“So is your father out of the military now?” Kace asked.
“No, he was killed in Afghanistan doing what he loved - fighting,” I said.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her hands cupped over her mouth.
I looked out the window.
“Don’t be. He begged to go back, each time. He knew nothing else. He couldn’t make sense of being here in the United States after his first tour. I think it was the only way he could make the war seem like it was right or just. Anyway, he died doing what he loved,” I turned from the window and focused on her face.
“So, can you leave him and go live with your parents?” I asked.
“No. He hasn’t let me see either of my parents for years. My relationship with them has deteriorated. He hates both of my parents. I think they hate him,” she said as she picked up her sandwich.
She was so matter of fact about everything - like it really didn’t matter. This piece of shit of a human being had manipulated and controlled her to a point that she really didn’t realize everything that he had done to her.
“He doesn’t let you see your parents?” I asked, shocked at this statement.
“No,” she responded, shaking her head.
“He doesn’t let you. Interesting. What’s his name?” I asked.
“Josh,” she responded after finishing her bite of sandwich.
I shook my head and unzipped my hoodie. The more I thought about this guy, the hotter it seemed to be.
“What are you, Kace?” I asked.
She looked at me with a confused look on her face, and then appeared that she had a revelation.
“Beautiful,” she answered.
“Yes you are. Don’t forget it, okay?” I asked.
She nodded eagerly.
“Now back to Josh. I’m going to call him Buster. I had a friend in Compton named Josh. He was a pretty good guy. From here on out, I’m going to call him Buster,” I said as I reached for my sandwich.
“Buster,” she laughed, and looked up and down my torso, “I like that. Well, you know what I mean. Yeah, Buster. It fits.”
“So are you a personal trainer or something?” she asked.
“No, I’m a boxer,” I responded as I handed her a napkin.
She smiled and slid the napkin beside her plate. Her teeth were snow white and perfectly shaped.
With my index finger, I pointed to the corner of my mouth and then to her face. She raised the napkin and wiped her mouth.
“Light on the mayonnaise,” I chuckled.
“Excuse me, did you say boxer? Like, you box? What do you do for work?” she asked, her face filled with wonder.
“I box. I’m a fighter, it’s what I do,” I responded.
“Oh God,” she responded.
Quickly, she stood from her seat and stared at me.
“What?” I asked as I stood up.
“Bye. Wet. Bathroom,” she stammered.
Hurriedly, she pushed herself out of the booth, and ran toward the bathroom.
Feeling somewhat confused, I pulled the hood over my head and sat back down. I started thinking of Kace, her boyfriend, and a way to get them apart. Ultimately, that was what needed to happen. Whether Kace ended up with me, alone, or with someone else did not matter. Getting her out of the abusive relationship she was in did.
“Is your girlfriend okay?” the waitress asked.
“She’s not my girlfriend, but I think so, why?” I asked.
“Oh, she just ran to the bathroom like something was wrong,” she answered.
“Well, I think she just had to go really bad,” I chuckled.
“Anything else?” she asked as she pulled the bill from her apron.
“No, how much is it?” I asked.
“Twenty-one thirty with the salads,” she responded, looking at the receipt.
I leaned forward and removed my wallet from my pocket. I flipped through the bills, and removed a fifty dollar bill.
“Here you go, keep the change,” I said.
“Uhhm, this is a fifty,” she said, showing me the bill.
“I know. Keep the change. And thank you,” I said as I nodded my head and sat back down into the seat.
“Oh God. Wow. Thank you,” she said, smiling.
Her teeth glistened.
“Certainly,” I nodded and pulled my hood off of my head as I spoke.
As she turned to walk away, Kace slid back into her seat.
“You alright?” I asked, laughing lightly and shaking my head.
She nodded excitedly.
“What happened?” I asked.
She pointed at me.
“What?” I asked.
She clenched her fists and acted as if she was throwing punches slowly at the center of the table.
“Boxing? Me?” I asked.
She nodded.
I remembered what she said about getting nervous, and the fact that it made it embarrassing for her to speak. I felt bad about making her nervous. Some people simply aren’t cut out for the violence associated with the sport.
“I’m sorry if I made you nervous, I didn’t mean to. It’s all I know. It’s my profession, not a hobby,” I said apologetically.
She shook her head and once again began to throw fake punches slowly at the center of the table.
Somewhat confused, I looked at her and thought about what she had written down earlier.
When I get nervous or really excited the words don’t come out in order. It’s embarrassing. I’m sorry.
“Excited?” I asked.
She nodded her head repeatedly and shook her fists.
Here’s my opportunity to seal the deal.
“Well, I can’t wait to beat Buster’s ass, make you mine, and take you to a fight. You’ll love it, I’m undefeated. Never been beat,” I bragged as I pulled my hoodie over my shoulders.
I stood in the booth and tossed my hoodie in seat beside me. Standing there in my ribbed tank top, I flexed my pectoral muscles and slowly sat down.
“It’s hot in here. Do you think it’s hot in here?” I asked.
Her mouth open wide, she nodded her head sharply as she stood. She inched her way out of the booth, and turned to face me. In somewhat of a daze, she stared at my chest and biceps for a split second, and took off in a dead run for the bathroom.
