Rags 2 Pitches: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (15 page)

Kayla

Victory was mine when Natalie refused to get up. I heard the bell ring. The crowd roared, and everything felt like it was happening in slow motion. Willy ran over to me as soon as the referee announced that I had won. I tried to hold my hand up. It was hard to, and I shook my head in disbelief.

I whispered over and over again, “Thank you, Lord. Thank you.”

My heart felt as if it had missed a thousand beats. Time stood still. My life would be normal. Our life would be the way it should be, and I was so happy.

Too happy.

Chase was in the crowd. I had to get away from him. What if Hannah went back on her promise? For all I knew, it could have been part of a scam. She could decide that, seeing as I was a winner, she wouldn’t let go of me. All the things that I thought wouldn’t happen, would.

I would find myself in a trap.

Like the one that I had been in before.

The one I was in when my dad had used me as a punching bag, and then tossed me away like I was a piece of garbage. I’d started going to defense classes, not to defend myself against strangers, but from him. I didn't want to be part of this life anymore. I couldn’t be. I couldn’t scream my relief at winning.

The questions were spinning out of control in my mind. One minute I felt happiness, the next, sadness, and the remainder of the time - pain. Natalie had inflicted so much pain on me. My aching body was as amazed by my win as the disbelieving crowd. It was fucking determination that had made me stay focused.

I felt as if God had given me the strength after all. That was when my body started shaking and the whole place turned to darkness, and the last thing I remembered was hearing the crowd roar and cheer. Some had wanted me to win, whereas others were disappointed. The last thing I saw was Hannah’s evil smile looking down on me, as if she had gotten exactly what she wanted.

***

I could hear Willy trying to wake me up. He had panic in his voice. “Shit, Kayla, you gave us a scare. You okay?”

He took a few deep breaths as I opened my eyes. I was happy to see him in front of me, and not Hannah. I still had visions of her evil smile in my face. Maybe she had left to go and spend her winnings in the casino. Either way, the only thing I could think about was never seeing her face again.

Willy was going to help me escape after the fight. He’d said that winning would mean an escape. If I’d lost, he would try, but there was no guarantee. There wasn’t one part of my body that wasn’t aching. He put his arm around my back. I could slowly move; I needed to get out of here. I realized as I looked up that I was back in the same dingy room that I’d been in before the fight started. They must have put me on a stretcher and dragged me out of there. Shit, why didn’t they call the doctor? I was about to speak, but my lips could hardly move. Shit, I really took a beating. The worst I had ever had, even from my old man.

“Your friends were worried about you.” Willy paused as he looked to the left, “So they’ve been trying to wake you up too.”

That was when I saw Chase next to me, with Reg.

Holy crap!

I felt my heart racing again. The same way it had after the fight. Darkness became my friend. I couldn’t tell Chase the truth. He couldn’t handle it. He deserved better.

Why couldn’t he have just watched the fight and left?

He should have just walked out of the door and pretended that he never saw me. Then again, if the roles were reversed, would I have done that? Most likely, I wouldn’t have. I would have wanted answers too.

Chase being in the room felt bigger than any blow Natalie had given me tonight. Willy had said friends. I wondered what Chase had told Willy.

I started to panic, as I knew Chase wanted answers.

I was more afraid of the ones I might give him, rather than the ones that I needed to give him.

I didn’t know if he could forgive me.

Especially, when I had never forgiven myself for what I had done.

Chase

This whole thing was nuts.

Why the fuck were we in a back room?

The doctor came in for a brief second and, as quickly as he came in, he left again. At least, I thought he was a doctor. Who knew?

He was probably the same age as the old man. He had a little case, a hat, and a seedy look on his face. I didn’t know if he didn’t want to be recognized, because he had some kind of fake moustache that kind of stuck out. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, I could have found it quite comical, but all I was worried about, as the old man told him to leave, was Kayla’s life.

“We have to get a doctor. Why does she keep blacking out?” I asked the old man. He hadn’t told me his name, but I could see by Kayla’s reaction to him that she thought a lot of him. She seemed to trust him in the ring and, when she woke up, she looked kinda relieved to see his face, unlike when she saw mine.

