by Daisy Allen
“He’s in a class?”
“Well, yes. It’s a one on one.”
The hackles on the back of my neck spring up as if on command, and it feels like an ice cube is sliding down the middle of my back. I push away from the counter and head toward the music, ignoring the protests of the woman.
It leads me up a narrow staircase and to a closed door on the second floor.
I take a breath and push it open.
Two figures in the middle of the room spring apart. And I know instantly, it’s him.
“Who the fuck are you?” he growls at me.
“Are you okay?” I say to the girl, ignoring him. She just shrugs. “Good, then I’m going to give you five seconds to collect your things and leave. You’re not going to want to be here for this.”
“Hey! Who the fuck do you think you are?” he says again, grabbing onto the girl’s arm.
I steel myself. Not yet. “I suggest you let her go. Right now. You’re not going to want a witness for what’s about to happen.”
Something in my words makes him drop his hand from her forearm and she hesitates, looking at each of us in turn.
“GO!” I yell and she jumps, her hands coming up to her blushing face as she runs past me and out the door.
He takes a step toward me, chest puffed in an involuntarily display of his masculinity. “I’m going to ask you one last time. Who the fuck are you, and where do you get off coming into my dance studio and telling my students what to do?”
“And that bothers you? Because you’re the only one that likes to tell young girls what to do?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
I turn toward him, square on. I want him to hear every word I’m about to say. “I’m talking about Malynda. I’m talking about you trying to rape her. And I’m talking about how I’m not going to let that happen to any of your students ever again.”
His face is instantly white.
Yes, you motherfucker. Be scared.
I roll up the sleeves of my shirt, slowly, meticulously, up one arm and then the other, feeling his breath grow shallow as he watches and listens.
“Malynda was an eighteen-year-old girl. All she wanted to do was dance and create beauty. She was a light in the world, and because you couldn’t just go home and tug on your own cock one night, you stamped out that light. And despite everything, she managed to make something of her life, and now, now you think you can come back and take it all away from her again? No, not if I have anything to do with it.”
I walk toward him, and he reacts to each of my steps by stumbling one step backwards.
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t… I haven’t seen her since that night,” he stutters.
“You’re not ever going to see her again. This ends here.”
I push off from my back leg and lunge toward him. He turns and runs toward the back wall, lined by mirrors. I reach him in three steps, grabbing the back of his wife-beater and pushing him hard against the barre. He braces with his arms, but I'm on him, slamming my body against his, crushing him against the hard-wooden rail.
“Ahhhh,” he grunts, winded.
"Does that feel good, you fuck?" I yell, pushing his face hard against the mirror until it's almost disfigured. "How's it feel to know you can't do anything to get away?"
He struggles under me; he’s strong, but I’m stronger. I press harder against the side of his head, watching his breath fog up the mirror against his face.
Kicking back with his leg, I jump out of reach, letting him go. He takes the chance to tear himself off the mirror and runs toward the middle of the room.
I charge toward him, giving him no time to recover. I swing my fist and it connects with his face. I revel in the crunch of my knuckles against his cheekbone, his whole body feeling the impact as he stumbles to stay upright. I sweep a foot under his leg and he crumples to the ground. I stamp a foot down on his back and he cries out in pain, but I can barely hear it.
All I see is red.
Like a crazed bull charging for the moving cape. All I want is to destroy it.
“You complete and utter piece of shit,” I say, as I deliver another kick to the side of his body, ignoring the hands coming up to shield himself. “What made you think you could put your hands on her, and get away with it?”
“I’m sorry! I… I haven’t! Please! Stop!” he whimpers as I drop to the ground, turning him over to look at his pathetic face.
“Oh, yes. You are going to be very sorry.” I say, slamming my fist down on his face, feeling the skin tear on his mouth as well as my knuckles.
It just urges me on.
I want his pain.
I want to hear him beg.
As if every time he cries, it will erase one of hers. And I’ll keep hurting him until there’s nothing left of him to give, and she can be reborn.
“Stop! Please!” He pleads, the sound gurgling in his chest.
I stand up and pull him to his feet, staring him dead in the eye, ignoring the streak of red across his mouth.
Dragging him by his arm, I slam him against the wall. He sways once and then I push him against it again, so he can stare into his own pupils in the mirror.
“Did you stop when she begged you to?” I snarl against his neck, so he can hear every single word.
“N-n-no.”
“Then what the fuck makes you think I should?” I say, pulling his head back by the hair and then slamming it up against the glass.
It shatters and he falls to the ground, body limp, eyes closed.
“Get up!” I yell at him, nudging him with my foot.
He groans but barely moves.
“I’m not done with you yet, you shitfuck!” I say, my leg digging hard into his side.
He’s just a warm bag of sand to me at this point. A pinata that I want to bust. His salvation paid to Malynda in blood.
I drop to the ground next to him, the sweat stinging my eyes, as I slap him hard across the face.
