All She Wanted (2) (22 page)

Charlie

It was just after 1:30 when I arrived
at the station. Briggs hadn’t responded yet to my text about bringing lunch by today,
but I figured he was out on a call. I could wait if that was the case. I had
spent the morning working on some old compositions before helping my mom unpack
and fold laundry. I was grateful to be out of the house for a bit.

And I missed Briggs already.

There were only a couple guys in the
dining hall, one I recognized as Evan, the other I had only been introduced to
once. I couldn’t recall his name. After a short greeting, I made my way back to
my father’s office. His smile was warm as he hugged me. I put the bag of food
down in front of him.

“Oh wow, thank you, sugar. I think
after today though I need to go on a strict salad-only diet. My pants are
fitting a little too snug these days…”

“I told you, Dad. Cruise food does that
to the best of folks,” I laughed.

“Do I get the privilege of eating with
you today?”

“Uh…well, I was planning on seeing
Briggs, too. I got him something from Fifth Street Café as well. He loves that
place.”
           

His face held an interesting mix of
emotions when I mentioned Briggs’ name. Last night he had seemed delighted by
our friendship, but today I sensed something else.
Was it hesitation? Strange.

“Is he here?” I asked.

He didn’t look at me as he opened his
to-go bag. “I am honestly not sure where he is at the moment. I know several trucks
are out, but I’m not sure about Briggs.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.
Is he acting weird? Or am I reading into
something that isn’t there?

“Is…everything okay, Dad?”

He looked up at me then, a reassuring
smile filling his face.

“Yes, darling. Everything is fine. Why
don’t you tell me more about the piece you composed for Kai’s wedding while
you’re here? You never finished that story last night.”

     
I
felt something ease in my chest as I sat down to fill him in on the
processional for Kai and Tori’s wedding. I knew Briggs would eat this food no
matter what time of day it was, so I felt alright about taking a few extra
minutes to chat with my dad. He seemed pleased that I did. He thanked me for
the all the work I had done in his absence, especially the ruthless data-entry
and filing. It warmed my heart to hear the pride back in his voice again when
he spoke to me. It had been quite a while since I had heard that.

It felt nice to be home with him.
 

Briggs

“I’m not in the mood, Kai,” I said
through clenched teeth as I did another sequence of uppercuts.

I had seen him standing in the far
corner of the gym watching me, but I wasn’t about to break concentration. If I
didn’t concentrate on this, it would mean having to concentrate on something
else. I couldn’t deal with that something else quite yet.

“It would appear that way,” Kai said,
“why do you think I’m standing
over
here
?”

I didn’t respond.

My combinations were second nature; the
flurried punches would have made my old sensei proud.

One.
Five. Three. One. Two. Four. One.

One.
Five. Three. One. Two. Four. One.

One.
Five. Three. One. Two. Four. One.

 
“What
are you gonna do, Briggs?” Kai asked
,
his voice laced with
concern.

I stopped the bag, breathing hard as I
steadied my body. Sweat poured onto the floor from my face and arms.

“This better not be some kind of early
intervention plan, Kai. I’m not going to start drinking again…or anything else,
so can you just lay off me for five minutes?”

I started the sequence again.

He walked closer, “That’s not what I’m
asking and you know it.”

With a powerful blow I sent the bag
spinning. Kai caught it with both hands.

I crossed my arms and rested them on
top of my head, catching my breath. My body throbbed from exertion, but I was
not nearly exhausted enough to forget the knife that was lodging itself deeper
into my heart with each passing second.

“Ultimately, he made the decision mine…but
there is no choice. If I love her, then I have to choose her first. He’s right
about that. And choosing Charlie means...”

“That you won’t allow her to choose
you.” Kai finished my sentence, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand,
exhaling loudly. “So you’re not going to tell her, then—not anything at all?”

I snapped my head back in his direction,
“Don’t you think I
want
to? It’s all
I’ve thought about for weeks!” I exhaled, “But he’s right…it will only make
things more difficult if I do. I don’t know how she feels about me, but I don’t
want to lose her—even if friendship is all we have.”

I could see a mirror of pain staring
back at me. Kai understood this kind of pain; he had gone through it not too
long ago himself. Only now he was on the other side of that great divide. I
couldn’t be sure a similar fate awaited Charlie and me. “Love is patient,
Briggs. It waits for us, even when we can’t see how it will.”

I was beginning to hate that phrase,
yet even as he said it, I could feel a tiny spark of hope.

“I don’t think today could have gone
any worse.”

Kai chuckled at that, “Oh it could
have, go read the story of Jacob and Rachel. That poor guy had to spend seven
years doing slave labor for his future father-in-law to earn his blessing, only
to be given the wrong sister on their wedding night. He then had to work
another seven years to marry Rachel. At least we know the Chief likes you—and we
also know that he doesn’t have another daughter he wants to pawn off.”

