by Amity Cross
There was a crash downstairs and the sounds of the Twins laughing their asses off filtered upstairs as I sat up in bed frowning. Glancing at the clock on my phone, I saw the hour and wondered who let the cat out of the bag. Those boys were gym junkies, but even they weren’t that keen to come in at six am.
Pulling on some clothes, I shuffled downstairs and had to rub my eyes, confused at the sight of the Twins, Dad and Josie standing in the middle of the studio, a whole bunch of stuff strewn over the benches along the wall. At least half a dozen plastic bags and boxes were piled up, waiting to be opened.
“What’s that?” I asked and everyone turned around with big grins on their faces.
“Happy birthday Ren!” Dean exclaimed.
I groaned. “I thought I was going to get away with it.”
“Not on my watch,” Dad said with a smile.
Last year I didn’t have a party, or presents. I had a funeral. Birthdays were always an ‘under the radar’ event, but that was until I turned up at Beat.
“Thanks,” I said awkwardly. “But let’s not make a big deal out of this.”
“Why?” Lincoln asked.
“I don’t like birthdays.” They were just a reminder of how poor we’d been and how alone we were in the world. Now it was a reminder of how Mum wasn’t around anymore. It didn’t seem right to celebrate. A year older, a year wiser and another day that was now marked with me beginning my new life as an epic coward.
“You don’t like them?”
I shook my head. “What’s in the boxes?”
“An athletic company sent them over for you,” Josie said, pointing at the pile of stuff.
“What...”
“It’s a birthday gift,” she explained. “There’s a fancy gym bag, new gloves, shirts, tops, hoodies, hand wraps...all kinds of stuff. They really want you to sign.”
I stared at the pile of equipment and clothes from the newest sponsor to try and win me over and my mind actually misfired. I couldn’t look at their ‘gifts’ after a lifetime of having to scrape every cent together to pay the rent. I couldn’t look at them after seeing Ash so powerless.
Everything just seemed so...futile. I couldn’t see the point anymore.
“You okay?”
I glanced up at Josie and smiled thinly. “Yeah.”
I caught sight of Monica in the background and glared at her over Josie’s shoulder. Her eyebrow rose slightly and she disappeared into the kitchen.
“Open it up Ren,” Dean said, drawing my attention back to the semi-party.
“I can’t,” I said. “You guys have a look for me.”
Backing away, I shrugged at Dad who was staring at me with a disappointed expression. I figured I’d have a shower and by the time I got out, all the stuff would be packed away where I didn’t have to look at it. I wasn’t a fan of things. Things weighed me down.
“Ren,” Josie called out behind me.
I slowed down, but I didn’t stop.
“Did you go?” she asked once we were out of earshot.
I nodded, my chest tightening.
“And?”
I shook my head as we walked into the change rooms.
“You didn’t go in?”
“I went in,” I said, curling my fingers into the hem of my tank top.
Josie frowned. “I don’t like that look on your face. What happened?”
“I couldn’t do it.” I bowed my head to try and hide the flush of shame that was turning my skin a flaming shade of red.
“Oh, Ren…”
“I went in, I saw him, but he didn’t see me… He…” I shrugged, biting my bottom lip.
“He what?”
“He looked so…defeated. It wasn’t him. Not like I remembered.”
“Oh, Ren,” she crooned.
“I ran away Josie,” I blurted. “I fucking ran away before he could see me.”
“Then you need to go back,” she declared like it was a no-brainer.
“I ran away,” I exclaimed. “I’ve never run...”
“If you’re so torn up about it then you must still feel something for him.”
I blinked hard. I did, didn’t I? But what that was exactly, I didn’t have a bloody clue. Maybe my heart was too broken to go back.
“I can see the doubt on your face Ren Miller and it doesn’t suit you.”
“Fuck,” I said, glancing away. “It’s all just so…overwhelming. I’m not used to all this pressure. I was a nobody for so long and now there’s all these people...”
“If you need to take a breather, just say the word. I’m sure your dad will understand.”
I sank down onto the bench. “Don’t say anything. I don’t want them knowing and I’m sure Ash would gut me if he knew I’d told. You’re the only one who knows.”
“Okay, but fair warning, your dad has organized a surprise dinner tonight.”
I raised my eyebrows and Josie shrugged.
“Try to look surprised, okay?” She laughed.
I just wanted to crawl into a hole and hide until all of this blew over, but it was never going to be that simple. I was in the middle of a shitstorm and everyone was expecting me to step up yet again. Life wasn’t going to give me an easy ride, no matter how much I wanted it to.
“Sleep on the Ash thing, okay?” Josie said. “Give it some time to process. You don’t have to decide straight away.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
Josie gestured over her shoulder. “I’ll deal with that lot. Take your time.”
By the time I gained the courage to venture back out into the studio, all the gifts from the sponsors had disappeared. Shucking off my hoodie, I padded out onto the mat, ready to join the Twins for training.
“Alright Ren?” Dean asked as I approached.
“Alright.” I nodded.
