by Robin Huber
I clench my teeth together and prepare to say the words, but my tongue won’t cooperate. I can’t lie to him. “Does it really matter?” I finally ask.
“Yes.” He drops his hands away. “It matters.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to know that it was worth it, that I didn’t spend three years in prison waiting for you to change your mind and call me, or visit me just once, for no reason.”
My eyes well with more tears, but I hold them back this time. “I have a bad track record with people leaving me,” I say numbly. “The only memory I have of my father is a scar he left on my mother’s chin and the drugs he left in her veins that eventually killed her. And the last memory I have of my mother is a paramedic pulling a needle out of her lifeless arm.”
“Luc—”
“She loved me too, Sam.” I close my eyes and reach for the bracelet on my wrist. “I’d never been given a gift like this before. I didn’t know how much it cost. When the police questioned me, I began to question everything too. And the more I did, the angrier I became. I was losing the person I loved and trusted more than anyone to drugs again. And I was alone again.” I exhale an uneven breath. “I was so hurt.”
He stares at me quietly for a second. “Do you remember the last day we were together?”
I swallow down my emotion and nod. “Yes.”
“I mean together together. On the roof of that old building?”
I nod softly. “Yes.”
“You were over on Brentwood Avenue, where you had no business being—”
“I was going to meet you at Joe’s,” I recall, like it was yesterday.
“You shouldn’t have been there.” He creases his eyebrows. “You remember the guys who were messing with you?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Aaron Lewis, Tyler Jones, and Alex Brown.”
“How do you know their names?”
“Aaron Lewis has three arrests for possession. Tyler Jones has one arrest for possession with intent to sell. Alex Brown has two arrests for possession with intent to sell and is currently serving out a fifteen-year sentence.”
Anxiety pricks across my skin and my mind races with questions, but none of them make any sense. “What are you saying?”
“The tall one, Aaron. He said he would get back at me. Do you remember that?”
“The one with the gun?”
“Yes.”
“Wait…you think?” I pull my hand to my mouth and gasp. “Oh, my God.” I exhale, putting the jagged pieces of the truth together.
Lucy, Seventeen Years Old
“That’s twenty, forty, sixty. Good job tonight, kid,” Joe says, stacking three twenty-dollar bills in Sam’s hand.
Sam shoves the money into the pocket of his sweatpants and reaches for my hand. Even with the gloves, his hands always take a beating during a match. His red knuckles are rubbed raw.
“Sam, your hands.” I lift them to my mouth and kiss his knuckles. “You need ice.”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
“You still need ice,” Joe says, plopping a soft ice pack in his lap.
Sam jumps and makes a groaning sound that makes me laugh. He picks up the ice pack and holds it to his hand as I inspect his face.
“I don’t see any bruises this time,” I say, running my hand over his eyebrow and his cheekbone. I walk around him and examine his back and shoulders. “Nothing back here.” I run my hand down his spine. “Except for some goose bumps,” I say softly, and kiss his shoulder. I lift his arm and gasp when I see a deep-blue-and-purple bruise covering his ribs.
“What?” He looks down where my hand is tracing the edge of the bruised area. “Oh.”
I call for Joe, who left the room.
“Lucy, it’s nothing. I’m fine.”
“Joe,” I call again, ignoring him.
Joe walks back into the room and sees the dark spot on Sam’s side. “Jesus.”
“Do you think his ribs are broken?”
“Nothing’s broken,” Sam says, putting his arm down. “Doc already cleared me.”
“He didn’t mention anything to me,” Joe says. “But the bruises might not have been showing when he examined you. You sure he checked?”
“He checked,” Sam says.
“Just keep an eye on it, okay? Take some Tylenol tonight,” Joe orders.
“I will.” Sam stands up and pulls his T-shirt on over his head, grimacing through the pain he says he doesn’t feel.
“Here.” I take his hoodie from him. “Let me help.”
He shrugs into it and slings his book bag over his shoulder. “Come on, it’s late. You need to get home or Momma Jenkins is going to have your ass.” My current foster mom isn’t very lenient with my curfew, but she likes Sam, which is the only reason she lets me come to these matches.
“Hold up, I’ll walk out with you,” Joe says, turning off the lights in the locker room. He follows us through the gym and locks the door behind us when we step outside.
“It’s freezing,” I say, hugging myself, and I’m immediately enveloped in Sam’s arms. I snuggle against his sweatshirt.
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride home,” Joe says, and we walk a short distance to where his car is parked in front of the gym.
Sam opens the passenger door for me, but as I’m getting in, I’m startled by a car that roars up onto the curb in front of us—a shiny black sedan with flashing blue and red lights on the dashboard.
The police? My heart begins to race and my skin pricks as I consider the imminent danger that must be nearby. I stand up quickly and cling to Sam. His hands tighten around my arms and he pulls me against him, but my mind is flooded with potential threats. A break-in, a robbery, a drug deal gone bad.
The armed police officers approach us.
“What’s going on, officers?” Joe asks, but they ignore him.
“Sir, you need to step back,” one of the officers says, placing his hand over his gun.
Joe takes a step back and holds his hands up.
