Brawler (30 page)

I promised myself it’d be alright.

I slipped on a condom, painfully aware of me and my filth, never wanting it to touch her. Then I took a shuddering breath and drove purposefully toward. Into her.

She gasped, her hands tightening on my body, her fingers digging into my muscles. I moved slowly, patiently, listening to her breath against my ear. When she was calm again, I moved faster. Deeper. My strokes became longer, and as the darkness drew in, I slid my hand into her hair to ground me to her. I latched onto her breathing, her heartbeat slamming against mine. I banged shut the door on the dim cathedral in my mind, refusing to enter, and instead I worshiped her with words and want and wonder, standing in awe at the altar of her perfection and swearing my fealty, designing her breaths and gasps to form my new religion.

A flood of supplications poured from my mouth in both French and English, words I didn’t understand and would never remember, but they meant everything. I told her everything. Every dark demon, every shadowed corner, every filthy secret I’d never given voice to, I gave them to her. I gave my confession and she washed me clean in a river of tears that poured from her eyes onto my skin.

Then I felt it. The tightening in my muscles and hers. The aching in my gut. The excitement in my veins and the mad ecstasy that told me it was coming. That
I
was coming.

I knew immediately. I knew I’d been wrong and this couldn’t be right because
I
wasn’t right. I was so far beyond salvageable and I’d wanted her to save me, I’d told myself she could, but nothing could save me from this. From myself.

I stiffened, finishing inside of her and feeling like I’d vomit. Like I’d pass out. I shuddered, trembled, and the fear hit me harder than it had in years, feeling like the first time. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stay like that. I couldn’t live it again.

I disappeared into the darkness.

I went empty while I was inside her and I would have hated myself, I would have screamed my rage at myself until my voice was lost and I was nothing but a howling, clenching, mad mess, but I couldn’t because I was already gone. I was so far fucking gone that I couldn’t even cry for her as I failed her.

When it was over, when I could breathe again, I wiped away her tears, pressed my forehead to hers, and I whispered lost words to her from somewhere in my memory. Words from poems and songs and children’s books and Christmas stories. Anything and everything I could think of to string together in a nonsensical flood that would fill the gaping distance between us, and when she smiled I felt forgiven. Relieved that I hadn’t destroyed her.

I stayed with her all day even though I was itching to run.

The animal was back, and he was angrier than ever.

What mattered more than him, more than my own sanity, was Jenna. I couldn’t go. Not until I knew we were alright. We ate pizza and watched TV and sat next to each other, never touching, not even talking, and when she fell asleep, I nearly died with relief.

Then I left.

I left her a note and slipped out of her room while she slept, like the thief that I was, and I headed straight for the gym.

In the morning, I’d head straight for Ben’s office.

We had things to talk about.

Are you doing okay?
I texted Jenna five days later.

I held my phone in my hand, watching it patiently. My heart was in my throat.

It beeped.

Yeah. Are you?
she texted back.

Staying busy,
I answered evasively.

I stared down at the keys, agonizing over what else to say. Over how to explain what I didn’t understand.

I got a message from Amanda,
she told me.
She said you told her to contact me directly? She has a couple properties to show us.

I won’t be able to make it. I’m sorry.

That’s okay. Sam said she’d go with me.

I really am sorry.

I know you are.

It wasn’t until an hour later when I took a break from homework for my Emergency Medical Technician course and I was rereading the conversation that I realized my mistake.

I had told her I couldn’t make it without even knowing when she needed me to be there.

***

“Are you ready to talk about it yet?”

“No.”

“It’s important to what happened last week.”

“I know.”

Silence. Ben and I stared at each other for a solid minute before I stood and began to pace.

The animal had come back with a vengeance, and no matter how much time I spent at the gym, no matter how viciously I beat against the bag with both hands until unstoppable tears of pain poured down my cheeks and mingled with my sweat, I couldn’t put him to rest. I’d gotten too close to it, to the ugly, and now the animal was angrier than he’d been in a very long time. I ran to the gym the night I crept out of Jenna’s apartment, hoping to put the animal to rest before I saw her again. So far I’d had no luck and the time I was spending away from her was making me even more anxious than I already was.

I was fucking it up again. I was hopeless.

“Let’s go back,” Ben suggested.

I glared at him, my eyes full of panic.

He shook his head calmly. “Not that far back. Take me back to the night when you refused to have sex with Jenna. What was different? Why did you go through with it now and not then?”

I began pacing again, my head down. “I didn’t want to dirty her.”

“You feel that you’re dirty?”

“Sex with me is.”

“Because you’ve had a bad experience.” He wasn’t asking.

I didn’t answer.

“Do you still feel that you’re dirty now?” he asked.

