Dodging Trains

I
was twelve
when a stranger at a train station taught me the meaning of ugly. He forced himself on me and threatened to kill my family if I told. I stayed silent, and the ugliness grew.

Now, that word rolls in film clips through my mind. All I’ve done since my best friend, Keyon Arias, left town is cement how ugly I am. Ugly on the inside—deep down to my core. On the outside… I am a Vixen. I flash men a smile and make them moan out pleasure I control.

Not them.
Never
them.

After five years of being away, my beautiful boy has come back to town for his father’s masquerade ball. He’s different. Hard muscle supersedes the skin and bone of his once boyish frame. One thing hasn’t changed though: the murderous look in his eyes when he slaughters his opponents. In the ring, I see the bullied boy, all grown up, dominating in ways he couldn’t in high school.

He’s the mayor’s son. The rising MMA fighter. The
beautiful one.

I’m not the Paislee Cain of before, not the sweet girl he once knew, the one who chased away his bullies. I’m the town slut. The dirty girl whose shame will never fade no matter how many men I use. He’d disown what I’ve become.

Because
beautiful
can never love
ugly.

PAISLEE

T
he most vibrant moments
of my life flicker through my brain like film clips. If I concentrate long enough, they suck in sound until they become so real they mix in scents from my memories too. Already, I realize today will morph into a clip that’ll join the rest of them—the short version of today, what I’m watching right now.

In this moment, he doesn’t star in a snippet at the back of my brain. He’s almost tangible, himself in ways I haven’t seen him in years.

Heat glistened off him when he strutted into the cage, arms high in preempted victory and with a cocky smile on his mouth. But now, minutes into the match, he’s not smiling anymore, no, because Keyon is fighting hard.

He always did that. Fought hard, I mean. And I wasn’t afraid for him back when I knew him either. Who can be afraid for someone who looks murderous?

I don’t mind his back toward the camera while he delivers the last decisive blow to his opponent; I enjoy the sight of skin and muscles under glaring spotlights and sweat that flies off hair and lashes when he turns.

The local TV station replays Keyon’s knockout in slow motion, while I consider what’s most real; replays like these on a TV screen versus what’s in my brain—those special clips from years ago. I let the thought go and ponder instead how Keyon and what’s-his-name survive the punishment they give each other.

I’ve kept close track of Keyon in the news. This is the first televised event he’s been a part of, so until now I’ve found him on the Internet and in our flimsy newspaper, the Rigita Gazette.

From the first glimpse of his face on TV, I saw the same impatience as before. Wildfire still burns in his eyes, and dedication radiates off him like red-hot quicksilver. In my imagination, Keyon is rattling the starting gates, dying to be freed into a world where he can rule, destroy, feast on his power without inhibitions.

I’ve read about his sport. Fighters can go pro at eighteen, and with Keyon’s talent and his twenty-one years, it must only be a matter of time.

It’s been five years since our high school principal threatened to expel him. I recognize his feral expression, the one he wore so consistently during the last months before his family packed up and moved.

I wish we’d stayed in touch after he left. His film clips remain with me though, and since I found a small photo of him in the Gazette a year ago, I’ve become a veritable stalker. I really, truly have, and I admit that it’s freaky.

But here he is now, on TV, all grown up. He looks so intense. So unafraid. I recall the fear infesting his eyes before everything changed, right when I was learning to tame my own fear. Would things have been different if he were fearless from the start?

They say he took a beating in his last fight. Nothing broken, just some bruised ribs. I scan his back for signs, but the camera focus zooms to his shoulders and head.

The referee screams something, and as Keyon twists to the camera, realization slams into me; I’ve known he was out there, but now my body internalizes it all at once. It
is
him, without a shred of doubt—I’m face to face with Keyon Arias on the screen, and his chest heaves, not with exertion like in so many of my film clips, but with undefeated energy.

I’m mesmerized by his eyes as he stills. They’re honeyed, not olive-colored. Just like years ago, they fluctuate depending on his mood. I always had a hard time deciding which shade spoke of calm waters.

Those cat eyes stare at the camera, unseeing and full of purpose, and his jaw tics when he clenches his teeth.

Oh I know that expression. I recall him ready to grab classmates by the neck and bash them into the asphalt on the way home from school.

If I interpret him correctly, he’s fighting the urge to deck his contender as the man staggers to his feet. This is new to me. Once Keyon Arias claimed the throne as the terror of our school, he made no attempt to stop until his victim was too exhausted to move.

I used to throw myself over Keyon’s back. He couldn’t beat people with the tentacles of a girl he’d never hurt around his neck.

“Paislee?” Old-Man lifts bushy brows from the doorway to the break room. “You’re watching TV?” He can’t believe what he sees in the middle of my shift. The mirrors are waiting, and if they’re to become gritty artisan-perfect, meeting our trademark standard, every step needs to be carefully monitored and completed within two hours. You don’t take breaks in those two hours.

The mirror waiting for me out there, the one that’s been waiting for ten minutes, might already be yellowing into that sickening color that can’t be considered art.

“Sorry, Old-Man. I’m… I don’t know what happened. I’ll go there now.”

“I put Mack on it,” he rumbles, voice deep for such a skinny man. I always felt deep voices should live in chunkier men.

I wonder how Keyon’s voice sounds now. At the time he moved, it had just changed from his young-boy pitch.

Old-Man’s eyebrows are more expressive than his eyes. Now they sink so far down, his irises morph into muddy half-moons beneath them.

“Can’t lose a mirror, ya know.” He nods, sniffing. Old-Man would never rebuke me. He angles a glance at the referee who’s grabbing Keyon’s arm to prevent him from lunging at his competitor.

“Boxing?” he asks finally.

“MMA—Mixed Martial Arts,” I say. The rickety table next to the couch is too weak to hold the old-fashioned monster of a TV for much longer. “I’ll buy us a better TV stand.”

Old-Man bobs his head. Sniffs again out of habit. He’s been around the mirror fumes for decades, and even when his nose is dry, he’ll sniff. I feel my smile draw up on one side at how much I love this man.

“He’s a hectic one, huh?” he says about Keyon. The words he uses are few and genuine. Only when he’s drunk does he chatter.

“He is.”

“Likes to fight.” Old-Man sucks air in through his teeth. Eases his hands into his overall pockets and rocks on the heels of his feet. “You know him?”

It’s my turn to nod. “That’s Key
on Arias. He used to live here. Keyon was our high school bully,” I reply, and despite myself, my smile blows into a grin.