Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (14 page)

My body was still beaten
and sore, but even with that constant reminder of my desire for vengeance, I
agreed to do things Chris’s way. All I had to do, he told me, was just act like
me and the other guys were “cool” and he’d take care of the rest.

To this day, I don’t
remember the names of any of those kids. I can barely remember what they looked
like, but for one full week, they were my best friends in the world.

They bought my lunch and
even brought snacks from home to share with me. They literally stood around me
while I was playing at recess to make sure nobody messed with me and, a few
days in, we even started playing together.

I still don’t know what
Chris said to them or what kind of deal they’d struck, but for that one week, I
felt like I was about the coolest kid in the school.

Of course, at the end of
the week, whatever deal Chris had made with those kids expired and they went
from being overly nice to ignoring me entirely. They never picked on me again
or even showed any kind of interest in my direction at all.

That was the problem.

Instead of seeing how far
he’d managed to turn things around, I just felt like he’d somehow cheated me
out of my new friends. What can I say? I was in kindergarten.

I think that’s actually
when I stopped looking at my brother as a hero and started looking at him the
way that I do now. Thinking back over it that way, I feel guilty. He’d helped
me in the best way he knew how to, but I couldn’t see past my own flawed
understanding of what was going on.

Over the years, he
started giving me real reasons not to trust him, so it just made sense to hang
onto that impression.

There’s a knock on my
door and at first, I ignore it. I don’t feel like getting out of bed. I don’t
feel like talking to anyone. I don’t feel like being me right now.

Another knock comes and I
convince myself to get out of bed, though getting dressed and actually
answering the door are still distant concepts.

A third series of knocks
lands on the door and I slip on my bathrobe and drag myself out of my room. I
open the front door.

“Hey,” Ash says. “Can I
come in for a minute?”

“Sure,” I tell her.
“Sorry it took me a minute to answer the door,” I start, but don’t bother with
an excuse.

She comes in and sets her
purse down on the coffee table. For a minute, I’m not sure what to expect,
she’s so quiet. Either this is the calm before the storm that’s about to be
directed toward me or she’s going to be all too willing to forgive, and I’m not
sure that’s any better.

“You scared me last
night,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m sorry
about—”

She holds up her hand and
I stop. “Just let me say what I need to say, please,” she says. I nod. “You
know that I’m not a fan of all the fighting,” she continues. “I’m going into
nursing because I want to help people who are injured and you injure people
semi-professionally.”

“I don’t know that it’s
even
that
professional—” I start
again, but stop on my own. It’s not going to make any difference and, what’s
more, it’s not the point.

“What’s helped me work
past that has been getting to know what a sweet, caring man you really are,”
she says. “Until last night, you pretty well shattered most preconceived
notions I’ve had about people who do what you do.”

She takes a breath. Her
eyes move quickly from one of mine and then the other, searching for something.
What, exactly, I don’t know.

“I know what happened to
Chris really got to you,” she says. “I get that, I really do. He’s your
brother, and that’s not going to change no matter what he’s done or where he is
right now. That said, I am not going to be with someone who takes their anger
out with violence.”

“That’s what I’ve always
done, though,” I tell her, knowing the excuse to be thin. “Last night, things
just got a little out of hand. It’s not going to happen again.”

“Things could have been a
lot worse,” Ash agrees, “but that’s not because you stopped it. They had to
pull you off—it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’ve come to a decision.”

Even knowing I’m the one
in the wrong, there’s a growing tension building in my stomach at the words,
“I’ve come to a decision.” Those words have never signaled anything good for
me.

“What’s that?” I ask
finally.

“I’ve decided to offer
you a choice,” she says. “I can tell you what I need and you can tell me if
it’s something you’re willing to do. Does that sound fair?”

“I guess that depends on
what you’re going to tell me,” I answer. It’s not a kind or chivalrous
response, but at least it’s the truth.

She takes another breath
and crosses her arms. “Have you ever tried therapy?” she asks.

I don’t need to get mad;
I just need to hear her out. Even knowing that, though, there’s still a tinge
of bitterness in my voice as I answer, “I’m not really that big on therapy.”

“That’s up to you,” she
says. “I just know that I can’t be with the guy from last night. I don’t know
if therapy’s the solution or not, but I know that the way you’re dealing with
this isn’t—I get that this all sounds demanding,” she says, interrupting
herself. “I’d understand if this is too much of me to ask for where we are in
our relationship, but I’m just telling you that I’m not willing to just go
along with everything while you’re trying to tear down everything in your
life.”

I want to tell her that’s
not what I’m doing, but the more I think about it, the more I realize she’s
right. “Do you know why I fight?” I ask. “I’m not talking about last night, I
mean in general. Do you know why I still do this even though I know my chances
of making it into the octagon are really, really small?”

“Why?” she asks, devoid
of any visible interest in the answer.

“It’s not because I like
hurting people,” I tell her.

“I know that,” she says,
“but that doesn’t change the fact that—”

“Please,” I tell her,
holding up my own hand, reflecting her earlier gesture. “I fight because that’s
the only time where I really feel like I’m in control of anything. It’s the
only time I’ve ever really felt that way. With everything else, there are just
so many variables, and in my experience, anything that might go wrong usually
does and when it does, it’s usually worse than anything I’d imagined.”

She’s slowly shaking her
head as I’m talking, but she’s listening. Maybe I’m not really getting through,
but at least she’s listening.