I turned and looked out the window at the office where Kace worked.
I suspect she was considering what was in her best interest. Most women in her position merely needed a little shoulder to lean on through the course of change. After the fact, they almost immediately realized that it was something they needed to do long ago. Making the initial move was difficult to do without assistance and encouragement. I intended to provide both.
Now I had to figure a way to get rid of Buster and convince Kace that it was what was best for her.
I felt as if someone was behind me, and I turned to face the aisle. As I did, Kace picked up my hoodie and tossed it over the table to her seat. She slid along the seat of the booth until she was against my arm. She turned and looked up at me and smiled, resting her head on my bicep.
As she leaned against me, I realized she was about a foot shorter than I was.
I love short women.
And the thought of beating Buster’s ass.
KACE. Talking to Shane made me feel like a woman again. He was nice to me. He was nice to me because he was a nice person - and he thought I was pretty. He told me I was beautiful. We had been communicating through my gmail account on my phone, because Buster couldn’t trace it.
I really liked calling Josh Buster in my head. I was afraid I would accidentally do it sometime to his face. Shane had told me to find a way to leave Josh even if it didn’t include thoughts of Shane and I being together. He said I needed to find a way to leave him for myself, and not for the reward of being with someone else or the thought of being with him.
He said I needed to do it for me. It seemed easy, and as much as I had grown to hate Josh, it was almost
incomprehensible for me to think of leaving him. When I thought of it my head spun in circles. I could think of one reason to leave him and about a hundred reasons to stay.
Change scares me. It scares me to death. What if this. What if that. Even though Josh is a prick and he treats me like shit, I have a home here. I can always come home. Home, foe me, is a comfortable place. If someone would just decide for me, it would make this so much easier. For me to decide it might take forever, maybe even a little bit longer than forever.
On the weekends, Josh often left for a good part of the day. He rarely took me with him. When I would ask him where he was going, his answer was generally out. When he left, I usually baked.
Baking makes me happy. I like to bake things. I get great joy to have someone eat what I bake and tell me that they like it. When I get upset I bake more than normal. The baking settles me down and allows me to feel like I am accomplishing something. Maybe it’s because there’s a beginning and an end to it. It might be that I enjoy creating it from my own mind. That my hands created something and I feel a degree of accomplishment.
Maybe it’s all of those things combined.
Today I was baking pecan and butterscotch chip cookies. They’re Josh’s favorite. I have no idea why I am still concerned with making something Josh likes, but I never eat this shit. I bake it and he eats it. He takes it in his lunch, eats then in bed, and eats on the couch while he plays video games.
Josh is disgusting.
I pulled the cookies from the oven and set them on the rack to cool. The Tupperware that I was placing the cookies in was almost full. Six dozen cookies was a lot of cookies, but not for Josh. He would eat six dozen cookies in about three days or so.
Josh is fat and disgusting.
Shane is not fat.
Or disgusting.
Every morning, Shane called me at work and we would talk for a few minutes. I couldn’t talk on my cell phone, but he could call me at work. We talked about everything and about nothing. Sometimes I would just sit and listen to him talk or listen to him breathe. Knowing he was there was enough. Someone that didn’t treat me like shit. Someone that actually cared.
My time with Shane was valuable to me. If I didn’t get to talk to him it was disappointing. It wasn’t that I was disappointed in him - it was that I was disappointed that it didn’t happen. It had become so easy to enjoy his time, and I could do it without worry or without effort. Shane didn’t judge me. And he never said anything bad about me.
I removed the cookies from the sheet with the spatula and placed them in the Tupperware. There was almost no dough left and the container was full, so I began washing out the bowl.
As I was washing the bowl in the sink, I heard the key in the door. My muscles tensed and I started shaking.
Buster.
“What the fuck, did this sum bitch catch fire while I was gone?” he bellowed from the doorway.
“I cooked your favorite cookies,” I said as he walked into the kitchen.
“No bake?” he asked.
You hate no bake cookies, you miserable asshole.
“No, the butterscotch with pecans,” I turned from the sink and smiled.
He reached into the Tupperware container and took a handful of cookies out. As he walked to the refrigerator, I could smell the beer on his breath. Perfect, he’s drunk. I started shaking as I rinsed the bowl in the sink. As he reached into the refrigerator, I began to dry the bowl.
“You drink my fuckin’ beer, you whore?” he asked, his head stuffed in the refrigerator.
“I don’t drink beer, Josh. You know that,” I responded.
“Don’t back talk me you slut,” he said as he shut the refrigerator door.
“Somebody drank them. There’s only five left. I had a twelver in that ‘fridge,” he said as he opened the can of beer.
“Only you and I are in the house, Josh. So if they’re gone, you drank them,” I said softly as I dried the bowl with the dish towel.
“You callin’ me stupid?” he asked.
“No,” I looked down at the floor.
“Well, I know who lives here. And I know what I drunk and what I didn’t. Who you had in here while I was gone?” he asked as he stuffed another cookie in his mouth.
“No one, Josh,” I answered.