“Wake up, asshole!” I didn’t know it, but I’ve been training my whole life for this moment. “Don’t you pussy out on me now.”
I stand up, nudging his side with my foot. He moans and opens his eyes, turning on his side and pushing himself up. He already looks a mess.
Good.
“Ready?” I say. “Come on, put your fucking hands up and fight.”
He sways, but lifts one hand up, covering his face. “I’m sorry,” he whimpers.
“It’s too late for that. You shouldn’t have come back. You should’ve jumped off a cliff or in front of a fucking bus but you should never have come back.”
“I didn’t… I don’t know what… I swear,” he stammers between pants, a lying fuckwit to the end.
“I’m not really one for believing would-be rapists.”
"I made a mistake…" he says. And it sounds so pathetic, I almost pity him. Almost. Until I remember how frightened she looked as she told me the story. And the utter shame that has followed for her whole life.
That tore us apart.
“Yes, you did. And now you’re going to pay.” I lunge at him, ramming my shoulder into his sternum. I feel the air escape from his lungs and his body crumples against me and onto the floor, I pull my leg back, and take a breath. Ready to deal the last kick. One he’ll remember for the rest of his life. If he remembers anything ever again.
“NO!!!” A yell echoes around the room from behind me.
I turn to see Malynda run into the room, I barely have time to pull my leg back before she pushes against my side with both of her hands, and I stumble three steps back, surprised by the attack. And for a split second, something about this moment reminds of the first day we met and her intervening into my fight. Except this time, I’m the one she’s trying to stop. I catch the sight of Kaine and Ram coming in behind her in a reflection of the mirrors, but I'm focused only on her.
Her.
Here.
“What the fuck are you doing
here?” I shout at her, but she doesn’t even flinch.
“What the fuck… what the fuck am I doing here? What the fuck are you doing here?”
Her head moves from me to him and back to me, eyes wild, her mouth dropped open.
Is she kidding me? What did she think was going to happen once I found out what had happened?
“I came to… make sure he never hurts you, again, Malynda.”
“I don’t know what he’s talking about…” Damien stutters as he tries to sit up, his hands cradling the side of his waist, his face smeared with his own blood.
“Shut the fuck up. I am not done with you,” I growl at him.
“Xavier! Stop!” Malynda yells and I turn back to face her. “I didn’t ask you to do ANYTHING! There are other ways to do this!”
I can’t help but guffaw.
“Other ways? What other ways?” I challenge her with a look.
“Other ways that don’t include you beating the crap out of him! Or worse, getting the crap beat out of you.”
“Those other ways don’t work, Malynda.” I step over to him, grabbing him by the shoulder as he tries to stumble away. “You fucking scumbag, are you ever going to bother her again?”
“N-no. No,” he stammers, his eyes avoiding hers. “Never. I promise.”
I snigger at his response.
“See? This was the best fucking way, Malynda.”
“You’ve lost your mind, Xavier,” she says, her head still shaking from side to side.
“No. I’m finally seeing more clearly than I have for a long time. I know where you are. I know why you left me. I know who’s to blame.” I push him to the side, suddenly feeling the sick rise up when I realize who I’m touching.
“Xavier, let’s go.”
“I’m not done with him yet.”
“Yes. Yes, you are. You should never have come here! I can’t believe this.”
She takes one last look at me and runs out of the studio.
“Malynda!” I yell and chase after.
“Xavier. Careful,” I hear Kaine say as I run past him, but I ignore him, just as I know he expects me to.
She’s barely at the bottom of the stairs when I catch up with her, grabbing her wrist and swinging her around to face me.
The tears on her cheek shock me, almost as much as the way she’s looking at me. Not… anger. Disappointment. It finally sinks in, she’s upset at me for being here, for trying to protect her, from trying to avenge her.
“Where are you going?” I shout at her, and she doesn’t even flinch. She’s seen worse from me today.
“I can’t… be here. Where he is,” she shakes her head, hand gesturing upstairs.
“I never wanted you to come here, Malynda.”
“Not as much as I never wanted you to come here, Xavier.”
“But I came here for you!” I yell, trying to make her understand.
Her breath hisses through her teeth. “No, Xavier, you’re doing this for you.”
I can’t believe she would think that. “He tried to rape you, Malynda.”
“Don’t!” She throws up her hand to stop me. “Do not tell me about what I’ve been living with every single day of my life. I don’t need you to tell me what he did. I was there. You were not.”
Exactly. I wasn’t.
“You can’t let him get away with it, Malynda. That’s why I’m here.”
She shakes her head at me. “No. That’s not why you’re here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re not here to avenge me, you’re here to avenge yourself. Punish him for what he did.”
“To you," I say, reaching out for her, but she steps away from my touch.
“No, you’re here because of what he did to us. This isn’t about me. This is about you,” she repeats, each word like an accusation.
I stagger a step back. Is that really what she thinks? Is she right?
“No. Sweetheart, you’re wrong.”
