Caged: Cellar Door Series (11 page)

I’d just gotten back home from training at Odyssey and dumped myself straight in the recliner kicking it back; Matt lounged on the couch, laid back with one arm behind his head. I had a couple of big fights coming up and had been pushing my training hard with the exception of going out Saturday night. Even physically exhausted my mind went straight to Kylee.

“She get off aight?” I probably shouldn’t have asked but I had to know Kylee was okay.

“Yeah minus the breakdown she seemed ready to have that we both know she won’t do in front of me or you. You’re an asshat.” Matt jerked the remote up off his stomach and flipped through the channels barely landing on one before changing to another. Something he knew drove me bat shit crazy.

“Why can’t you just use the fucking guide?” I was in a foul mood, better than earlier but foul just the same, a tribute to the fact I was riding Matt’s ass about changing channels.

“Why can’t you just admit what she fucking means to you?” Matt waved the remote towards me for emphasis his question pissing me the hell off.

I brought the recliner back to a sitting position, my arms bent; dropping to rest on my knees, my hands clenching. “You know why Matt.” I stared at him hard, cause he knew why. “Why are you giving so much shit about it? It’s not like it’s your business.”

He swung his legs around as he righted his body, sitting up; his green eyes boring into mine.”Do we really have to have this convo again? You are beyond deep over her. Always have been. You think I didn’t know that as far back as damn elementary school dude? Everyone that’s ever rotated near you two has known that. Yet you can’t seem to get your head wrapped around the fact that the one person that might be able to break your ass is the one that never would. You let the loss, the pain you’ve suffered and it’s been a shit ton, I’m not minimizing that, rule your damn world. Worse, you’re letting fear rule you right now. Something I thought hell would freeze over before I’d see happen. Your one of the toughest sonsabitches I’ve ever known, but you are letting fear run your damn life.” Matt paused, his chest hitching with emotion, every word spoken from his heart; letting the thoughts he’d been holding back free while I sat staring at him trying to remember that this was my friend so I didn’t vault up out of the recliner and kick his ass all over the apartment.

“You are so worried you might lose your shit that you’ll hurt her because of what happened with your dad, what happened with me, what happened in that fight, it’s got you all twisted up.”

Matt rubbed a hand over his face, clearly well past frustrated. “You didn’t even know I was fucking there JD! He almost broke your jaw, he’d broken two, count them… one…“Matt held up one finger and then another. “…two of your ribs. You were pumped up, hurt, angry and fighting for your damn life…against your fucking dad dude. You really think the couple of bruises I took were that big a deal? I’d take that shit every day to see you fucking whole. And big fucking news flash bro….she helps do that for you. She always has.” He got to his feet, slung the remote to the couch and squared off at me, something he’d never done and my jaws stayed clamped down tightly knowing if I spoke it would be the kind of shit you couldn’t take back just cause I was pissed.

“I know you got issues JD. That they have fucked you in the fights, put you on the line, but if you ask me; some of that is because of the shit you won’t deal with and by that I mean Kylee. You wouldn’t have lost your shit as badly as you did four years ago if it weren’t for her. Or let’s be honest. The lack of her you douche.” Matt stalked back to his bedroom slamming the door behind him.

              Fanfuckingtastic. The two people who meant the most to me in the world were pissed as hell at me. Had to be a fucking talent of mine. Worse…I suspected Matt was completely fucking right, again. It was making my head hurt.

              Getting up from the recliner, I paced between the living room and the kitchen, tossing my hands behind my head; elbows bent as I made the circuit and tried to calm down breathing in and out deeply. Matt was fucking right and it sucked. That fucker knew me better than anyone and he was calling me on shit hard core. I paused my trek, found my phone and texted Kylee; a sour taste building in my mouth.

{You aight?} I waited, holding the phone like an idiot to see if she responded. I was pretty sure I had graduated from high school…..