We spent most of the morning going through drills on the speedball, which was the Twins favorite, second to their one-on-one’s with each other. They never brought up my birthday again and I was glad they got that I wasn’t a fan.
Dad worked us hard and I lost myself to the repetitions, concentrating on nothing but my movement and breathing. Sometimes I got so totally Zen that the outside world fizzled out to a dull roar. It wasn’t like training alone at night, but it was close.
“Ren!”
We all looked up at the sound of Josie’s shriek and a moment later she was running down the stairs. It was a wonder she didn’t fall down and break her neck considering the heels she refused to change out for flats. She said it was all about appearance in her line of work. I just figured it was her excuse to go on wearing them, not that she needed one.
“You got in,” she said, bounding across the mats, kicking her shoes off one at a time. They went sailing in opposite directions but nobody was looking at her shoes. They were staring at me.
“She placed?” Dad asked, his eyes wide.
“She placed alright. Ranked second.”
“Holy shit!” Dean exclaimed, throwing his arms around me in a tight bear hug.
“You stink,” I complained, not knowing how to react to the biggest news in my entire life.
“Way to go Ren,” Lincoln said, swatting at his brother.
“I think this calls for an early lunch,” I said, glancing at Dad.
He nodded once. “Of course. We’ve got plenty to celebrate today.”
The Twins let out a whoop and made a beeline for the kitchen. We were on our own where the food was concerned today. Monica had been smart enough to make a silent exit on today of all days, in fact she’d become nothing but a blip on my radar. One day she would just fade into obscurity and nobody would notice.
As the Twins disappeared and Josie ran off to collect her shoes, Dad captured me in a hug. “I’m proud of you Ren.”
“Thanks Dad.”
I nodded towards the kitchen. “I’ll be in in a sec, okay?”
“Sure.”
Dad followed the noise into the kitchen as I lingered for a moment, trying
to get my head around what had just happened. I didn’t feel excited at all. We kind of knew this would happen with all the points I’d accumulated over the past few months, but now that it was official? I wasn’t so sure this was the right path I should be taking.
I wasn’t sure about a lot of things.
“You excited?” Josie asked, twirling her heels in her hands.
“I guess,” I lied. “It’s all a little sudden.”
“It means moving to Sydney for the duration,” she said. “Is that what you want to do?”
I stared across the studio towards the kitchen where the Twins were making enough noise to drown out just about everything else. They were pro material; I wasn’t so sure I was. There were plenty of other fighters who would kill for a placing, Alison aka Thunder was one. If they knew I was doubting going pro, then they’d throttle me in my sleep to take me out.
Was it what I really wanted? Move to Sydney to try and make it in the big time or stay and help Ash through the toughest time of his life… Scratch that, the toughest time of our lives...
“Do you love him?” Josie asked and I glanced back at her.
Could I love Ash again? Did I still love him? If I stayed then what did that mean for us together?
“You don’t know if you don’t try, Ren,” Josie said, patting me on the arm. “You don’t have to decide straight away.”
“I know. It’s just…”
“The biggest decision of your life?”
“Yeah,” I said with a laugh. “That.”
“You should go see him again.”
I grimaced, casting my gaze away.
“Ren, if you don’t go I know you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. You need to talk to him. You said it yourself, you fit. Your broken edges fit. He needs you and I think you need him.”
Forgiveness took a lot of effort; I knew that better than anyone. Could I forgive Ash for leaving me, no matter his reasons for doing it?
That was the million dollar question.
14
Ren
“I knew you’d come back.”
I stared up at Violet as she opened the front door of her and Ash’s fancy house.
I had gone back after all. I told Dad I had some personal things to do and took the day off training with the promise that I’d catch up tonight. After all, I was now ranked number two overall in the AUFC pro league.
The whole way over here, I’d cursed Josie. She was always right and it pissed me off, but that was just because I was mad at myself for letting fear get the best of me. Nobody had an easy ride. Nobody, least of all me. That woman should be a therapist, not a publicist.
I squirmed uncomfortably as Ash’s little sister looked me over. “I don’t know what I can say…”
Violet shrugged, giving away that she was in unknown territory as well. “Ash never talked before either.”
By before, I gathered she meant before he went to prison.
“Come inside,” she said, stepping back so I could pass. “He’s upstairs so he won’t hear us.”
Tentatively, I went into the house, the door closing behind me sounding a lot like a nail in my coffin.
“Would you like a drink? Tea?”
I nodded. I wasn’t ready to venture upstairs to face Ash. The amount of effort it had taken to actually get myself here had been astronomical. I needed a minute to gather my thoughts…and my nerves.
She led me into the kitchen and gestured for me to take a seat at the dining table.
“I’m glad you came back,” Violet said as she filled an electric kettle with water.
“It’s not a quick fix,” I murmured, staring at the tabletop. I studied the pattern in the wood, anything to help me keep a grip on reality.
“No, I don’t expect it to be.” She switched the kettle on to boil.
“I don’t even know what to say to him.”
“He’s always responded well to tough love,” she said with a small laugh. “That’s why he looks up to your dad so much. He never gave him an inch.”
