Brawler (13 page)

“Wow,” I muttered inadequately. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied happily.

Jenna wound up mailing it to me since I’d come into town on my bike. I didn’t trust myself to get it home safely and completely undamaged on the motorcycle, but once it arrived, I hung it on the wall in my bedroom so that every morning I would wake up and see it.

It was a reminder of who I was. Of who I could be. It gave me a strange confidence and strength to replenish something I hadn’t known I’d lost.

That night Laney and I had sex for the first time in two years. I barely remembered what it had been like before, but when it happened now it reminded me of something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what, but the sense of déjà vu was overwhelming. The rhythm of her body against mine, the sound of her breathing in my ear, her voice saying over and over how much she’d missed this, missed me, loved me, wanted only me. She asked me if I missed her it, if I missed her, if I wanted only her.

She never asked if I loved her. She knew better.

It all felt and sounded so rehearsed, like she’d been thinking of that moment, imaging what it would be like, and now that it was here she was saying her lines. Playing her part.

When it was over, she rolled off of me and immediately fell asleep. I stared at her face in the moonlight, cut in half by white light and black shadow, and she looked like a stranger. This girl I’d explored every inch of for the last two years was an unknown and when I reached out to thread my fingers through her blond hair, another image of blond strands wrapped around my hand slammed into me. I realized what having sex with her reminded me of.

Chelsea.

Five Months Later

“You don’t have ulcers.”

“You’re sure?” I asked.

Dr. Pratt stared at me blankly. “Yes.”

My mouth pulled down at the corners but I kept my opinions on his bedside manner to myself. He was only a year or two older than me at most. Maybe tact was a skill that came with time. “The symptoms fit.”

“Yes, but they also fit other things as well. One of them being a very mild case of Generalized Anxiety Disorder.” He lifted his pen and loudly clicked it open. “Nausea?”

“Yes.”

“Headaches?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“Muscle tension?”

“Yes.”

“Trembling in the hands?”

My palms itched irritably. “Yes,” I admitted.

“Trouble sleeping?”

“No,” I lied, not liking how closely this was matching up.

“Well,” he said decidedly, dropping the page. “You meet enough of the criteria to consider it a very real possibility that GAD is what you’re suffering from. Not ulcers.”

“What causes it?”

“Life,” he answered simply. “A lot of people develop it simply because life is stressful and they compound their problems until it all becomes too overwhelming to handle.”

“That’s not me.”

“Alright,” he sighed, “other causes can be traumatic triggers such as abuse, neglect, chaotic environments, the death of a loved one, divorce, changing of jobs or schools. How about now? Is any of that you?”

I stared at him calmly but inside I was raging from his attitude, also from how close he was hitting to home on so many of those triggers. My blood was on overdrive through my veins and I wanted to take his clipboard and toss it through the window out into the parking lot. Then I wanted to piss in his potted plant and leave that office forever.

Instead, I took two deep breaths.

“One or two of those are accurate, yes,” I told him coldly.

He scooted back on his little rolly stool in response to my tone. He had good instincts, I’d give him that. Judging by his fresh-from-med-school-I-know-everything attitude, I knew I wasn’t the first patient who thought about throttling him with his salmon pink tie.

“What do I do about it?” I asked.

He cleared his throat, taking me in from across the room. He was half my size and he seemed suddenly very aware of it. I watched him impassively as he stood to look down at me where I sat in a hard orange chair. “Find coping mechanisms,” he suggested. “You can seek therapy, which is what a lot of people do. A therapist can help you come up with ways to manage the anxiety. Getting to the root of it may help. Talking about it and getting it out in the open.”

I was on my feet before I realized what I was doing. My coat was clenched tightly in my right hand as I looked him square in the eye. “What else?”

“What else what?” he asked irritably, holding his ground.

“What are my other options?”

“Drugs.”

“Anti-depressants?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Stress management techniques then. Breathing exercises. Take up yoga. Start mediating. Burn incense. Find ways to detox and expel those feelings.”