I felt a faint smile cross my lips as I
pulled the bag from his hands to steady it back in place. Kai backed away at
the start of a new a new sequence.

“I’m here for you brother.”

“I know.”

Charlie

As I walked out of my dad’s office, I
smacked straight into Kai.

“Oh…uh, hi Charlie,” Kai said, looking quite
surprised to see me.

“Hi,” I laughed, awkwardly.

What is
going on around here today?

“Were you headed in here?” I asked,
gesturing toward the office door.

Kai nodded once, a strange look passing
over his face as he took me in for the second time.

“Oh, okay. Well, do you happen to know
where Briggs is? Is he out on a call?”

Another strange look—I knew I hadn’t
imagined it this time; something was off.

“He’s uh…he’s working out.”

I stared at him, searching for some hidden
meaning lurking behind his guarded words. I came up with nothing.

“Okay…is there some kind of
problem
?” I asked, cautiously. I
suddenly felt the need to speak in a coded language.

“No?”

“Then why did you answer with a
question?”

To see a lack of confidence in any of
these men was rare, but the fact that he was reacting this way toward
me
was completely unsettling.

“To be honest Charlie, I don’t know if
you want to see Briggs right now. He’s… having a bit of a bad day.” A forced
smile returned to Kai’s face as he shrugged his shoulders, as if his
explanation was the only one I would need.

It wasn’t.

“Well, I would like to see him. He’s my
friend,” I said a bit more passionately than the moment probably called for.

I won.

Kai led me through the far hallway to
the workout room, and in no way was I prepared for what I saw. Kai put his hand
on my shoulder. “You might want to stay back until he sees you…he wouldn’t want
you to get too close.” He hesitated before walking away a moment later.

My jaw fell open at the sight of
Briggs.

The music was turned up loud, the bass
resonating in my chest like a heartbeat. When he said he was into fighting
before, this was not what I had pictured—not even close. I had imagined some
broken bar chairs and drunken men throwing aimless punches at each other, but
this
, was far from that.

I knew he was fit—that was obvious to
anyone who had eyes to see, but
that
word did not apply to him. He was instead what some might call…shredded. Every
contour of his abs and arms reflected in the lights overhead. His hair was
completely soaked—beads of sweat flinging in every direction with each punch he
threw. I could not take my eyes off him. It was like watching a performance.
Because I was not particularly athletic, this kind of endurance was beyond
mystifying.

His hits were hard. I could hear each impact
as it pounded against the leather, even above the booming bass line of his
music. I slid my body against the wall slowly, sinking to the floor, watching,
wide-eyed. His back faced me, but every once in a while I could see the profile
of his face. His eyes were focused, intense.

A trickle of uneasiness ran up my spine,
igniting my mind.

I wondered if I hadn’t trusted Briggs
the way I did, if this sight would have frightened me. I wanted the answer to
be no, but I couldn’t be certain. This was the first time I had seen even the
slightest glimpse of the Briggs he spoke of in his past—the hard Briggs, the fighter.
But then I remembered
,
he was still the Briggs that I
knew. He was the Briggs who had wrapped my wrist, the one who had held my hand
and kissed my lips. He was my Briggs.

As the song died out, he stopped the
bag to pick up his iPod. It was then that he saw me. He wiped his eyes with the
back of his sweaty arm, and blinked.

Slowly, I raised my hand, giving him
the smallest version of a wave I could, which seemed to confirm his suspicion:
I was in fact, really here.
 

There was no emotion I could detect on
his face as he stared back. I stood, unsure of what I should do next. This was
a first for us—I was the one playing the role of
creepy-stalker
this time.

“I…I’m sorry. I texted you a little
while ago to let you know I was bringing lunch by,” I lifted the crumpled bag off
the floor, “And then I got here, and you looked pretty…uh, focused. I didn’t
want to disturb you.”

He blinked a few more times before
walking over to a weight bench to grab his towel, wiping his face and hair. I
tried to keep my eyes focused upward, it was a challenge.

“How long have you been sitting there?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, feeling the
slow rise of panic in my chest at the cold tone of his voice, “Do you…want me
to leave?”

There was no immediate answer—no
reassuring
smile
to ease my doubt. There was just a
blank face on a beautiful man-body, one that looked completely spent. I could
see his arms shake slightly as he stood before me catching his breath.

I swallowed hard, realizing Kai had
been right. I shouldn’t have come back here.

“I’ll go,” I said softly, placing the
lunch bag near the back door. “This is for you.”

My chest heaved with the weight of
rejection bearing down on it.
 

“Charlie…wait.”

I stopped, turning back to him slowly.