{Leave me alone.}

Apparently our bodies had moved forward but based on Kylee’s response, our minds hadn’t. She was beyond pissed at me and I could understand it, still didn’t like it though. I walked down the hallway and into my room; flopped down on my bed, my phone lying beside me as I looked at the screen waiting for it to fade back to black again. Before it could I picked it up, didn’t think, just sent another text.

{What if I can’t?}

I tossed the phone down again, scrubbing both hands over my head and feeling like  a fucktard, a feeling I was becoming way too familiar with.

I clock watched, looked at the time that passed by until the screen went black and then the green light finally blinked at me. I never kept my cell on ring, it almost always was on silent but I knew when the green light lit; when it winked on and off that I had a message. Picking the phone up from beside me, I keyed in the pass code and read the message.

{You’ve done it for four years. Should be cake by now. Go the hell away.}

I dropped the phone back beside me. Kylee was right, as much as that chaffed my ass. I’d made this bed, I needed to lie in it except that  bed was uncomfortable as hell. I looked at the phone and then rolled to my side. I don’t know how long I laid there before finally typing another text.

{Yeah I did. Cake tastes like ass though. Might have been wrong.}

I hit send before I could suck it back up. Matt was right. Me and Kylee needed a come to Jesus kind of talk, the eye opening this is the shit, this is how it rolls kinda talk.

Apparently I wasn’t getting that kind of talk because I got nothing but radio silence from her. Not another text came thru. I rolled over to face the window, my phone behind me and just stared into the darkness. I’d lived in some fucked up ways, some that meant so much pain it hurt to breath but none had me as head sprung as being blown off by Kylee did. 

I woke a couple of hours later to what I thought was a  soft knock that had my head off the pillow, cocked towards the front of the apartment. It sounded again. I sat up, my feet hitting the floor and padded towards the front of the apartment.

My hand rested on the front door knob and I twisted it like it owed me money. Pretty as a picture, Kylee was there in a small cami top thing that was making me lose my thought process and a pair of shorts that hung low on her waist. I took a deep deep breath before giving her a cocky grin, covering up the nervousness I actually felt. I could go toe to toe with someone my size or bigger, know that pain was going to be served up, risk getting knocked out and it not faze me but a petite, smart mouthed female could bring me to my knees….every fucking time and she didn’t even know it.

I swallowed, willing myself to remain calm. “Motel 6 forget to put the light on.”

No smile answered me. Instead she plowed past me, hands on hips and let loose before I even shut the door.

“You think you’re so fricking funny JD but you’re not. Do you even care how easily you hurt people, that you hurt me? Is it okay because of your past to crap on the rest of us like we are undeserving? You’re the one undeserving. You don’t deserve someone that stands by you while you push them away. You aren’t worthy of a friend that stays by you in the worst of times for you to shove them from you with no explanation.” Kylee sucked in a deep breath and continued her tirade, one finger pointing towards me accusingly “You’re beyond an asshole. You’re the worst of the worst because everything inside of me ached for the way your dad treated you, when it was so awful that I shed tears because I couldn’t form words to make it better and I hate crying, you know that. You’ve made me feel like less than nothing, like I’m not good enough to be your friend when in truth; it’s you that’s not good enough!”

Kylee’s chest was heaving, her body shaking with the pent up emotions she was finally unleashing on me and I felt every blow of her words. The pain I’d felt from my pop’s fist, the kick’s he had leveled on me when I lain curled in the floor had nothing on Kylee’s words. The words he hurtled at me like weapons were dull compared to the pain slicing through me from Kylee’s. I sucked it all in, wrapped it tight into me and gave her a sharp nod.

“Yeah, it’s exactly what I’ve been thinking, what I’ve felt for awhile.” I felt the weight of Matt’s stare landing on me from the hallway before I met the look on his face. It was murderous, but I forced my feet into action as I moved past Kylee who was staring at me incredulously like she couldn’t believe I’d just agreed with her.

“You know the way out.” Done, put a fucking fork in me, I had nothing left inside. The brief hope that had flared in my chest at seeing Kylee, the belief that we’d finally talk and clear shit up had shriveled up and died under her onslaught. She was right. I’d always known she deserved better, she’d just confirmed it. Who the fuck was I to argue it?