“We NEED to get her out of here,” he replied anxiously, ignoring my question. That was not what I expected him to say. He gazed across the room for a split second as if he was lost in his thoughts.

Reg and I exchanged glances and nodded. This could only mean one thing.

Kayla was in some sort of trouble.

Why did the old man tell the doctor to leave? Especially without exchanging words. It was as if they had some secret eye contact when the doctor shifted his hat as he entered the room, staring at the old man.

It all started to fall into place. When we approached the old man and said we were friends of Kayla, he’d let us come into the back room with no questions asked. He’d practically ushered us in as they brought Kayla on the stretcher. The two guys that carried her on it quickly dumped her on the bed and left. The old man closed the door after he told us to quickly get in. Then, the doctor came in, they did the secret eye contact thing, and he left.

The old man wanted our help.

Not the doctor’s.

Or even the guys’ who brought her in.

But he didn’t even know us. In this dark, dingy room, how did he know that we could be trusted?

He wanted help to get Kayla out of here. I noticed that the red-haired woman he had been talking to while Kayla was fighting had left as soon as Kayla collapsed the first time. I hadn’t seen her again.

Maybe he was running from her?

I didn’t know.

Shit, I didn’t care.

“Open the door, Chase,” Reg commanded as he slowly lifted her up and she curled in his arms.

That was when the old man blurted out, “Chase? Did he say your name is Chase?” He raised his eyebrows and stopped for a second as he held on to my arm.

I nodded, unsure what he was going to do next. The stocky, little man nodded and sighed. “That’s why she kept looking up when she was in the ring.”

Did he know me?

Had she mentioned me before?

All these questions that I wanted to ask came to an abrupt end as the old man demanded, “Shit, do you know the area well?”

He knew I was from out of town. We both looked as Kayla sighed in Reg’s arms. She was bruised and probably had a few bits broken.

“No,” I replied abruptly.

“Well, you need to meet me in front of the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in one hour. Don't be fucking late. I have something for you. Then, after that, don't bring her back here again. Like, never. You understand?”

I nodded like a bobbing doll and Reg shifted. His phone was ringing and we knew that there could only be one person ringing this time of night.

Miles!

The old man shouted, “What are you kids waiting for?”

He didn’t need to ask us twice. He pointed to the exit and added, “I have something for you, Chase. Something I know Kayla would want you to have.”

That made no sense to me.

What could Kayla possibly want me to have?

I didn’t ask and, before we knew it, he was gone. The old man hobbled down the long hallway in the opposite direction.

“Shit, just say it’s all some kind of trap?” I asked Reg as he started to head in the direction the old man told us to go.

“I don't give a fuck. We need to get out of here. Now.”

There were people with loud voices and heavy footsteps heading in our direction. I couldn't see the old man any more. Reg whispered, “Shit, she’s shaking.”

I had visions of her dying in his arms and I got scared. I would do exactly as the old man said, but the first stop would be the hospital. I had just found Kayla and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let her go.

Chase

We were both talking and making no sense, trying to replay the events in our minds about what had happened back there in the fight, and in the room, and wondering what we were going to do now.

Even with all the confusion, we still found the car easily. Reg and I were slightly tipsy and had had hardly anything to eat, which was part of the reason that neither of us was making much sense. Reg made sure that he carried Kayla like a delicate flower.

I knew why he held on to her and didn’t want me to carry her; my mind was completely fucked up. If I held on to her, I probably would have dropped her, or panicked and done something stupid. Reg held on to her to make sure that I saw sense and did what we needed to do.

Get to the car.

Then, after, get to the old man to pick up whatever he wanted to give me.

Most of the cars that had been parked on the street were gone. It was almost as if they were never there. The air was still and, without a breeze, the whole thing felt kind of eerie, as if we were the last people on earth. I didn’t think we’d been in the back room that long, but obviously I was wrong.

I looked at the time, and it was way past three.

So late, especially for us to be in this neck of the woods. The whole thing was crazy. I kept glancing at the back of the car, where Reg had laid her. I kept a spare blanket in the car because every so often I liked taking a puff of pot and I would sit in the woods, just to get my thoughts together, or rather to forget Kayla.

Yet, here she was, nearly three years later, in the back of my car.