“Can you give me ten minutes? I need to
shower.”

“Sure,” I squeaked.

Briggs

I stood in the cool stream, letting it revive
the body I had just
beat
to a pulp. My knuckles, despite
the wrapping, were cracked and bleeding already.

I banged my head against the wall.

Why did
she have to come today?

After I had dried off and put a new
uniform on, I found her sitting outside the station on a bench seat, to-go bag sitting
in the spot next to her. My heart seized as I watched her tuck a rebellious
strand of hair behind her ear.

How can
I live without her?

She faced me when she heard the door close
behind me.

“I’m sorry if intruded on your personal
space, Briggs. I should have-”

“Stop, Charlie. You didn’t intrude, I
should have seen you there.” I picked up the bag on the bench, thanking her. I
was starving.

“You were, uh, really hard core in
there.”

I looked up at her briefly, taking a
large bite of the chicken and rice.

Did I
scare her?
I focused back on my plate.

“It was…amazing, I’ve never seen
anything like that before,” she said.

This time I looked up, meeting her eyes
so I could gauge her response.

“Were you afraid of me?”

She thought for half a second before
responding. “No. I’m a bit in awe of you, though,” she laughed, “I wish I could
learn some moves like that. Maybe you could teach me someday. My piano hands aren’t
quite athletically gifted.” She held her hands out as if inspecting them in the
sunshine.

“Your hands are perfect the way they
are, Shortcake,” I said.

She gasped then and reached out for me,
seeing my knuckles for the first time.

“Oh my gosh, Briggs…that looks
horrible!”

She grazed the outline of my knuckles
with her warm fingers. I could feel her touch more than the burning of my
cracked skin.

“It’s just superficial. I’ll clean them
up in a bit,” I said.

“Uh…I’m no paramedic or anything, but
that doesn’t look superficial to me,” she said.

I winked at her, but kept eating.

“So are you going to tell me why you’re
having such a bad day?”

I shook my head
no
instantly, my mouth still full with my last bite.

“Does it have to do with Angie or Cody?
Please tell me if there is something going on with them Briggs.”

Urgh!
Why does she have to be so dang compassionate all the time?

“It doesn’t, Charlie. I just have to
figure some stuff out, okay? I’m sorry that I’m not very good company today.”

“I don’t care what kind of company you
think you are today…we’re
friends
.
Friends
have bad days sometimes. You’ve
seen plenty of mine. And…I’ll have you know I’m a pretty good figure-
er
outer,” she said, puffing herself up with pride.

“Is that right?” I laughed.

“Yep,” she said, smiling.

“Well, I’ll keep that in mind then,” I
said, smiling at her.

I love
when she smiles like that.

“Briggs?”

“Yeah?” I put the container back inside
the bag, smashing it down before throwing it into the trashcan a couple feet away.

“Why did you stop fighting?”

Her hand moved to rest on my knee softly,
her eyes filled with sincere curiosity. My chest ached at the sight. I had
every intention of telling her someday, but today was definitely not the day I
had imagined for such a heavy conversation.

And yet…

I made the decision as I stared down at
her hand. If I couldn’t tell her the truths I wanted to say—the words that
filled up my heart and poured over into my soul, then I would tell her my other
truths, the ones that haunted me most, the ones that couldn’t be shaken off or
forgotten.

The ones that would dissuade whatever
affection she might have for me.

I had plenty inside of me that was
unlovable. Maybe it was time for Charlie to know that part of me, too. There
was no benefit to her loving me—not if the end result would ultimately rob her of
the future she should have.

I kept my voice low, even, steady;
though my heart raced a thousand beats a minute.

“Because I almost murdered a man.” She went
very still, but I continued on, undeterred. “I told you that Angie and I moved
here when she was pregnant, to get away from her ex-husband, but there is more
to that story. He found her, a couple years later—staked out the house, waiting
for me to leave. I did, only I forgot my wallet. When I came back, Angie was
lying on the ground in a pool of blood, Cody was screaming.”

Charlie’s hand moved to her mouth,
“No…no, how awful.”

“I had trained for years as a fighter,
my sensei drilling into my head how important it was to remain in control—to
not give away my power, my mind or my body to any opponent, but something
snapped in me that night—a rage like I had never known. I charged him, while
listening to the screams of my nephew in the front seat of his truck. I could
hear the sirens in the distance and I knew I had to make a choice…go to my
sister, or stop Dirk from taking Cody. I chose the latter, and when I did, I
had already decided that I was going to kill him. I wanted to make him suffer
for every hurt he had caused her, I wanted his death to be painful.”

Charlie’s breathing was so soft beside
me. I refused to look at
her,
I didn’t want to see the
revulsion in her eyes. “When the ambulance and police arrived after responding
to the neighbor’s call, I was covered in his blood, and in a daze.”