“You know my dad?” I asked, glancing up at her. I was so angry at being kept in the dark about so many things, but now I had the opportunity to ask. Time to suck it up and ask the hard ones.
“I do. Though, it’s been a while since I’ve seen him. He wasn’t there the other day.” The kettle started to whistle and the switch clicked as it flipped off. She moved to pour water into two mugs, dumping a tea bag in each. Setting a mug in front of me she said, “Chamomile. It’s meant to calm you down.”
I curled my hands around the hot porcelain and stared into the yellowish tea. “So you know the Twins too? Lincoln said he remembered you.”
“Really?” she asked, her cheeks turning pink.
I narrowed my eyes slightly, realizing that once upon a time Violet Fuller had had a crush on the more sensible of the Twins. “Yeah, really.”
“I used to hang around Beat a lot when I was younger. I was Ash’s biggest cheerleader.”
“Was?”
She smiled thinly, the emotion never reaching her eyes. “You know the rest.”
We sat in uncomfortable silence for a while, sipping on our tea. It tasted like crap and hadn’t calmed me down in the slightest, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
“What’s the deal with his sentence?” I asked, not brave enough to say Ash’s name just yet.
“He has to stay in the house twenty-four seven. Once a month he gets a visit from some guy from the Department of Justice to see how he’s doing. They made him speak to a therapist once a week for the first few months, but they stopped that.”
I grimaced; I didn’t have to ask why they stopped the shrink from visiting. I could think up a dozen scenarios that all ended badly. It was probably a mutual agreement to stop. “So, they monitor the house?”
“They make him wear an alarm around his ankle. If he crosses the threshold, it goes off and a bunch of cops show up.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Has he tried to leave?”
“Not yet.”
I glanced over my shoulder, my strength starting to come back.
“I can’t tell you what to say,” Violet said, her voice full of uncertainty. “I don’t know what to say to him most days myself. All I know is that he seems lost and I don’t know what to do. When he was back at Beat with you…it was the happiest I’ve seen him in a long time.”
“You think I can get through to him?” I asked.
“I know you can.”
I glanced down at the mug of tea and screwed up my nose. I’d made this entire journey about me so far. Did I have the courage, did I still have feelings, did I want to face him… I’d made it all about me, but what about Ash? He was stuck in here because he’d tried to save me. He did save me from something a lot worse than what I was currently going through, but I still had a future. I could leave for Sydney tomorrow and never look back. And Ash? I wasn’t sure what he had once he was free to leave his own home. All he had left was underground fighting and I wasn’t sure they would want to take him back.
It must feel like absolute crap to have the lowest of low turn their backs on you, along with the rest of the world.
It was that thought that saw me standing and walking towards the stairs without so much as a word to Violet. It was that thought that gave me the courage I needed to face him.
Ash had nothing, he’d thrown what little he had away to save me from the same fate his sister had suffered. The least I could do was have the guts to look him in the eye, no matter how much he’d hurt me.
Ren Miller had to stand up and fight because that’s all she was good for. If that’s all I was ever going to get for the rest of my life…well, that wasn’t so bad.
I found myself outside his bedroom door once more, my hand hesitating on the handle. This was a blow that couldn’t be softened. There was no block to learn for this punch, I just had to take it on the chin and get the fuck over it.
Turning the handle, the door eased open letting
me into Ash’s bedroom and this time, I stepped inside.
Large windows took up most of the opposite wall with long curtains covering the glass. White mesh let in some light, but the room was closed tight to the elements outside. The room was almost bare, other than the leather chair in the corner; the same one Ash’d been sitting in the day I ran away.
I let my gaze run the length of the wall until it settled on the bed. Ash was buried underneath the covers, half in and half out, tangled in a mess of blankets. He was naked from the waist up and whatever was underneath the covers was a mystery, but knowing Ash there was a high probability that he was naked under there too.
I slipped off my boots and socks and padded across the carpet.
“Ash?” I whispered staring down at him, but there was no response. He was out cold by the looks of it.
I sighed a little in relief. I’d get a chance to really look at him before I said something I’d regret. Moving forward, I sat on the edge of the bed gently, the mattress dipping slightly under my weight.
I remembered all the times I saw him training at Beat, the determination that had always been deeply set into his features. He’d wanted to be the best, regardless of his situation. He fought to sate the beast within, that was a well known fact by now, but it was more than that. I wondered if fighting meant more to him than a way to deal with his anger. Solace was a place that ran deeper than anything in one’s soul. Maybe that’s what fighting really did for him.
Shit, that was fucking deep.
Casting my gaze across him, my eye caught on a magazine on the bedside table. It was worn and dog-eared like he’d read it over and over, but that’s not what caught my eye. It was opened on a page that looked very familiar. It was the magazine shoot I’d done with the Twins weeks ago, the one where I’d complained the whole time making Josie break out in hives.
Ash had read the article and kept it by his bed. My heart twisted and I bit my bottom lip, my fingers curling into the doona. That must mean something, right?
