by Ora Wilde
Her laughter returned.
“You deserve a parade of handsome men and beautiful women and cute kids throwing petals on the floor which you will walk on... and if you don’t have handsome and beautiful and cute friends or relatives, we can hire some B-list actors and actresses and models...”
Her laughter got louder.
“You deserve a reception as grand as a movie premiere, where people would dress up in their best suits and dresses to celebrate your wedding... to celebrate you. You deserve the tallest wedding cake possible because no matter its height, it would never draw more attention than the lovely bride.”
Her laughter ceased. She was listening attentively.
“You deserve invitations printed on gold. You deserve a ceremony attended by your nearest and dearest, and other people too... because the world has to know that one of its most beautiful creatures was saying goodbye to her single life that day.”
I expected her to laugh once more with the last line, but she didn’t. Her eyes were becoming teary. She wanted to hear more.
“You deserve the oldest bottles of wine to be opened because that day was the reason why they were preserved for the longest time. You deserve U2 to be there, playing If I Aint’ Got You as you walk towards the altar.”
And she laughed again... and I was surprised to discover how much I missed her laugh.
“Bono won’t sing an Alicia Keys song,” she mentioned while giggling.
“I’m gonna wrench his fucking arm and make him sing that song!”
“Oh... he seems like a nice guy. Please don’t do that to him.”
“Well he better start crooning.”
“He better!” she agreed, still tittering.
“You deserve so much more,” I continued. “Like flowers hanging on the balconies, and a beautiful sunny day with cool breeze, and violins serenading your every step...”
She was enthralled yet again, leaning towards me, desiring to know more about my ideas for her perfect wedding.
I turned to look at her.
Our eyes met.
Our lips were so close to each other.
“Like poets lining up the aisle, scribbling words that will immortalize how magnificent you will look that day of days...”
She tilted her head even closer... and mine gravitated towards her...
“Like a man who will wait for you, at the end of the walkway... smiling... crying... happy... wanting so much to have you... to hold you... to love you more and more every single morning he’ll wake up with you by his side...”
Our mouths met.
Our lips brushed against each other.
Hers were as soft as the petal of a rose.
Her scent was as fragrant as the freshest bloom... a redolence that I knew would linger long after the night was over.
And then it struck me...
How much I wanted her...
How much I really wanted her...
And she was so close...
So fucking close...
“We... We can’t...” she whispered as she closed her eyes, in regret perhaps, or in frustration maybe.
“Why not?” I asked softly.
“I’m... I’m getting married.” A reminder I didn’t want to hear. Not at that instance. Not ever.
But her lips didn’t leave mine. And mine didn’t leave hers. I felt her mouth open as she spoke. And she’d feel mine as I respond...
“I know,” I said. “I don’t want to care about that.”
“But you should,” she said, the warmth of her breath glided over my lips down to my neck. “We should.”
I wanted her.
I wanted her so fucking much.
I had to ask.
“Do you... do you love him?”
Her eyes opened, and after a second or two, her lips finally withdrew from my mouth. She took a few steps back before turning around and walking briskly towards the door, going inside the house, away from my sight... away from me.
In training, I have been struck in the head by wayward kicks. In a pub, once, I have been punched by a man three times my size. In the octagon, I have had my ribs broken twice, suffered a concussion once, and walked out with a dislocated finger on numerous occasions.
But none of them... none... were more painful than how my heart was crushed that night.
Chapter Twenty-Six
MEG
How long has it been?
Eight days? Ten?
Almost two weeks. Almost two weeks of trying to forget about what happened that evening. Almost two weeks of trying to pretend that it didn’t even transpire.
Almost two weeks since we kissed... well, almost kissed, I don’t think that our lips pressing against each other would be considered as kissing... and all I could think about since then was him, followed by a severe feeling of guilt for allowing myself to be placed in that predicament.
Lucas...
I don’t want to betray him. I don’t want to hurt him. Then. Now. Ever. He’s the man I love, the man I was fated to be with, the man with whom I would spend the rest of my life.
He noticed my distress the night after, during dinner at Dorothy’s Diner.
Wedding jitters? His question was meant to be humorous, but I knew what he meant. He wanted to know what was bothering me without sounding intrusive.
Hardly, I said with the widest smile I could flash. I just told him a made-up story about pressures at work.
We never talked about the press conference, nor Conner and my fraudulent and overly sensationalized affair with him. I guessed he knew me so much that he trusted me deeply. I didn’t have to tell him that it wasn’t true.