“Now you wanna lie,” he said as he tipped his beer can up to his mouth.
“Back talk me and lie. Somebody has been up in this bitch. My fuckin’ beer is gone. Now tell me who,” he demanded.
“No one,” I repeated. He was scaring me. I really didn’t want to be hit.
“Then where’s my beer?” he screamed.
Sometimes we make decisions and we think that the decisions we make are to our benefit. Other times, we make decisions and at the time we make them, they seem to be what makes sense, and later we find out they weren’t such a good idea. Being able to discern the good decisions from the bad decisions, in advance, would be priceless.
“I drank them,” I said.
“How you gonna pay to replace them, you dumb whore? I knew you were drinkin’ my beers. Probably drank that fuckin’ Jack too, didn’t ya?”
I nodded.
I didn’t see it coming, but I felt the impact. His hand his my face so hard that everything went black. I spun in a circle, and landed on the floor. When I could see again I was on the floor, and he was hovering over me, his fists clenched.
“You can drink my beers and pay me for ‘em. But no one fucks with my Jack. You know that. I knew you drank it you little drunken whore,” he screamed as he grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me to my feet.
“Josh, no. I didn’t drink them,” I cried, my hair pulled tight by his left hand.
“Well, either way, you’re lying. You said you did, you said you didn’t. One’s a lie,” he stuffed a cookie in his mouth and took a drink of beer.
Smack!
He hit me harder than he has ever hit me before. I don’t know what he hit me with or where it impacted me, but my mouth hurt terribly. I could taste blood. I pushed the back of my teeth with my tongue. One was loose.
I opened my eyes. Everything was blurry. My lips felt ten times bigger than normal. As I cried and sobbed, he pulled me toward the refrigerator by my hair. Grabbing the back of my hair in his hand, he opened the refrigerator door and shoved my head inside.
“How many beers you see up in this motherfucker?” he screamed.
I blinked and looked inside. I could see nothing. My eyes wouldn’t focus.
“Four,” I guessed.
“See any Jack?” he screamed.
“No,” I answered.
He pulled me down to the floor by my hair and shoved me with his hand, sending me across the floor on my back. I relaxed on the floor, lying on my back crying. I turned my head to the side so I could still see him. The pain in my face and mouth was unbearable.
I watched his halo as he reached into the refrigerator. I heard him open another beer and take a very long series of drinks.
“Know why?” he asked.
“Why what?” I asked.
“What the fuck we talking about, you dumb cunt?” he screamed.
“Josh, I don’t know. I’m scared. You hit me, I’m hurt and bleeding. Please…”
“I don’t give a fuck if you’re bleedin’. The Jack! The fucking Jack Daniels, Kace. You know why you don’t see it?” he screamed.
“No?” I answered, confused.
“Cause you drunk it,” he screamed.
I saw the blur of his boot and thought he was stepping over me to go to the other room.
KACE. When I woke up, my face felt as if it were stuck to the tile floor. I lifted my head from the large spot of dried blood on the floor. My mouth was throbbing. I reached up toward my face and felt my lips. They were both mangled. I had a piece of Josh’s boot heel in my mouth. I spit it onto the floor.
White.
I picked it up and looked at it. I blinked and looked again.
Oh no. He didn�
�t.
I circled my tongue around my front teeth. It caught on an opening in the front.
I looked at what I held in my hand.
That motherfucker kicked my tooth out.
I could hear the video game playing as he screamed in the other room. I looked around the kitchen. Two empty beer cans sat on the kitchen counter. The cookies were gone. My bowl sat on top of the counter where I had left it.
Who beats their girlfriend to a pulp on the floor, kicks her teeth out, and then takes a beer and cookies into the other room to play video games while she lie in a puddle of blood on the floor?
Fucking Buster.
I stuck my tooth in my jeans pocket.
I picked up the bowl and felt it in my hands.
Not heavy enough.
I opened the bottom cabinet and looked inside. I quietly pulled the largest cast-iron skillet from the cabinet that I had. This should do. I tip-toed out of the kitchen and to the rear of the living room. He was facing the television, sitting on the couch and playing video games. His back was toward me.
This could be just perfect. Fucking cocksucker.
I could see the back of his head over the top of the couch. I knew if I walked in behind him, he might see me and catch me. As he screamed at the television, I ran as fast as I could toward him, the cast-iron skillet held high above my head with both hands. As he looked to his right, his mouth began to open and his eyes were as big as saucers.
The skillet came down hard. When it hit his forehead, it made an awful thud. I hated to, but I smiled when it bounced off of his head.
I stood over him and admired my handy work.
I dropped the skillet on the floor behind the couch and looked at him. His forehead had already developed a knot the size of a half of a baseball. His head was split open, but not as bad as my lips were. I looked at him slumped into the couch and shook my head. Although my heart was beating at a very rapid pace, I was surprisingly calm.
I walked to my bedroom and grabbed my purse, Kindle, and cell phone. I walked out into the living room and checked Josh. He was still unconscious. I reached down on the floor and grabbed the cast iron skillet and took it with me as I walked into the bedroom again.
Undefeated - A New Adult Romance Novel Page 5