“I know I need help,” I
tell her. “What happened last night wasn’t just about Chris. To be really
honest with you, I’m not entirely sure what all it was about. I know that I
don’t like the guy from last night, either. That’s not who I want to be, and I
know this may sound like a load of crap, but that’s not really who I am,
either.”

“If I thought that’s who
you really were, I wouldn’t be here right now,” she says, “but that doesn’t
excuse what happened.”

“I’ve seen a lot of
therapists,” I tell her. “Going to court as much as I did as a kid, you get put
into a lot of shrink’s offices.”

“If you have a better
idea, I’m all ears,” she says. “I’m just telling you what I need. Maybe I don’t
have the right to tell you how to deal with your problems, but I wanted to at
least tell you where I am. I just know that if we’re going to have any sort of
a relationship, what happened last night can absolutely never happen again. You
lost control, Mason.”

“I know,” I tell her. “I
don’t know what to do.”

“Well,” she sighs and
picks up her purse again, “I’ve given you my best conclusion on the subject.
Maybe I’m wrong. I just don’t know what else to say. When we were at the lake,
I don’t know if you know this or not, but you really taught me something. You
taught me, ironically enough, that sometimes letting go is the best thing that
a person can do.”

Wow, she really read a
lot into that.

“I’m just trying to
figure out how to teach you what you taught me,” she says. “You either let
things go before they pull you under or you don’t. Make your peace with Chris
or stay mad at him,” she says. “In spite of everything, it’s not my place to
tell you how to feel. Maybe that’s why this feels so strange telling you what
I’m telling you. I just want to get back to what it was like those few hours
before we got back to find police cars everywhere. If that’s not something you
think we can do, though, there’s really nothing left to do about it.”

“Yeah,” I stall. I’m
angry at her for trying to tell me how to live my life, but I know she’s right
about everything. It doesn’t take long to figure out that I’m angry at her
because
she’s right about everything.

“So,” she says, “that’s
where I’m at. Maybe this is a stupid idea.”

It’s not lost on me that
I had a conversation a lot like this not too long ago with my brother. That’s
what has my attention more than anything right now.

“It’s not,” I tell her.
“Something needs to change.”

There’s a hint of what
almost looks like a smile on her face, but I still feel bitterness in my bones.
I want to explain to her that it’s not me, but Chris who’s screwed up, and that
she’s right, that it’s none of her business how I deal with things in my own
personal life. Not a word of that makes its way to my lips, though.

One word keeps flashing
in my mind. At first, I’m offended at my own thoughts and then I’m confused,
but the more I think about it, the clearer the thought behind the word becomes.

Victim.

My life hasn’t been a
particularly easy one, but that’s no excuse for anything. My parents failed me,
but that doesn’t have to rule my emotions. Chris has brought an unprecedented
amount of crap down on himself and, indirectly, on me, but that doesn’t have to
rule my thoughts.

They say it’s what you do
that matters, but if I learned anything from the string of low-rent Freudians I
was sent to again and again growing up, it’s that if you can’t change the way
you think you’re never going to change the way you act.

The longer I blame Chris
or my parents or the people who tried to help me turn things around or the
therapists that failed in their task, the more I’m just feeling sorry for myself.
I’m not a victim.

“I’ll give it a try,” I
tell her. “Therapy, that is. I’ve got to tell you that I’m not sure it’s really
going to do anything, but I know something needs to give. I don’t know where I
went last night or even all of why I went there. What I do know is that it’s
not someplace I ever want to go again.”

“I hope you’re not just
saying that for my benefit,” she says, her arms slowly unfolding, eventually
resting at her sides.

“I’m not,” I tell her.
I’m not sure if it’s the truth or not, but I actually feel good saying it.
“You’re right, maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t, but whether you and I end up
together or not, that’s not the person I want to be the rest of my life.”

“Yeah,” she says.

As much as I don’t want
to lose her, I’m more worried about losing myself. All I’m really hanging onto,
though, is the belief that I can’t do any better than I’m already doing. I
think I’m willing to challenge that particular thought.

The problem is that’s
what a therapist would tell me. Maybe I’d get lucky and find one with some
insight, but if I can’t get someone who can tell me what I don’t already know,
what’s the point?

The point is that it’s
something. The alternative is the possibility of another night like that one,
and I don’t want that sick feeling to become a more permanent fixture in my
life.

I don’t want even a flash
of it.

“Chris is probably never
really going to change,” I say, just as much to myself as to Ash. “Even if he
comes out of jail saying he’s seen the light—which I can guarantee you he will—I’m
probably not going to believe him. He’s done this too many times. Jail’s new,
but it’s hardly unexpected. I guess what’s got me willing to even consider
going back to a therapist is that I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to
be the guy who’s always promising he’s going to stop screwing up, I’d rather be
the guy who doesn’t have to apologize. I’d rather just not screw things up.”

It sounds stupid the way
I’m saying it, but Ash’s expression softens a little. “You’re always going to
screw things up,” she says.

I wasn’t expecting that.

“That’s not just you,”
she says. “Everyone screws things up and we’re all destined to continue to
screw things up as long as we’re alive. Learning how to not screw things up the
same way, though…” she says. “I don’t know, maybe it’s objectively better that
way, maybe not. You’ve got to think it’s more interesting, though, right?”

I smile. “That’s true. It
sounds pretty boring the other way,” I tell her.

“Don’t promise me
perfection,” she says. “I think you’ve heard enough of those kinds of promises
to know why I say that.”

I should probably be more
resentful, but I can’t really argue with anything she’s saying. “You’re not
perfect, either,” I tell her.