It was odd as shit that my footfalls sounded silent to my own ears, my face was masked in the same look I’d given my pop’s for years, complete detachment, like nothing was fazing me. Kick me, punch me, hurt me, do your fucking worst all you would get is  the it’s all good, it doesn’t mean shit to me look….but god damn it did hurt, underneath it hurt no matter what you tried to make them believe, so you never let them see it. I fucking excelled at that.

I brushed past Matt, lowering my right shoulder so he missed it when his hand reached out to touch me, to offer me some type of comfort, I didn’t want it. I made it to my room; hit the bed before I let the voices at the front of the apartment filter in.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING?” It was Matt and he was raging at Kylee. I was numb, comfortably so which was surprising given I hadn’t drank a drop. The pain had been shut away, the internal key turned to lock it down. With a big fight coming up, I was working with water as the preferred form of liquid in my diet. I couldn’t have drank right then even If I needed too I was pretty sure I’d just vomit it back up.

“Do you even know what you just said Kylee? What the fuck is wrong with you? How can you tell him he’s not good enough? Call him the worst? The fucking worst? That’s how you treat a friend that took you to every god damn dance throughout high school, when it wasn’t his scene? He consistently bent over backwards to make you as happy as he could in the ways that he could. Do you think anyone else would have gotten his feet through the doors Kylee? Do you even know JD? His dad said the same fucking words to him, over and over and fucking over. And then you do it to him.
YOU
!”  It sounded like Matt’s head was going to pop off and he was in a full rant, words spilling from him so quickly that I hadn’t heard Kylee be able to respond. I really didn’t want to hear anymore of the shit. It was said and done. Pop’s was in the ground; whatever he said was no longer an issue. Kylee had said her peace. I’d treat those words the same way.

Apartments sucked. The walls are like paper and all I wanted was for shit to be quiet, to get to a spot where I could close my eyes, sleep off the nightmare of the things Kylee had said and wake up to a new day, reinforced, but Matt wasn’t done, he was steadily running off at the mouth. Matt was slow to temper but once he was fired up it was like an avalanche that just kept gaining speed.

“JD has a big set of fights coming up, a set that could get him back to fighting legit. I won’t let you fuck his head up; it’s been fucked up enough by you.” Matt’s fury at Kylee was getting worse and I moved off the bed, getting vertical to stop the shit. It was well past enough but Matt plowed on killing the step I was taking towards my bedroom door; my pulse thundering through me.

“His dad beat him down, every chance he got and I’m not just talking about physically. You know what that bastard was like; you’ve witnessed him going at JD. Getting clear of that asshole didn’t stop it Kylee. Anytime he saw JD, he took pleasure in putting him down. JD fights because it’s his choice. Because he wants to have a chance to be up against the best and people see that he’s fucking WORTHY of it. And you know what? He is! He’s mad talented, gifted from the get go and yet he studies. He trains more than any fighter I’ve researched. If he’s not in the gym conditioning, he’s at Odyssey getting training for his MMA and Jiu Jitsu. At least until you came home and fucked his head up. Now I’m the one left to try to keep it together. Go home and hope to hell I can piece him back together; again.”

I heard the apartment door open and shut without any more words being exchange. A truck fired up that I knew was Kylee’s and I could only guess at the hurt she was sporting after Matt dressing her down.

I let my head lean against the bedroom door, taking a deep breath and pushing it all away burying it down deep. I needed my head on straight and it hadn’t been since I’d heard she was back. Pretty fucking sure I could blame that on the beating organ in my chest that had just been shredded.

Footfalls sounded down the hallway and then Matt’s bedroom door slammed. I moved back to the bed, falling down on it, rolling to my side and grabbing my iPod. If Matt kept up his pace, we were going to need to replace his door and possibly the frame. The entire situation was out of control all the way around and it was making my gut churn.