Brawler

by Tracey Ward

  Laney scowled with disgust. “Why?”

  “No,” I said firmly, my eyes on Jenna, “I kissed her.”

  “What do you mean why?” Jenna asked Laney.

  “That doesn’t matter, Jen,” I told her. “It matters that we told her that it happened.”

  Laney eyed me suspiciously. “When did it happen?”

  Jenna’s face fell. It honestly collapsed, like a building going down after a blast. She’d thought admitting our sin would be the worst part, but no. This… this was going to be so much worse for her and I wished again that she had let me take care of it alone. I would have done anything to spare her this, and I realized as I looked at her in turmoil that what I could have done to spare her was keep my shit together a little longer. No matter what she thought, I knew that I had done this. I’d done it to Laney, but what mattered to me was that I’d done it to Jenna.

  I was the worst kind of asshole.

  “Four months ago,” Jenna confessed quietly. “The night you two ended your engagement.”

  Laney glared at Jenna with such fire that I nearly stood up to intercept the heat. I’d taken it before, I knew that look, but the fact that she’d turn it on her sister amazed me. They weren’t the closest of friends, but I knew that under normal circumstances, Laney loved her sister very much.

  You’d never know it by the way she was looking at her now.

  “So what?” she asked calmly. “You two hooked up minutes after he ended it with me? We were talking about it until two in the morning.” That was an exaggeration – her signature move to strengthen her case. I’d talked to Dan and Karen until midnight and left soon after. “Did he go running to you immediately after that? He couldn’t wait to move on to the next girl? To my own sister?”

  “It was before,” I confessed, pulling her eyes to me. Giving Jenna a break. Doing what I could to make it easier for her. “I kissed her at your parent’s house before we split. It was right after we fought.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?!” Laney exploded. She leapt off the couch and backed away until she hit the wall. She stared at me darkly, her face a quivering, indignant mass of red rage. “You son of a bitch!”

  She took two quick steps, then slapped me hard across the face.

  I could have avoided it. I wasn’t so far gone that I didn’t have the reflexes to outstep Laney’s anger. I’d been shadowboxing that shit for years, but I didn’t bother. As long as she was angrier at me than at Jenna, it was alright. I would take that hit.

  My head snapped to the side, and with it I snapped down into the darkness. It was lonely in there. I missed the animal, but I breathed calm and even and I went numb alone there in the cold. I dove so far down I couldn’t even feel the heat on my face from her hand.

  So she slapped me again.

  “Laney,” Jenna exploded angrily.

  “Nothing?” she demanded harshly of me. “No reaction? You don’t want to hit me back? You don’t want to defend yourself? You don’t want to tell me ‘Stop, listen, we can explain?’”

  “No,” I heard myself say.

  “Of course not. Because that’s not who Kellen Coulter is, is it? Do you know who he is, Jenna? Do you know what you’re getting yourself into? I’m sure you think you do but you have no clue what being with him is like. Do you want to know? Because I’ll gladly warn you.”

  “No,” Jenna said, her voice as dead and distant as mine.

  “Too bad,” Laney spat. “Being with him is like being alone. Look at his face right now. This is what you get when things get hard. You get nothing. Nothing!” she shouted, bending down to get in my face. I didn’t flinch. “See? He’ll bail on you every time. You think you’re different because you’ve been his friend, but it won’t matter. He doesn’t know how to love people. He’ll do to you exactly what he did to me and you won’t have my shoulder to cry on. Someday you’ll beg him for more than the nothing he’s giving you and he’ll give you the best sex of your life until you forget your own name, but a few days later you’ll be crying, remembering what you really wanted and you’ll realize you never got it. Not even close. He’s a hollowed out, cold, heartless bastard and if you think anything different then you don’t know him half as well as you think you do.” She reached down and jerked her purse up off the table. “But you’re welcome to find out, bitch.”