“Yes. It’ll never go away. It didn’t matter with other girls, but it matters with Jenna. I don’t… I don’t want that for her.”

“So then that’s not what’s different. You felt dirty then, you feel dirty now, but I asked you what’s different?”

I stopped pacing, staring down at my hands. They looked the same. They looked
exactly
the same, like mirror images of each other, but I knew how different they were. That when you got under the surface one was weak and damaged. Fragile.

Looks could be so deceiving.

“When I have sex,” I murmured, “I’m different. I’m not… I’m not there.”

“Where are you?”

“Somewhere else. Somewhere far away.”

“Somewhere safe?”

I swallowed painfully. “Yes.”

“Because sex is dangerous. It’s painful.”

“Not if I’m not there.”

“You separate your mind from your body? Your mind retreats to a safe place and your body takes over?”

“Yes.”

“So you physically enjoy sex, but you don’t engage in it mentally or emotionally?”

“Yeah.”

He paused, watching me.

I stared back blankly.

“What happened with Jenna?” he asked, throwing the ball back in my court, forcing me to take over.

I flinched, rolling my shoulders tightly. “I stayed too close to the surface,” I answered quietly.

“You tried to stay in it emotionally?”

I nodded stiffly. “It did
not
go well.”

“And the bad experience—“

“I can’t talk about it,” I blurted out hoarsely. “I haven’t… I don’t even think about it. I try not to. Sometimes, though, sometimes it… it creeps in and I can’t, and I hide and I run and it’s dark and c-cold and…” I leaned forward, putting my hands on my thighs and feeling bile rise in my throat. “I fucking can’t.”

Ben waited silently as I breathed in deep breaths of cleansing air, pushing the anxiety down and back inside. Packing it into the doors and trying to throw the locks, but they kept bursting open. It was still there, still roaming the edges of my consciousness even with the animal angrily pacing and pushing it back, still it stalked me, and I felt like if I wasn’t very, very careful, it would find me. It would pin me down on the hard floor and I’d scream and scream, but no one… no one would hear me.

Ben sighed deeply. “Kellen, I’m going to be honest with you and I need you to hear me. Jenna can’t fix that.”

I chuckled bitterly, taking my seat and running my hand over my eyes. “I know that now.”

“You can’t be angry at her for not curing you.”

“I’m not. I’m angry at myself.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“I’m always angry. It has to go somewhere.”

“I’ve noticed, and you’re right that it needs an outlet, but we need to direct it where it belongs and it’s not with Jenna or you or Laney. Your stepfather was physically abusive, but I don’t believe the anger belongs entirely to him either. Which means we have to go back even farther.”

“Stop,” I warned him, dropping my hand. “Don’t.”

“When then?”

“Never.”

“Then you’ll never get past it,” he replied bluntly. “You’ll never be able to approach sex as anything but an empty encounter. Not even with a woman you love, because love can’t save all. It’s not a magic potion. It’s not a fairy tale solution that will heal all your wounds. Jenna can’t make it go away any more than avoiding it has. The only person who can save you, is you. And it starts by confronting the truth. We can dance around it all you want, working to patch holes here and there, but those are all symptoms of a bigger issue, and until we address it, you’ll never be well.”

I nodded my head over and over again, lost in a cycle that wouldn’t stop. Like a twitch I couldn’t control. “I know that.”

“So,” he replied patiently, “when?”

I breathed shakily, stilling my head. My hands. My heart. “Soon.”

Amanda sent me updates on the property hunt with Jenna. She was struggling with the same issues I had been railing against before – Jenna was being cheap. For a girl who had grown up rich, she was a frugal shopper. Her money or her dad’s, she didn’t like spending it. I told Amanda to hang in there, that I’d help her as soon as I could.

At the moment, all of my time was focused on the gym to prep for the physical test that I’d been struggling to pass to get into the Fire Academy. I was fast, I was fit, and I was strong, but there were times when my right hand screamed at me out of nowhere and I faltered. It was a weakness I was learning to work around, but it would take me time. Just like learning to lead with my left hand in boxing would take time. I had to learn to be patient with myself.

In all things.

Ben was trying to teach me to take baby steps into the pool of my shortcomings, but I was struggling. After what happened with Jenna, I was gun-shy, terrified of talking about too much. I finally opened up and told him about my mom, though. I even told him about my dad and how I knew he was out there throwing money at me and his sense of guilt, but that my mom had let me fall into foster care rather than be with him. I wondered some days if being raised by an absent rich man’s nanny wouldn’t have been better than the upbringing I got.

“We’ll never know, because that’s not how things played out,” Ben told me simply. “Maybe it would have been better for you, maybe it would have been worse. Life is what it is and worrying over what might have been is a waste of your time.”