“Did he die?” She asked.

I shook my head staring down at my
feet, “No, they revived him. Angie was touch and go for seven days, though. I
thought I was going to lose her.”

She was quiet for several seconds. “I’m
so sorry, Briggs. I can’t even imagine the horror of that night. Angie is so lucky
to have you as her brother—you saved her son.”

I looked up at her face incredulously,
“Don’t sugar coat it, Charlie. I was far from heroic—I was out of control! If
the police hadn’t arrived when they did, I would likely be in prison right
now—serving time right alongside Dirk.”

She furrowed her brows slightly, “So what,
you stopped training because you were afraid it could happen again, the rage
feeling? Is that why you changed—the reason you decided you wanted to live
differently?”

If only.

I could feel her gaze hot on my face as
the acid drip of shame ran down the back of my throat, “That was the end of my
training and fighting, but it was far from the end of my destructive wake. You
might think that going through something like that would cause me to reflect on
my life—search for answers—find God, but that wasn’t what happened. I went in
the opposite direction,” I laughed, though there was nothing funny about my
next statement. “When I wasn’t at the station, I was usually drunk—I can’t even
count the number of times Kai picked me up after a night of drinking, or how
many girls he saw me go home with.”

Charlie tensed, physically recoiling at
my words. Her reaction made my stomach sick, but I wasn’t done yet. “I lived
that way for over a year—drinking, partying, sleeping with any girl that showed
interest in me…” I stopped, the words on my tongue refusing to come out.

“What?” Her voice was a whisper. “What
happened, Briggs?”

“I walked out to my truck one morning
after work and a woman was standing there, waiting for me. She looked vaguely
familiar, but I didn’t know why.” I stopped again, sliding my elbows to my
knees while raking my hands through my hair. “She asked me if I remembered her.
I told her I didn’t, but when she started to cry I knew that my selfish decisions
had finally caught up to me. She told me her name was Brenna, and I waited for
her to drop the pregnancy bomb on me, but that wasn’t why she had come. She was
angry, cussing me out as she cried, telling me that I was just like her father—a
drunk who cared about no one but himself. She ranted about how she would never
put a child of her own through that kind of life, and that if I had been a
better man she wouldn’t have had to make the decision that she did. And that’s
when I realized that she wasn’t telling me she was pregnant, she was telling me
that she had just had an abortion.”

Neither of us spoke for several
seconds, but my words continued to play over and over in my mind…the shameful
truth that was mine to own. All the pain and rejection I had tried to forget as
a child, all the grief and fear I had experienced over Angie’s assault, and all
the murderous rage I had felt the night I attacked Dirk, had finally come to a
head that morning.

An innocent life had paid the penalty for
my sin.

I turned my face toward Charlie, the
silence weighing heavy between us, like a thick, itchy blanket.

Her eyes glistened as she spoke. “That’s
a lot to deal with.”

It
was
a lot for her to deal with. She had every right to think differently of me now.
I had never been fool enough to believe I deserved her in the first
place—friend or otherwise.

“It is, I just think it best you know
what’s in my past, as dark as it is-”

“What? No,” she said, shaking her head,
“I didn’t mean it was a lot for
me
to
handle; I meant that it must be a lot for you to wrestle with—even now. I know
there’s nothing more difficult than stepping out from the shadows of our past into
the light, but you’ve already taken that step—and
many
more after it. You told me once that you never wanted to be
that man again, and I see nothing of him when I look at you now.” She held my
gaze as words failed me. “I
see
you,
Briggs, and I am lucky to call you my friend.” A tear slid down her cheek as
she said the last word, shredding my heart.

“You are not the lucky one, Shortcake.”

She smiled, as she skimmed her finger
over my knuckles, “And
you
are not
your past.”

I closed my eyes, willing myself to
move away from her touch, while everything in me screamed in protest. “I should
get back inside.”

“Okay,” she said softly, standing up
from the bench a second later.

“Okay,” I said, following her lead.

She smiled, “I hope your day gets
better.”

You make
everything better.

“Thanks for bringing me lunch.”

She nodded, waving as she walked on the
path that led to the front parking lot.

As I watched her go, the ache inside my
chest intensified. My plan to diminish the spark between us had not only failed,
it had backfired with epic proportions. She wasn’t supposed to accept the
shameful secrets of my past…but she had.

And if it was possible, I loved her
even more than I had an hour ago.

“I can’t
make you choose to do what’s right for her, Briggs, but I hope you will.”

In that moment, any wavering in my
resolve disappeared. I had made too many decisions in the past for my benefit
alone, and Charlie wasn’t in my past. I would choose what was best for her,
even if it meant she wasn’t in my future, either.