  I didn’t know when she left. I didn’t know if I was still there. I was deep in the darkness of her words and myself and the ugly with the demons scratching at the doors. They whispered unintelligible truths, echoing Laney’s words again and again, the chorus growing louder into one strong voice that howled in the hallways and corridors of the cathedral in my mind, preaching all of the terrible things I’d done. Of all the untold honesty I couldn’t bring myself to talk about, to think about – to relive. I knelt on the cold hard floor that both hurt and chilled me, and I stared up at the idol of injustice that I had built. That I had worshiped and served for so many years because it was all I knew. It was the sky of my world. The dark goddess of my nightmares that haunted me in waking and in sleep.

  I felt it when Jenna knelt in front of me, but I couldn’t see her. She pressed something cold to my aching face and I winced against the tender feel of it. Against the kindness. It burned worse than the strike against my skin.

  Like holy water on a devil.

  I heard her breathing. It was faint, like wind rustling through trees. The ocean coming to shore. I listened to it, closing my eyes and my mind, riding her tide in and out.

  I smelled her scent. Warm and sweet.

  I felt her nearby. Strong and gentle.

  She went to pull away, but I reached out blindly, latching onto her and pulling myself up and out until I could see her face. Her eyes. Her heart and soul.

  I pulled her forward slowly so she knelt between my knees and I hovered over her, staring down at her. Into her.

  Then I fell.

  I kissed her slowly. My hands took hold of her face as I pulled her forward against my body. I ran my tongue along the line of her lips, tasting her breath and her skin. My hands delved lower to her shoulders, dipping her back until I was the only thing holding her up. Until she was vulnerable, and still she stared back at me with eyes full of pure, blind trust that had never wavered, no matter how many mistakes I’d made. No matter how many I had yet to make.

  I kissed her cheek lightly, moving to her ear, then back into her hair, burying myself in the dark tendrils and reminding myself to breathe. She shuddered in my arms and I turned to stone around her, holding her. Protecting her.

  “Kel?” she whispered shakily.

  “I have to know,” I murmured against her skin.

  “You have to know what?”

  I drug my mouth along her neck, breathing hot over her cool skin before I slid my tongue along the ridge of her collarbone. I traced with my mouth where my fingers had been and my mind always wandered, and she tasted like longing. Not lust or desire, but an old, aching longing that shot through my mouth, down to my stomach, and set me ablaze inside. I inhaled sharply against her shoulder, wincing against the flames and sinking my teeth gently into her tender flesh.

  “If I can survive you,” I answered roughly, trying to maintain control, but dying to lose it as well.

  I lifted her quickly and threw her on the couch underneath me. She stared up at me in surprise and excitement, and not a little bit of fear. Then she spread her legs and pulled me down against her. I went slowly, gently, watching her as she responded to my increasing weight pushing down on her. Her mouth slid open slightly, her eyes going half closed, and a single small breath escaped her throat. Like a sigh. Like a whisper telling me ‘yes’.

  She ran her hands up my sides, under my shirt, gathering it around my shoulders. I breathed deeply, watching her, wondering if what I was doing was wrong or right or somewhere in the gray in between of her eyes where everything seemed to hurt, but I wanted it. I loved it. I needed it.

  I ripped my shirt off over my head
and tossed it aside, then did the same to her clothes. I couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. Every time I found a new stretch of skin, a new peak or mound, a valley, I wanted to feel it. To learn it. To finish the map I’d made of her in my mind that night in the bathroom. I wanted to remember every inch of her as I found it for the first time, because I fully understood that it might very well be the last time.

  This was dangerous. It was reckless. I had no idea if I was ready for this, but it was Jenna and I knew if it would ever be alright, it would be now. With her.

  I couldn’t look at her and I hated myself for that. I buried my face in her neck as I lay naked on top of her and I vowed not to let her see. If I went under, if I turned empty, I couldn’t have her know. I was skimming the surface as it was, half in and half out, dangerously close to the memories and the pain and the cold, but she was so warm against me that I hoped I’d be alright.

  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.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  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.
<
br />   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.”