“So talking about the past is a waste?”

Ben grinned. “Nice try.”

“I gave it a shot,” I replied, smiling faintly.

“Our time is almost up today, so I have to ask. When?”

I sighed, sitting forward with my arms on my thighs. “I’ll talk about it, but only once. And I need Jenna to know.”

“Do you want to bring her into a session with you?”

“Yeah. I think I do. Is that a bad idea?”

“I think that is an excellent idea,” Ben replied emphatically. “I believe it will be good for both of you. When do you want to do it?”

“Soon.”

“I thought you’d say that.”

“No, I mean it,” I said seriously. “I will. I’ll bring her in soon. I need to get a few more things in order first so I can tell her everything at once, but I will do it. I
want
to do it.”

“Good. What are you getting in order?”

“I’m almost finished with my EMT course, then I want to apply to the academy again. I need to get a job lined up too. I hate not working.”

“But you’re going to school.”

“And living off
his
money. I hate that.”

Ben paused, watching me. Reading me. “Have you thought about contacting your father?”

I laughed, shaking my head and sitting back. “No. Never.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Vegas. He’s some wealthy poker champ that lives in a penthouse of a casino. Real classy guy. I’m dying to meet him.”

“I think you should,” Ben said seriously. “You need that closure.”

“I’d kick his ass, using my right hand the entire time just for the satisfaction of beating him down with my weak hand. Then I’d get arrested, and I’d be right back where I was when I was seventeen – in jail. No, thank you.”

“What about your mother’s family? You said she was from Ireland originally. Is there still family there?”

“Probably, but I’ve never heard anything about them. My grandpa burned his bridges when he left. They never knew my mom because he hid her away with his mistress. She grew up alone.”

“Like you.”

“Not like me,” I replied darkly. “I hope to God not like me.”

“They’re your family and you don’t have a grudge against them like you do your father,” Ben answered, scribbling on a piece of paper then tearing it free. “Here. Take this. It’s the name and number of a friend of mine who specializes in genealogy. She’s helped reconnect families with lost members before. She’d be happy to help you as well.”

I took the paper, stuffing it in my pocket absently. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, do it. It’d do you good to feel like you’re not alone, Kellen. You need to see that you came from something. From somewhere. With your mother gone it’s hard to see that, but somewhere there are people with your blood and I promise you, they’ll want to meet you.”

“They don’t even know me.”

“And they never will, not until you let them.”

***

Two months later I was home studying, nearly finished with my EMT course, when Amanda called.

“I found a building in the area you and Jenna wanted,” Amanda said excitedly. “It’s in your price range.”

“Mine or hers?”

“Yours. And it won’t last long. We need to move on it yesterday.”

“Call Jenna and see if she’s available to look at it. If not, I’ll come by.”

Amanda sighed heavily. “Kellen, honey, no. I’m not doing that. Not anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because ever since you stopped showing up to these viewings, she has lost all steam.”

“I thought she was bringing a friend with her. Sam.”

“She is, and Sam is trying to help, but Jenna’s never going to make a decision without you there. You were the one pushing her to do this, right?”

“Yeah,” I admitted warily.

“Then why did you disappear?”

“It’s complicated.”

“And private, I get it, but if you still care about her and helping her make this happen, you need to help me out here.”

I dropped my pen down on the desk, rubbing my eyes. “Alright. I’m on it. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bailed on both of you. Send me a link and the address and I’ll get in touch with Jenna.”

“Thank you. I’m sending it now.”

I hung up the phone and pulled up my e-mail on my laptop. Amanda was fast. I had the link within seconds. I scrolled through it, checking out the gutted industrial building with warm woods and dented metal. It was perfect. I knew she’d love it, and with the price right where I wanted it to be, I knew I had to make this happen for her.

I had to help her make it happen for herself.

I hated that she had lost her excitement over the project when I disappeared. I hated that I had run, that I was
still
running, but I was afraid to stop. I was worried I’d screw up again or that if we saw each other face to face she’d tell me she couldn’t wait any more. I worried what had always been so strong between us would be gone, and I’d have no one to blame but myself.

I picked up my phone to text her the address and send her the link, noticing our previous conversations. Every four days on the dot I sent her a message asking how she was. Every time she said she was good. We’d go back and forth briefly about her family, about work, about boxing, then it’d awkwardly end in a weird silence that neither of us knew how to fill, so we filled it with everything we were afraid to talk about and it hung between us for days until I texted her again, and the cycle started all over.

It needed to stop.

I sent her the link, the address, and a message telling her we needed to go see it immediately. All of us.

