpening her gaze on my face, her anger quickly snaps and dissolves all of her former sympathy and care. “You have every choice! You could decide to be with me. You could decide to take a chance with me. You could decide to make better choices that won’t end up with you getting physically hurt, or even killed. You could decide to find a far better and healthier way to vent all that anger inside you. You could do anything different. Anything at all. And you choose this! You choose to end up here? Lying unconscious with your face bashed in before getting thrown into a cold shower? You want that more than you want to be with me! Really, Max, your message could not be any clearer.”
I want to argue. I want to deny it. I want to tell her, no, no I love you. I love you and only you. I want to be your boyfriend. I want to find a way to let out all this stuff inside my chest that doesn’t include blood and bruises, my own, or other people’s. I want to talk to her. I want to hold her. I want to be her boyfriend. I want her to stay. I want to go with her. I want to be the son Noah and Lindsey were hoping for when they adopted me. The son who gets good grades and treats everyone with kindness and friendliness. I want to be all those things. So badly, I almost crawl towards her and beg her to help me do that.
But then… I feel the pain in my face. I glance around the cold, wet shower we’re kneeling in and see my pink blood on the puddle around us. I am this. I am none of those things. I don’t even know how to be anything else. I brought Christina to this place. A place that terrifies her and put her in a situation that could have harmed her. If Will ever found out she came here like this, he’d put me in an unmarked grave. As he should. I am not her friend. I don’t do what is best for her. I don’t take care of her. Not like I should.
Instead, I let the silence stand; it can do my talking for me, as always. Maybe forever. I survived the pain of my childhood by retreating inside my silence. I’m just not sure my future won’t be another version of the same thing.
“You’re a complete coward.”
She slowly rises to her feet and stares down at me. Her eyes are wide and fresh tears are filling them, making their color waver. She sniffs and rubs the back of her hand to her nose. “I believe you. I believe you’re sorry. I think you had sex with me because it felt good to you. I think you only do what feels good to you. I guess you really don’t know how to be any different. You’re exactly who everyone predicted thirteen-year-old Max would become. I thought maybe, me, my family, or Noah and Lindsey could have made a difference for you. But look at you,” she waves at me in disgust. “We obviously haven’t. I can’t help you, Max. I see that now. If this…” She waves her hand toward my deplorable state “if this is who you want to be and the path you’re headed down, then you’re going on it without me. But if you want help, or you want to stop, or be better, or just avoid really bad stuff, you need to get help. You need to ask for it. Not from me. I can’t beg you to do it anymore. I get that now. I can’t do this for you. Call Noah. You need to call for your own help, if you want it.”
She takes a step away from me, then another. “Goodbye, Max.” Her voice is thick with regret and sadness as she turns and leaves me there.
I think
my mouth pops open. I am shocked she’d leave me there, on the floor, untreated, the blood engorging my face. She just leaves me there. I never, not even for a second, considered her doing that. It’s so unlike her. I let my head fall back onto the tiled wall with a thud. I deserve it. But it hurts. The squeezing around my heart feels like someone inserted poison directly into it. I lie there for minutes, but it feels like forever.
I’ve lost Christina. In the end, my silence always speaks loudest for me.
I lie there for another twenty minutes, feeling worse inside than my beaten up outside. Though, this time, it is a little worse than usual. I keep staring at the closed gym door and glancing around the empty gym locker. I really can’t believe she left me here like this. It’s unprecedented. It’s really a cold, damn thing to do to me. I mean, I hurt. I can’t bear to get onto my feet and she leaves me lying here, untreated?
Call for your own help. Her words resonate. I don’t want to do it. It makes my stomach hurt to picture Noah’s reaction. But… what else can I do? Ask Tanya for help? She’s already gone. She doesn’t do losers, and that includes just checking up on them. I know that. That’s who I’ve tied myself with. I finally crawl towards my locker and hunt for my phone inside it. Clutching my ribs, as I lie on my side, I dial Noah’s cell phone.
Chapter Thirteen
~Christina~
SNEAKING INTO THE HOUSE, I go to my bedroom where I fall on my bed, still dressed, still damp. I turn my head into the pillow and cry and cry and cry. The huge sobs hurt my throat and burn my eyes. I am startled from my misery when a hand touches my shoulder. I roll over, expecting to find one of my parents. But it’s not. It’s Melissa. She doesn’t say anything. She simply gets into my bed and cuddles up next to me as I start to cry again. She rubs my shoulders and back and lets me cry freely without any attempt to stop me. She’s like that sometimes. She can sense the pain and hurt of others. I finally stop crying. She doesn’t mention it, or ask why. We start discussing the things that make up our childhood. We talk until almost morning. She soothes all the hurt in me. She calms me. There is something almost mystical about her uncanny ability to sense when others are upset, and how her presence can soothe them.