“Got it,” I said, my words clipped and hard. I headed for the door. “Thanks for your time.”

“What are you going to do?” he called after me. “What should I write in your file as your preferred treatment?”

I threw the door open and burst into the hallway.

“Self-medication!” I called back to him.

I left his office and drove straight to the gym where I worked the bag so hard and so long my limbs didn’t have the strength to tremble. I was too tired to think, to feel, to worry.

I was empty.

I was cured.

Seven Months Later

“I miss your cooking, Karen,” I moaned, taking another bite of lasagna and stifling a groan of satisfaction as the warm gooey cheese coated my mouth, followed by the tender, sauce coated noodles. It was pure heaven.

She smiled with satisfaction. “I’ll send you home with leftovers.”

“They’ll never make it back to my apartment. I’ll pull over and eat them before I make it halfway home.”

“I’ll send them just the same,” she chuckled.

“He’s already packing some home on his shirt,” Jenna pointed out, grinning at me.

I looked down and frowned. I’d gotten sauce on my T-shirt. Not a little sauce. A lot.

“We’ll wash it tonight,” Karen promised.

Laney scowled at me as I brought another forkful to my mouth. “Did you pack another shirt?’

I paused. “Yeah, of course. I’m here all weekend. Why?”

“Are any of them not T-shirts?”

“Like what? A polo shirt?”

“Or a sweater. Something nicer.”

“Are we going to church?” I laughed.

Laney’s scowl deepened. “You have to be going to see God to dress nice?”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing? Aren’t we going to a party at someone’s house?”

“Yes, and it’s fancy dress.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“I shouldn’t have to. We’re adults. Parties don’t mean beer bongs and BBQs anymore.”

“If you’d told me it was
fancy dress
I wouldn’t have agreed to go.”

“Well you can’t go looking like that.” She waved me away dismissively, taking a bite of her salad. “You’ll borrow one of dad’s ties and jacket.”

I put my fork down with a heavy
clink
. “Did you hear me, Lane?” I asked her. “I said I wouldn’t have agreed to go. I’m not going.”

She glared at me. “You already said you would!”

“Yeah, and you lied to me about it.”

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you every little detail about it.”

“Lying by omission is still lying.”

“So, what? You’re not going now because you have to look nice? You poor baby.”

“I’m not going because I’ve told you before that I hate those parties with your boring friends.”

Laney scoffed. “Boring? Why? Because they’re not all tatted up athletes with drinking problems and no social skills. That makes them boring?”

“No, they’re boring because there is absolutely nothing interesting about them. I know what will happen. We’ll be forced to circle around an iPad and watch more slides of their trip to the wine country set to Coldplay songs.”

“It was beautiful!”

“It was boring,” I countered disdainfully. “It was picture after picture of Greer and his horse faced girlfriend sipping wine. It was three hours long and I heavily considered taking a cheese knife off the tray and stabbing myself in the eye to make it stop.”

Jenna snickered. Karen shot her a sharp glance and she composed herself quickly but not before casting me a sympathetic glance.

“I think you two should take this discussion away from the dinner table, please,” Karen suggested.

I nodded in agreement, feeling like a shit. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Karen. Dan.”

“It’s alright,” Dan assured me. “You kids go work it out. And be nice to each other,” he added, looking straight at Laney.

She ignored him. She slammed her chair away from the table and headed for the living room. I followed reluctantly behind her.

“You’re such a child,” she hissed at me angrily the second we got in the other room.

“I’m a child?” I asked incredulously. “You’re a spoiled brat.”

“We’re not poor, Kellen. Why would I act like I am?”

Why did money come up in every argument lately? It had replaced infidelity, because it always had to be something with her.

“I’m not asking you to act poor,” I informed her. “I’m telling you to stop being such a snob.”

“Maybe you should stop being so…” She hesitated, her lips pinching together tightly.