“Let’s just wait for Miles one minute and then we’ll get her to the hospital,” Reg reassured me, but he was confused about the whole turn of events.

“What kind of fucked up shit is she into, Reg?”

He shook his head as he started to light up a cigarette. I thought he had quit. The way I was feeling right now, between my head messing me around with so many stupid thoughts and my stomach growling like a bear, I knew the best way to get rid of it was to have a cigarette too. At parties, we’d sometimes light up together. This wasn’t a party, but I was fucking scared and I needed something to calm me the fuck down.

“Shit, what would have happened to her if we hadn’t shown up? And where the fuck is Miles?” I was getting anxious about the whole thing.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he just picked up his phone to call Miles again. We had been waiting for about fifteen minutes, every minute checking on Kayla to make sure that she was okay. I hadn’t felt comfortable parking my car here in the first place. Now we were on a deserted street, with Kayla in the back with God knows who after her. I remembered the words of the old man.

“Shit, he said to be at that church in an hour. It’s been nearly thirty minutes, and my GPS says it will take us around twenty to get there. We need to get out of here.”

Reg didn’t need convincing, which surprised me because I thought that Miles and he were good friends. Yet, he didn’t hesitate as he opened the door and said, “You going to drive or what?”

The responsible voice came out of me, “But we should wait for Miles.”

Reg didn’t agree. “Fuck that. He called me a baby about twenty minutes ago, asking where we were, now he can’t pick up his phone or get to the car. Drive.”

There was something about the way Reg said it that made me think it was a lie. He just didn’t want to get into the details of it.

I had partied plenty of times with Reg and he’d never left me at a party, no matter whose it was or even if I was stuck in between some girl’s legs. When he was ready to leave, he would make sure that the people he came with were by his side or he wasn’t going anywhere.

This feeble excuse about Miles not picking up his phone was a lie.

I didn’t hesitate to leave Miles. I pressed the “Start to Navigate” button on my phone and drove off. Whatever was going on with Miles had to wait. I had to get Kayla to a hospital, but first I had to get this gift that she had left with the old man.

Kayla

“Where am I?” I whispered. I saw two men in the front of the car. They were arguing, but between the phone giving them directions and the height of the leather seats, I couldn’t make out who they were.

I was so fucking light-headed from the fight. My ears had a siren ringing through them. My eyes were bloody, and I had a blanket wrapped around me as if I was a baby. I didn’t know who these guys were, but as I unwrapped myself and moved closer to their seats, I was shocked to find out that it was Chase and Reg.

For a second, I’d thought that maybe Hannah had gone back on her word and kidnapped me.

Everything was all mixed up. I had taken one too many knocks on the head, dropped on the ground countless times this evening and before. Maybe something in me had finally given up and that something was paying the price right now.

“Shit, she’s up.”

Chase darted his eyes across to me for a brief moment. “You okay?”

He had a look of concern on his face. I didn’t deserve that; he should have wanted me to be beaten in the ring. Dead. Not be asking if I was okay. I felt bad, sick for a second, as what little contents I had inside of me fought to come out.

“Stop.” I tried to hold it inside. “I’m going to puke!”

Chase didn’t need asking twice. Within a few seconds, he screeched to a halt, and I opened the door and everything came out.

I puked, and Reg screamed, “You okay?”

Chase interrupted, “Shit, she just puked. What do you think, man?”

I tried to get myself together, taking deep breaths, and then Chase handed me some tissues and said, “Take this. We need to get going. We have only ten minutes to get there.”

I wondered what he was on about, but I felt too queasy to ask what he meant by ‘there’.

I had somewhere to be, but I couldn’t tell him. If I did, then he might leave me on the street. I had kept this secret for too long. But sitting in the back of the car, wearing bloody shoes and a bra top, with a blanket wrapped around me, wasn’t exactly the time to start confessing shit.

Especially something as big as this.

I nodded as I shut the door, coughed a bit, and whispered, “I’m not going to puke again.”

He didn’t need any more confirmation. Chase looked Reg dead in the face and said, “Good, I need to go and get my gift.”

I should have asked what he meant by that. Instead, I closed my eyes. I was tired, and puking what little I had in my stomach had wiped out every last piece of energy. The last thing I heard was Reg whispering, “Looks like she’s sleeping again.”