She sighs, “I’m right, Xavier. And you know it. You’re here because of some fucked up vendetta you have against your own ego. Because of some pent-up feelings of inadequacy, about not being able to protect me.”
“He wouldn’t have done it if I’d been here, Malynda.”
“Maybe, maybe not. We’ll never know, Xavier. What we do know, is that… you’re not much fucking better.”
“What?”
“I saw you. I saw you, Xavier. You were out of control! If I hadn’t stopped you… you, you were probably going to kill him. And that scares me more than anything any stranger could do to me. I don’t even know who you are. I don’t know who you’ve become. I might’ve changed my name, but you changed who you are.”
Her eyes lift to mine, and they’re wet but I can see my reflection in them. And worse, I can see how she sees me. A violent monster. Worse than her actual attacker. A stranger.
“Oh, Malynda…”
“I’ve gotta go. I… I can’t be here. I have to go.”
Her front teeth dig into her bottom lip, stopping it from trembling, and she holds my look for one more second before she turns and walks away.
I want to run after her.
I want to tell her, she’s wrong. It was for her, everything, it was always for her.
I want to tell her I’m the same Xavier she knew and loved back then.
But my feet won’t move. My lungs can barely drag in air.
Maybe it was all for nothing. The moment she left on that bus to come to New York, it ended then, and I’ve been chasing a dream ever since.
“Xave?” I hear Kaine’s voice say, low and quiet.
“She’s gone. She left.”
“Go.” I hear him say quietly, and I feel Ram push past me and then out the door.
“Ram will take care of her, don’t worry,” he says, and I feel his hand, warm but firm on my shoulder.
“She’s gone,” I say again.
“I know. Come on. We need to get out of here.” His hand squeezes.
I turn, looking back up the staircase. “I need to…”
“No, that’s done.”
“I’m not done, Kaine. He’s still…”
He cuts me off. “It’s done. You heard him, he won’t be bothering her again.”
“But he…”
“I know. She told me.”
“Everything?” I search his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Then how can I leave? When he can still walk out of here.”
He sighs and shrugs. “Because it’s what she wants. You’re going to have to live with that.”
I shake my head. “She doesn’t know what she wants. She’s terrified of him.”
“And yet she came here. To stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life.”
“And now she’s terrified of me.”
He doesn’t lie and say she doesn’t. He wouldn’t. “You can change that.”
“Maybe it’s too late.”
“Maybe. And you’ll have to learn to live with that as well.”
“No, I don’t, Kaine.” I brush his hand off and walk out the door.
I don’t have to learn to live at all.
***
“Xavier, what are you doing here?” my mom asks when I show up at her door three hours and a bottle of scotch later.
“I… I came to check up on you, your knee,” I say, swaying down the hallway and collapsing on the couch.
“You mean my ankle?”
“Yup, that too.”
She hobbles over to me, “You’ve been drinking again?”
“Yup. You want some?” I drag myself up off the couch and over to the small drinks bar.
“No thanks. I’m fine.”
“Good, more for me.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing, mom. Just same old same old.”
I stagger into the guest room and fall into the dark.
Thirty-one
Her
I
t’s quiet in the building when Ram follows me up the elevator and into my office. The world outside has quieted with the setting of the sun, and the darkness has drawn a cloak around my mood. The ride back to the city was done in complete silence. I couldn’t even tell you if I breathed, except that I’m still here, alive.
Replaying the scene over and over in my brain, watching Xavier pummel Damien, the way he pulled his leg back, ready to slam into his head.
In my mind, in some of the replays, he follows through.
Sometimes I want him to. Sometimes I don’t.
The times I want to watch his foot smash Damien’s head in two, I want him to, for me.
The times he stops, I want him to, for him.
It’s not something I want him reliving, realizing what he’s done, once he’s out of his revenge trance. Even though I said that he was doing it for him and not for me, I don’t truly believe it. I said it because it’s what I thought would shake him back into himself, wake him up, because that man, that vicious, violent, angry man, is not Xavier.
I won’t have him make a mistake that could ruin his life because of me. Not twelve years ago, not now.
There’s a soft light at the end of the hallway, from Cameron’s office, and I check the time on my watch.
Almost seven p.m. What’s he still doing here?
“Isabella?” he calls out.
“Yeah,” I answer quietly, turning into my office. I don’t want to see him right now, don’t want to see anyone. Ram stops and pulls back into the shadows, but I know he won’t be going anywhere. I wonder if Xavier knows that even though he felt he’d lost me, the friends he gained are worth more to him than I ever should.
The couch is soft and familiar under me as I sink into it.
“Hey, everything okay? You guys just kinda ran out of here,” Cam says, appearing at my door. The light from his office casts a soft glow around his form, but I can barely make out his face. He reaches for the light.
“No. Please, leave it off. I… I have a migraine.”
“Oh, no. Can I get you something?” He perches on the arm of the couch and presses his palm to my forehead. “Hey, hey. You’re burning up. Are you sure it’s just a migraine? Want me to grab a Tylenol from my office?”