“So what?” I asked darkly. “Say it.”

“You’re going to be a lawyer. I know you don’t have a lot of money now, but you will. You go to that ghetto ass gym and you never wear anything nice. You drive that piece of shit old motorcycle. I try to buy you nice things but you never take them.”

“Say it,” I insisted. I didn’t want her to say it, but I had to hear it. I had to know for sure that she thought it. That she’d always thought it about me.

What they all thought about me. Every kid in high school. Every one of her friends. Every person in that house.

“You’re white trash!” she exploded.

There it was.

I took two deep breaths, bile rising in the back of my throat.

“You act like poor white trash,” she continued. “It was hot in high school but it’s time to grow up and be an adu—Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving,” I told her in a quiet growl, heading for the door. “We’re through.”

“What?” she shrieked, honestly shocked and I couldn’t imagine why. This was not our first rodeo, but I’d be damned if it wasn’t our last. “You can’t be serious.”

I didn’t answer her. I threw the front door open and headed for my bike. I swung my leg over the seat and gave it a kick. It roared to life, just as angry and offended as I was, and I snapped on the headlight as I lifted the kickstand. I was leaving in record time and I could not wait to get out of there. To get on the road and fly too fast, too far. I’d go out by the ocean and race up and down the coast until the fever in my veins went away or I ran out of road or gas. Whatever came first.

I almost lost my shit when I felt a body slide onto the back of the bike. Legs slid around me, falling in place beside mine and the soft warmth of a woman pressed into my rigid back.

“Fuck you, Laney. Get—“ I started to rant, turning in my seat. A pair of cool, calm grey eyes stopped me. “Jenna, what the hell?”

“I’m going with you,” she told me. She quickly slipped Laney’s pink helmet onto her head and buckled the strap securely under her chin.

“No, you’re not,” I told her resolutely.

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m not in a good place right now, Jen. I don’t want you on the back of my bike.”

“That’s exactly why I’m going with you. You’re angry and you’re going to drive angry and it’s dark out. You’re going to drive along the coast, aren’t you?”

I nodded, wondering how the hell she knew that.

“Yeah, no way,” she informed me. “Not alone. You’ll drive crazy on those curves and get yourself killed. That’s why I’m going with you.”

“So you can get killed too?” I demanded, sick at the thought. “Get off the bike.”

She didn’t budge and when she spoke, her tone was softer. “No. Because you’d never hurt me. If I’m here, you’ll be careful.”

She wasn’t going to leave that bike. I could remove her physically but the idea of manhandling Jenna left me cold. And the idea of going back inside made me see red. I didn’t have a choice, and as I looked into her calm face, totally clear of judgment or pity, I didn’t especially want her to go.

“Wrap your arms around my waist and hold onto me hard,” I said gruffly, turning to face forward. “Clench the bike and me with your legs, lean with me when I lean. You got it?”

She moved closer to me until she was straddling me tightly as I told her to. Her body pushed against mine, molded to it, and her arms wrapped around me tightly. Holding me.

My breath caught in my lungs and I pressed my hand firmly on top of hers, pinning it to my stomach to ground me. I felt strange. Not angry, but excited. More of a feeling everywhere in my body, in side every nerve that threw me off so much that I worried I wouldn’t be able to drive. That we’d have to go back inside. But I couldn’t do that and the thought made the animal in me pace. He needed an outlet, one he wouldn’t find here, so I released Jenna’s hand, gunned the engine gently, and dove us deep into the night.

I drove carefully and aimlessly for over an hour. I kept to the nicer neighborhoods and the quieter streets. I made sure I followed every rule of the road and some I made up in my head to keep Jenna safe. It wasn’t working. I was getting more anxious by the second, the tension building and building in my muscles. The release I’d hoped for wasn’t going to come and I started to panic. I felt like I’d throw up or my muscles would rip in half with the strain inside them.