“Sam Cole.” The other officer steps toward us, and Sam holds me tighter. “You need to let go of the girl.”
Frightened and confused, I shout at the officer, “What? No!”
“You need to step aside,” the officer says to me, but I grip Sam’s sweatshirt tighter.
“What’s going on? What’s happening?” I feel someone’s hands wrap around my arms from behind. “Let go of me,” I say frantically, clinging to Sam.
Sam struggles to hold me close, but the officers pull us apart. “Let go of her!” Sam shouts, reaching for me.
The officer pushes Sam’s face down against the hood of Joe’s car.
“I didn’t do anything!” he says, but I can barely hear him through the fear that’s consuming me.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” I cry. “Why do they want Sam?” I ask Joe.
“Easy, easy,” Joe says. “There must be a misunderstanding.”
“We’re going to need to search your bag, son,” the other officer says to Sam, ignoring Joe.
“You have some kind of warrant or something?” Joe asks.
The officer pulls a folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and shows it to Joe, and then Sam.
“Go ahead, I’m not hiding anything,” Sam grits through his teeth.
The officer opens Sam’s book bag and begins rummaging through it, placing his belongings on the hood of the car—his gym shorts, a notebook, a bag of pretzels, a few pens, and a small plastic baggie that’s tied in a knot and stretched around a ball of white powder.
Oh, my God.
“That’s not mine, someone put that there,” Sam says, but the officer ignores him and reaches for his handcuffs, locking them around Sam’s wrists.
I think I’m going to be sick.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney…” The officer’s voice, the night sky, and the
dimly lit buildings around us blur together into a fog that begins to consume me.
Is the sidewalk moving? I turn to Joe and he catches me when I stumble toward him.
The officer puts his hand on Sam’s head and places him in the back seat of his car.
“Sam?” I cry, feeling my heart crumble into pieces.
“It’s okay, Lucy. Everything’s going to be okay,” he says before he disappears behind the tinted glass.
Joe drops his head and paces a few times, then he pulls out his phone and dials a number. He has a quick conversation with the person on the other end of the line and hangs up. “Come on,” he says, opening his car door for me.
“Who was that?”
“My lawyer.”
I swallow the hard lump in my throat and get in the passenger seat. “Where are we going?” I ask numbly. “To the jail?”
“No, I’m taking you home,” he says, pulling away from the curb.
I shake my head slowly, feeling as though I’m slipping out of my body. “He’s my home. Sam is my home.”
“Anyone could have put the drugs in my bag that night,” Sam says, getting up from the couch. “The gym was open, everyone was crowded around the ring, no one was watching who was in the back.”
My heart throbs inside my chest when I realize that he’s right. Anyone could have done it. I swallow the giant lump in my throat and get up from the couch. I walk over to the window and stare at the horizon, unable to face him and admit that I was wrong.
I should have believed him.
An overwhelming wave of grief washes over me, flashing pictures of the life we could have had together, and I’m stricken with guilt, because I’m the one who threw it away. Not Sam.
How could I be so quick to think he would betray me? He did everything for me. Even when I gave up on him. I squeeze my eyes shut, as if I can somehow hide from the truth. I’m the one who left.
“That’s what happened, Lucy. Even if you don’t believe it.”
“I do, Sam.” I turn around and look at him with tear-filled eyes. “I believe you.”
He inhales a deep breath and closes his eyes. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear.”
I bite my trembling lip and think of what could have been, but then I realize it erases Drew…and everything else that’s good in my life. “I’m sorry.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets and nods. “Yeah, me too.”
I swallow down my sorrow and walk back over to the couch. “Have you told anyone else? Your lawyer, maybe? There must be some way to charge those guys.”
He shakes his head and shrugs. “What’s done is done. I’ve spent enough time trying to figure out what happened back then. I’m done living in the past.” He closes the space between us and looks into my eyes. “I want to focus on what’s in front of me, right now.”
My eyes are everywhere, except for him. If I don’t get out of this emotional rabbit hole now, I may never find my way out. I look around, expecting to see his pictures and personal things, but all I see are a bunch of empty shelves, a few staged vases, and a couple of empty bookends. I turn around and take in the space, which looks a bit like a hotel. A very expensive hotel, but a hotel nonetheless. Definitely not a home. “Do you live here?” I ask, glancing around.
He raises an eyebrow. “Last I checked.”
“Sorry, I just meant, there’s no stuff. Where’s all your stuff?”
“My stuff?”
“Well, yeah.”
He drops his head and laughs quietly. “I told you, I’m not here very much.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“About a year.” He walks over to the wall of windows and slides one of the glass panels to the side. “It’s a bit much, but it’s got a great view.”
I follow him outside onto the balcony, which wraps around the corner of the building. “It’s freezing up here.” I wish I hadn’t taken my jacket off. I wrap my arms around myself and peer over the edge of the balcony. “Wow.” He’s right, the view is spectacular.
He leans against the ledge and looks out at the city. “It sure is a different view up close, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Which way is Brighton Park?”
He pushes away from the ledge and leads me around the corner. “Right there.” He points to a place in the distance with certainty.
