Center of Gravity (Marauders Book 3)

by Lina Andersson

  My earliest memories were of its halls and training rooms—I lived and breathed ballet before I could even walk. I don’t remember my parents or Irina ever saying that I was going to be a dancer; to me that was just the way it was going to be. When I got older, I often went from my own practice to watch the rehearsals there, dreaming of when I would be just like them.

  So I knew Irina was right; it didn’t feel like I was their daughter, because I didn’t feel like myself.

  “It’s me feeling it.”

  “Zvezda,” she held my cheeks and made me look at her, “they’re only worried because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. They’re worried that them talking about dancing is just going to remind you that you can’t do that anymore. Give them time. More importantly, give yourself time to find your own identity and who you are. You’re still in the middle of becoming whoever you were meant to be.”

  I nodded and dried my cheeks. She was right, again, I was still finding my way, finding out who I was without ballet in my life.

  -o0o-

  “Serdtse,” Dad mumbled. I was sitting next to him in the couch, and he had his arm around me. Mom was on my other side. “Whatever you choose to do, it’ll be fine. I know this, because you’re a strong and determined woman.”

  It was two days after Christmas day, and the dreaded talk had finally come. The ‘we still love you’ talk. I knew that the next step was to get me to go and see a ballet, which wasn’t going to happen, not for a really long time. I was in no way ready for that.

  “Thank you, Papa.” I sat up straight and gave him a shaky smile. There was, however, something else I was ready for. “I’m thinking about going up to New York for a few days to visit some friends.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Mom said. “Do you still have some of your things there?”

  “No,” I shook my head. “They took care of it.”

  The two dancers I had shared my apartment with, Satomi and Jens, had sent me all my things. They’d understood why it was hard for me to come, and since they’d only sent my personal belongings, they’d made it very clear that I was welcome to visit so we could go through the things we’d bought together for the apartment. At the moment, I didn’t need any of it, since I’d moved in with Irina, but I still wanted to see the two of them. I missed them. I talked to them now and then, but in a way I think it was as hard for them as it was for me. I was a reminder of what could happen.

  “Maybe you could visit the ballet as well?” Dad avoided looking at me when he dropped it in like it was just a minor suggestion.

  “No, Papa, I’m not ready for that.”

  “You are going to have to do it sooner or later.”

  “Why?” I was getting angry. “Why would I have to do that? I see no reason to subject myself to that. At all!”

  “Honey,” Mom tried. “There are steps in this type of grieving and to get over—”

  “Have you been checking this online?” I interrupted her. “Mama... please...”

  “Maybe you should try seeing a therapist?” And this was Dad trying to be reasonable. “You didn’t really give that a try.”

  “Dad, I don’t... Can you just let me do this my way?”

  “What way is that?” And now Irina was ganging up on me as well. “Because, honey, I know you’re strong, I know you’re handling this extremely well—you’re amazing—but at the same time I think it might be a good idea to see someone who can help you even further.”

  I stood up and hobbled into my room. It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about it. I was just...

  I’d tried a psychiatrist. They’d more or less forced me at the hospital, and after a forty-five minute session, I’d decided it was not for me, and I’d refused to see him again.

  Brett had suggested it, too—once. He’d said that it wasn’t just the body that needed to recover, and I’d made sure he never suggested it again.

  I couldn’t even give a proper explanation to why I hated the idea. It just felt like it would mess everything up. Somehow it felt like I’d folded all those bad things neatly into suitcases, closed them, and locked them away. Starting to poke around in those cases would mean throwing them open and airing all those thoughts. The ones I preferred to not admit that I’d had. Because if I did... would I feel them all again?

  I sat down in my armchair, picked up my phone, and texted Mitch. Not five minutes later, he answered that he’d be home in thirty minutes. I went out to tell them I would be away for the night.

  “Why?” Dad asked as he stood up.

  “I’ll be back in the morning. Please, I just need to.”