“Kellen,” Jenna’s voice rang softly in my ear, “take me to your gym.”

I nodded then violently spun the bike around in an intersection and raced us toward my old neighborhood.

When we reached the darkened building I was excited but nervous. I needed to do this. I needed to get in there and do the only thing that ever brought me down from the over amped level I was at. It hurt to be in my body. It felt too tight, like my skin was stretching hot and thin over my muscles that swelled and ached. I felt bigger than my bones. Stronger than my control.

I killed the engine and waited for Jenna to get off the bike, but she hesitated. I turned to look back at her to find out why and her pinched expression told me everything. “What’s wrong? You’re scared, aren’t you?” I asked, feeling like a jerk for the second time that night. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. I’ll take you home.”

“No, I’m not scared,” she swore. “Not of the neighborhood, but maybe of tetanus. I rushed out of the house to catch up to you and I didn’t put on shoes.”

I stared blankly down at her long white foot where she lifted it for me to see, and I started to chuckle. “Hang on,” I told her as I dropped the kickstand and swung off the bike.

I took her helmet from her, draped it over my arm by the chin strap, and swept her up easily into my arms.

“Whoa!” she cried, her eyes going wide with panic.

“I’ve got you.”

Carrying Jenna in my arms reminded me of a day at the beach over a year ago when she’d stepped on a jellyfish. I’d swept her up exactly as I had her now and raced her up the sand to the lifeguard station. She had her face buried in my shoulder, her hands clenched tightly, and quiet groans of pain escaped out of her throat as I ran, spurring me forward faster and faster. I’d been in a rush that day. All I’d been worried about was ending her suffering, but tonight I walked slowly. I carried her and I noticed how it felt.

It felt good.

It felt right.

The building was empty except for Tim sitting at his desk in a corner, a lamp glowing over his magazine. The rest of the lights were turned down low for the night to give the place the impression it was closed and discourage anyone from coming in. No one but regulars were really welcome after hours even though the place was technically open all night.

Tim nodded to us vaguely but he barely looked up and he didn’t blink an eye at the fact that I was carrying a barefoot girl into the place. He’d been running a twenty four hour boxing gym in southern L.A. for over fifteen years. It took a lot to shock him.

I parked Jenna in a chair on the far side of the gym before disappearing into the back to gather all of the gear I’d need to run through my workout, including a roll of red tape for my hands. I took it out to Jenna, knelt in front of her, and started slowly wrapping the tape around her bare feet.

“What are you doing?” she asked nervously.

I knew why. Jenna hated how large her feet were. She hated how tall she was. She hated how narrow her hips her, how flat her ass was, how small her breasts were, but while she thought she was bony and bulky, I thought she was graceful. Elegant.

“I don’t want you walking around here barefoot,” I explained. “It gets cleaned but not well and guys spit, sweat and bleed all over this place.” I finished wrapping her foot and ran my hands over the tape, feeling to make sure it was covering her entirely. “Is this too tight? Does it hurt?”

“No,” she answered softly, a shiver running through her body.

“Are you cold?”

She shrugged. “A little, maybe.”

“Here,” I said, pulling my T-shirt over my head. I wouldn’t need it soon, not once my workout started, so I slipped the shirt over her head before reaching for her hair to pull it free. It tangled in my fingers, soft and thick, then spilled out over her shoulders nearly to her waist, looking impossibly dark and glossy against the light fabric of my shirt. I sat back, grinning at her. “It looks good on you.”

“It looks huge on me,” she chuckled, flushing pink.

I was quick wrapping her other foot, eager to get her out of there. I worried she was cold but I also worried she was shivering because she was afraid. This neighborhood didn’t bother me, but I’d grown up here. As cool as Jenna was about everything, she couldn’t be comfortable here this late at night. Not even with an ambassador to the underworld like me.

“Do what you’ve gotta do,” Jenna ordered, waving me away. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not scared being here?”

“I’m never scared when I’m with you.”