I gaze out at the skyline and wonder how many times he’s looked this way. An airplane angles up into the sky from the same point on the horizon, and I know with equal certainty it’s the place where we found each other, where we grew up together, where we loved and eventually lost each other.
“Hard to believe it’s only a few miles away, isn’t it?”
“It’s a long way from all of this,” I say, gesturing to his penthouse apartment.
He nods but doesn’t say anything.
“You should be really proud of yourself, Sam.”
“It’s got a great gym. That’s really the only reason I’ve stayed here as long as I have.”
“Oh, yeah, I think I passed it downstairs.”
He grins and I see the shadow of his dimples before he tries to hide them. “Not that gym.” He leads me back inside, and I follow him through the living room, watching his bare feet meet the dark wood floor as he takes me down a short hallway with a door at the end of it. He pushes it open and gestures for me to go inside. “This gym.”
I walk in and I’m standing in the middle of Joe’s, boxing ring and all, except that this gym is state of the art and situated twenty-five stories above the ground. “Wow.” I breathe in the distinct smell of the rubber floor mats, a sort of industrial smell that I’ll always associate with Joe’s, and with Sam. I look over my shoulder and smile at him. “Okay, this is pretty great.”
He walks past me and grabs one of the ropes around the ring. “It kind of is,” he says, unable to mask his pride.
I smile and walk over to him, and wrap my hands around the bottom rope.
Sam grins and climbs up into the ring, shaking the rope in my hands, and my heart flutters when I see his bare feet against the worn mat. He leans down and reaches for my hand, which I reluctantly offer up. He pulls me up into the ring effortlessly, making me giggle as I find my footing.
“Well, this is a first,” I say, trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I’m standing in the middle of a boxing ring with Sam, in his gym, inside his high-rise apartment.
He bounces from foot to foot. “You remember the moves I taught you?” he asks playfully, his eyes alight.
“What?” I laugh softly. “Get out of here.”
“Come on,” he says, still bouncing on his feet.
I hold the rope behind me and shake my head.
“Come on, humor me.”
I fight a smile and finally say, “Throat, knee, groin.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Show me your right hook.”
“Sam.”
“Come over here and show me. I want to see if you still got it.”
I let go of the rope and walk across the mat to him.
“Make a fist,” he says, holding his palms up in front of him, making it difficult for me to concentrate on anything other than the flexing muscles in his arms and the tattoos covering them. “Luc,” he says, grasping my attention.
I make a fist with my right hand, just like he taught me when we were kids, and he pushes against it. “Good. Keep it tight. Make it strong.” He holds his palms up again. “Now show me.”
I pull my arm back and hit his left hand as hard as I can, but he doesn’t move. Not at all. “Ow!” I shake my hand.
He stifles a laugh. “Come on, you can hit harder than that.”
Determined, I pull my fist back again and hit his left hand with all my strength, but once again, he’s like a stone statue. “Seriously?”
“Okay, we clearly need to get you in here working out.” He laughs openly now.
“I work out,” I protest unconvincingly, which is met
with a dubious look. “Painting can be very strenuous.” I raise my eyebrows and laugh.
He narrows his eyes and then reaches for my wrists and spins me around abruptly, locking me in his arms with my back to his chest.
My breath leaves me in a rush, and my heart takes off in a wild sprint. I know exactly what he’s doing, because he’s done it a hundred times before, but if he weren’t holding me up right now, I’d be a puddle at his feet.
“Now what do you do?” he asks softly against my ear, the warmth of his breath falling onto my heated cheek.
I look down at the mat and see his bare feet planted firmly on either side my Chuck Taylors, his strong legs encasing mine, which I pray he can’t feel shaking.
“What do you do?” he murmurs again.
I breathe in and out, trying to find my voice, but I only manage to whisper, “I, uh, I…”
“What are you going to do, Lamb?” he pleads softly, and I lose all feeling from my knees to my toes.
My heart pounds inside my chest and my eyes prick with tears when I grasp the question he’s really asking. I swallow hard and squirm in his arms, but I barely move, he’s holding me so tight.
“Come on, Luc, what do you do?” he grumbles, and I feel overcome with frustration.
I struggle in his arms, praying he doesn’t let go and see me crying, but after a few seconds, his arms soften and I realize that he’s holding me, not restraining me.
“It’s okay, I’m sorry,” he whispers against my ear. “I’m sorry.”
Afraid to turn around and face him, I stand with my back to his chest, feeling him breathe in and out against me, letting him hold me up in his strong arms, unsure if I can use my legs. I stare at the shelves in the back of the gym that hold his awards, his gold medal and his championship belts, trying to absorb the magnitude of everything he’s accomplished. “Lower my center of gravity,” I finally say, and Sam loosens his hold on me. I squat down and slowly spin out of his arms and face him. “Lower my center of gravity,” I say again softly.
He smiles gently. “You remembered.”
I press my lips together and look into his eyes. “I never forgot.” I climb down out of the ring and take a deep breath to clear my head. I dodge a large punching bag that’s hanging from the ceiling as I make my way to the back of the gym, where I take my time reading the inscriptions on each of his awards.