  “Serdtse, I’m sorry if we hurt your feelings.”

  “Papa, it’s not that,” I tried, and he looked at me with lifted eyebrows. “Okay, maybe it’s a little about that, but I really just need a break. I’ll be back in the morning and we’ll talk again, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said and walked up to me, took me in his arms. “I love you, Anna.”

  I hugged Mom and Irina as well and then left. When I arrived at Mitch’s, he wasn’t home yet, so I sat down, leaning against his door while waiting for him. He arrived fifteen minutes later, and when he saw me he smiled.

  “Can you get up from there without help, Gimp?”

  “Yes,” I said and glared at him. “But I’d prefer help.”

  “Really?” he said and moved to stand right in front of me. “Because it’s hard, or is it just that you like me carrying you around?”

  “A little of both?”

  He laughed, put his hands under my arms and lifted me up. While he held me against the door, he gave me a long, slow kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist.

  “So...” he mumbled. “What did you tell your parents?”

  “Can we not talk about them?”

  He studied me for a few seconds and then nodded. “Okay.” He leaned his forehead against mine, and I closed my eyes. “Wanna get stoned, fuck, and forget about this day for now?”

  “Yes,” I said and nodded with my eyes still closed. “Think you can help me with that?”

  He stroked my nose with his and gave my lips a short kiss. “Absolutely. That’s what fuck buddies are for.”

  -o0o-

  I was resting on his shoulder, and I was finally starting to feel relaxed. His hand was stroking my hair, and he had a cigarette in the other. After putting it out, he turned towards me and put both his arms around me.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  “I don’t know,” I murmured, buried my face in his chest, and hugged him tight. Then I just did. “They want me to see a shrink, see a ballet, and... other things I’m not sure I want to do.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  That was probably the crux of the problem. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I’d had a plan my entire life, and I didn’t anymore. It was confusing to not have the slightest idea of what I wanted—to no longer having any real, measurable goals.

  “Would it be okay if I didn’t know?” I finally said. “I mean, I used to know what I wanted to do, but now... I think I just want to figure out what I am if I’m not a dancer.”

  “Might not be the right guy to tell you, since I didn’t know you when you were a dancer,” he chuckled, “but I’d say there’s a lot more to you than dancing.”

  “Yeah?” I looked up, and when he felt that, he smiled at me and gave my nose a kiss.

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “My mom has this thing she keeps saying, swim or sink. You either fight or give up. I’m not saying you’re about to give up, but sometimes you just gotta keep going and trust that shit will sort itself out.”

  “Isn’t it ‘sink or swim’?” I asked.

  “Not to Mom—always the positive first, to make it the easier to choose. Think you need that, too.”

  “Thank you. For... that and for today. I think this is what I needed. This and not being around people who seem uncomfortable whenever I’m near.” I closed my eyes and relaxed even m
ore. “What else is on your list of things I might not have done?”

  “Ever fired a gun?”

  “Guns scare me.”

  “Need to fix that. Ever been a babysitter?”

  “No.” I hadn’t had a lot of kids around me, and babysitting wasn’t something I’d done to earn money. “You mean Joshua?”

  “Yeah. Promised Mac I’d give him and Vi some time to themselves. We’re gonna have a kid and godfather day.” He yawned. “He’s a month old tomorrow.”

  I found it kind of sweet how he added the last part, that he was keeping track. I wasn’t used to kids at all, but Mitch had talked about how calm Joshua was. Besides, he’d be the responsible one, so it wouldn’t be that much work to go there with him.

  “Okay. I’ll babysit with you.”

  “You staying the night?”

  “Yes.”

  I felt him kiss my hair and give me a squeeze, but he didn’t say anything, and he fell asleep soon after.