After hitting send, I tossed my phone aside and went to my bedroom to change. I was still in gym clothes, stinking of sweat. When my phone beeped, I hurried out to check it, wearing nothing but my shorts.

Looks perfect. Be there in 2 hours,
she said.

I told her I’d see her there, then I dove into the shower, feeling jittery and wired.

Excited.

When I found the spot, I knew it was the one. I pulled up next to Jenna’s SUV, feeling nervous as I ran my hand through my hair, trying to undo the helmet head I’d earned on the ride over. I smiled to Amanda where she stood in the doorway waiting, then turned to open Jen’s door for her. I was relieved to see her smile at me. She didn’t look like she hated me, and that was the best I could hope for right then.

“Hey,” I said happily, “are you ready to make all your dreams—“

Holy shit.

“What are you wearing?” I asked deeply.

She looked down at herself as though she didn’t know. She was wearing a shiny skin tight leotard with black stiletto books that came up to her thighs. The black and yellow outfit covered her arms, a whisper of her chest, and about as much as underwear on the bottom. I recognized it immediately.

“A costume,” she said uncertainly. “I was going to ComiCon with Sam when you texted me. I’m the Silk Spectre from—“

“
Watchmen.
Yeah. I know,” I muttered, my eyes still taking her in. She looked incredible.

“Then why’d you ask what it was?”

“I meant why are you wearing that?”

“I told you, I was going to ComiCon but I thought this was more important so I rushed here. I didn’t have time to change.”

I wanted to smile. I wanted to laugh, but I also wanted to give her shit for it because it was so nerdy and so hot and so many other things I wasn’t sure how to put into words, but I liked it all. In fact,
like
might have been too small of a word.

“I look like a hooker,” she said, noticing my stare. “I know.”

“A hot hooker.”

“Most hookers are, aren’t they?”

I chuckled. “You haven’t seen many, have you?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “No, but should I be worried that you have?”

“All part of the experience growing up in the slums. If it’s any consolation, you look expensive.” Legs like that did not come cheap.

“My mother would be so proud,” she muttered, stepping down out of the car.

She was taller than me in those shoes, and when I stepped aside to let her walk on ahead of me, I got to watch her move in them. She wasn’t as graceful as she normally was, and I knew it was the heels throwing her off. Still, her ass in that outfit – she was killing me but I’d die with a smile.

It also kicked off something in me. Something territorial and protective, and as I watched her stand there talking to Amanda, I remembered we weren’t in the best of neighborhoods.

I quickly stepped forward to drape my stiff riding jacket over her shoulders, covering her gently.

She turned her head to smile at me gratefully as she pulled it tighter around her body. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I jutted my chin toward the doorway. “Are you ready for this?”

“Definitely.”

I was right. She loved it. It was everything she’d been looking for and when she found out it was in her price range, she jumped in with both feet, her cheeks pink with excitement. Less than an hour later and she put in an offer.

Amanda cast me a grateful look as she filled in the blanks and had Jenna sign, but I wasn’t sure it was me. I think that place was exactly what Jenna had been waiting for, and all the other places simply hadn’t fit. She was a patient girl and she refused to settle. When she knew what she wanted, she’d wait an eternity to get it right.

“What are you going to call the place?” I asked her.

We sat on a picnic table overlooking the ocean, eating lunch and waiting. Amanda was putting in her offer with the seller and she hoped to have a response for us soon so we decided to wait it out by the water. Together.

She shrugged before taking a sip of her beer. “I don’t know.”

I grinned at her lie. “Yes, you do.”

“I may have an idea.”

“Not one you’re going to share?”

“Not yet, no.”

“Mysterious,” I said with admiration. “I like it.”

“Well, you’re not the only one who can keep secrets.”

“What do you mean?”

She cast me a look that said I knew exactly what she meant. “I mean you play it all very close to the chest, Kellen Coulter. I’m lucky to know the things about you that I do. In fact, I don’t even know your middle name. That’s how mysterious your ass is.”

“It’s Riley,” I chuckled, giving it to her freely.

“Riley,” she mused with a grin. “I like it.”

“You can have it.”

“Why? You don’t like it?”

“No one else knows it is all. It’s one of my secrets. Now it’s yours.”

We sat in silence after that, chewing and waiting. And sweating. I was sweating. I wanted to say so many things to her, but I had no idea how.

Her phone started ringing on the table between us.

I glanced down at it. “It’s Amanda.”

“Anfer it!” she shouted around a mouth full of hot dog.

I swept it up in my hand, hitting the answer button. “Hello?”

“Kellen?” Amanda asked, sounding surprised.

“Yeah, it’s Kellen.”

“I didn’t expect you to answer her phone. This is good, actually. I can talk to you about the finances.”