  I still didn’t feel sleepy. Instead I let my mind wander. Maybe it was as simple as him not knowing me as a dancer, like he’d said. That to him I was just... whoever I was now, and that was enough. Which was why was I was relaxed and comfortable around him. The way he kept calling me ‘Gimp’ just to tease me felt like something that should upset me, but it didn’t. Quite the opposite. Strangely it felt like the leg wasn’t a big thing for him instead, and that made it easier for me to breathe when I didn’t have to try to be something I couldn’t be anymore.

  I felt like enough when I was around him.

  -o0o-

  I woke up with Mitch tugging my hair, like he so often did, and that was another thing I was growing quite fond of.

  “Wake up, baby. We’re gonna go to the shooting range.”

  “Guns scare me,” I said as I tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes. “I told you that.”

  “And I told you we need to fix that.”

  “I’m a pacifist,” I tried instead. “Very non-violent and against guns.”

  “It’s very sexy with chicks shooting.”

  “Can’t I just be naked to get you going?”

  That made him laugh. “How about this? I take you there, you try, and if it still freaks you out we’ll leave, but at least you can cross it off your list.”

  “I never had that on my list.” I sat up and stretched carefully to see how good or bad it was. Mitch sat down on the bed and started kneading my muscles. “Can’t we have, like, normal things on the list? Like riding a horse, petting a tiger, skinny-dipping—” The second the last thing slipped out of my mouth, my eyes flew open and I stared at him. His smile became so wide.

  “You’ve never gone skinny-dipping?”

  “Shit!”

  He leaned over and gave me a kiss. “We’re definitely gonna do that, but today you’re gonna give shooting a chance.”

  “I need breakfast.”

  “I know. Do your thing while I make breakfast.”

  “Okay.”

  “Wanna do it here or in the kitchen?” he asked when he let go of my leg.

  “Kitchen.”

  I took my panties and a t-shirt lying on the floor. After he’d picked up my cane, he turned around, and I got up on his back.

  “You like this, don’t you?” I asked him.

  “Yup.” I felt his hand slip into my panties. “Especially when you’re half naked.”

  Once we got downstairs, he put me on the counter and started making breakfast for me while we were talking, and I was doing ‘my stuff’ as he’d called it. The breakfast and I were done at the same time, and he helped me to the table.

  While we were eating, he told me about Dawg and Edie. I’d met her both times at the clubhouse, and she was really sweet—I liked her. I had, however, somehow missed that she was Mel’s sister. Mitch told me she’d spent years traveling around the world before coming back, had fallen in love with Dawg, and had stayed here since.

  “I was crushing like crazy on her,” he admitted with a small laugh. “So was Mac. We’d heard about her, and I thought she was so awesome even before we’d met her, and then we did and she was so hot. Still think she’s pretty fucking awesome.”

  “She’s still pretty hot.”

  “Sure, but she’s Dawg’s old lady. You don’t mess with a brother’s old lady. Ever!”

  “They have two kids?”

  “Yeah. Travis and Jacob.”

  “And your brother and Violet have a boy. Is it all the testosterone that makes you guys only have boys?”

  “Maybe,” he laughed.

  I tried to get out of the shooting once breakfast was done and cleared away, but he got me down to his truck, inside it, and drove towards the shooting range. When we got there he handed me a small gun.

  “There are four things you need to keep in mind. First: Always assume that the gun is loaded. Second: Never point your gun at something you don’t want to kill.”

  I took a deep breath. “Pacifist, I don’t ever want to kill anyone, so can we please skip this?”

  He looked at me and bit down on his lower lip, pulled me towards him and gave me a deep kiss. He kept his arms around me.

  “Okay.” He took my hand and started to walk towards the truck again. “Still think you’d like it.”

  “You’re just trying to lure me into it.”

  He turned around and studied me, and I immediately knew that sneaky expression. He’d figured something out. He took a step towards me with a smile on his lips.

  “Tell you what, you try this, and I’ll go with you to watch a ballet when you feel ready for it.”

  I stared at him, trying to figure out if having him with me would make it better or worse. I tried to imagine it. For some reason it did make it easier to picture myself watching a ballet with him next to me—the guy who’d never known me as a dancer.

  “So what’s the third rule?”

  “Always keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire. And the fourth is always know what’s behind your target.” He started to walk back to the targets. He nodded to the guy who obviously owned the place, picked up the ear protectors and some sort of orange glasses, and handed them to me. “You’ll need those. I’ll stand behind you. You’ll be fine, but be ready for the recoil.”

  He had one hand on my hip, and the other gently supported my left hand. Resting in my left hand was my right, and in that one, I was holding a damn gun.

  He moved my ear cup to the side. “Need to relax, baby.”

  “How? I’m holding a gun.”

  He took the gun and put it on the table in front of us before he kissed the side of my neck, up to my ear, and down to my collarbone. Then his hand went down into my jeans.

  “That’s not helping,” I mumbled.

  Instead of answering, he spun me around and kissed me. I had no idea how what he was doing was supposed to make me relax, but I wasn’t going to fight it as long as it meant I didn’t have to deal with the gun. I felt a very distinct bulge pressing against me, and I smiled, which made him stop and look at me.

  “You’re very cute in those glasses, Gimp.” He picked up the gun, checked something, and took my hand. “Come on, we’ll do this some other time.”

  “Are you still going to come with me to the ballet?” I asked as I took off the glasses and put them on the table next to us.

  “Have a feeling I’ll get you to fire a gun before that happens,” he said, and he looked... sad? “But I’ll go with you whenever you wanna go.”

  I took a deep breath, and I realized something. Sometimes you had to just face your fears, just do things that might terrify you without thinking too much about them. This wasn’t a ballet, it wasn’t even something I had ever considered doing, but it was a start.

  “Swim or sink, was it?” I asked, and he chuckled. “Okay. I’ll try.”

  He nodded, no gloating, no questioning or anything like that. Just nodded, gave me the glasses and turned us towards the targets. He was standing behind me again, an
d I tried to focus on him and his supportive hands on me.

  “Tune everything out, focus on the target, and then squeeze the trigger. And be ready for the recoil.”

  I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths, opened them, and focused on the target.

  Then I squeezed the trigger.

  -o0o-

  I spent New Year’s Eve with my parents, Irina, and her boyfriend, Maurice. I’d met him briefly a few times, but this was the first time I’d spent some time with him. I was glad he was with us because he made the conversations flow much more easily. Dad seemed to like him as well, and Irina obviously adored him. We went out to the town square at midnight, like most of the Greenville citizens, to watch the fireworks. We also did our traditional New Year’s Wishes. As I wrote the words down on the paper, I took a deep breath. ‘I want to find myself.’ At midnight we set the pieces of paper on fire and soaked the remnants in champagne before toasting, yelling ‘S Novim Godom,’ and drank it.

  I noticed Lisa and Violet on the other side of the square and handed my glass to Mom.

  “Mama, I’m going to say hi to some friends.”

  “Do that. We’ll see you at home.”

  “I might be away for the night, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Have fun, love.”

  “S Novim Godom and good night,” Dad said and waved at me.

  I walked through the crowd and for a second I lost sight of her, but she waved at me to get my attention again.

  “See you’re still doing that burning and soaking stuff,” Lisa greeted me with a hug. “Happy New Year!”

  “Happy New Year!”

  “Yeah, what was that burning thing?” Vi asked.

  “It’s a Russian tradition. We write our wish for the next year on the paper.”

  “Oh,” she nodded. “Kind of like the idea of that. What else do you do?”

  “We eat. A lot.”

  I felt two hands grabbing my hips, and then Mitch whispered in my ear, “So how do you say ‘Happy New Year’ in Russian?”

  “S Novim Godom,” I said and turned around. He was wearing his cut and had put a lot of time into fixing his hair—he looked really good. “Drunk?”