That night, my mom and I spoke again about my upcoming wedding. At first, she was excited for me. But then, she found out that we were getting married in Vegas and she started to show signs of perturbation. She asked why. I said that I don’t know but it didn’t matter. She feigned a smile and requested that I shouldn’t tell my stepfather... at least not yet. You know how much he worries these days, she said. If he finds out that you’re getting married on the day of Conner’s fight, he’d go crazy.
Two days later, I went to Chantelle’s place to confront her about the interview she gave and why she had to lie.
Meggy, it’s my shot at stardom! A shallow reason and a lame excuse. But that’s Chantelle... simple with her single-mindedness and crazy about her dream to leave town and forge a better life for her, preferably under the bright lights of Hollywood.
You almost ruined my relationship, I told her. She gave me a sullen and guilty look. I thought she was going to apologize.
But she didn’t.
I don’t like Lucas, she said firmly. He’s not good for you, Meggy. He’s too selfish and fake.
I already knew that, of course. Her dislike for my fiancee was well-documented. She told me about it the first night me and Lucas went out, and her feelings towards him never changed since then.
You never have, I replied to her, but that doesn’t mean that what you did was right. Me and Conner... there’s nothing there. Why did you have to invent that story?
Her answer shocked me.
Meggy, she began to say, I didn’t invent anything. Yes, I may have exaggerated on a few - okay, maybe a lot - of details, but Conner... he likes you. He truly, truly likes you.
She proceeded to share what happened the night that Conner brought her home; that he, while wrestling with his despair, tried to make out with her, only to realize later on that he couldn’t because he was too engrossed with thoughts of me.
He’s in love with you, y’know, she said. God! That’s so freaking obvious!
I left her house more baffled than before. That can’t be happening. That shouldn’t be happening. He’s my brother. And I’m about to get married. Everything is just so... so... so wrong...
I tried to avoid him the past two weeks, but that proved to be difficult when we were sharing the same house. We sat on the same table in the two or three family dinners which he at
tended. I’d bump into him at the porch every now and then. I chanced upon him once, at an ungodly hour, by the fridge - that stupid, stupid fridge - grabbing another protein bar.
In all those instances, we just exchanged hellos and polite smiles. Nothing more. Neither of us even attempted to start a conversation.
And each and every time, I found myself feeling worse...
Feeling guiltier...
For allowing myself to get disappointed because I didn’t get the chance to talk to him.
God! I knew that I had to snap out of this. It was in a vicious, vicious situation... and if I’d permit it to continue, it would result in a downward spiral that would affect my relationships with a lot of people...
Him...
My folks...
The people at work...
The people I know...
Lucas...
It was then when I decided that I should talk to him... to sort things out... to make ourselves realize and remember that there would never be an us, that whatever attraction there was shouldn’t be, that there was never a chance for us to be together.
So that night, I waited for him at home. It was late in the evening and everyone was asleep, but he hasn’t arrived yet. Most of the time, he came home late for a variety of reasons: training, drinking at the pub, exploring Susanville, dinner with Artemis, and God knows what else. It didn’t matter though. I had to talk to him. So I waited. I stationed myself at the couch, waiting for the front door to open so that I could finally have that discussion with him.
The minutes became hours and he hasn’t arrived. I was slipping in and out of consciousness, the sweet temptation of slumber growing more powerful as the clock moved its hands past twelve and into the earliest hours of the morning.
And, wrapped in my blanket, I was left looking at the front door, every now and again, wondering why he hasn’t arrived and tussling with the overwhelming feeling that something wasn’t right.
I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat, abandoning the plan I had at that time as I started to pray that he was alright.
Please... just let him be alright...
Chapter Twenty-Seven
CONNER
“You the man, Con... you the fucking man!”
Artemis doesn’t usually use profanities. Well, he does, but not as much as I do. Except when he’s drunk, in which case, he’d be hurling curses faster than I could throw punches.
That night, as we left Anthony’s Ale Alley - the only drinking establishment in this primitive town, as far as I could tell - he was piss drunk... so much so that he had to go to the restroom three times just to throw up. I had beer, he had whiskey. He didn’t have as much tolerance for Jim Beam as I had for Heineken.
He struggled to walk straight. I had to hold him to help him keep his balance. I wouldn’t do that for anyone else... but Artemis? He’s probably the closest thing to a brother I ever had, though he was old enough to be my uncle or something.
“Johnny ‘Juggernaut’ Jones, huh?” he slurred. “You gonna make him yo’ fuckin’ bitch, Con... I know it... yes, you fucking will!”
“Shut your hole,” I ordered him. “You won’t be saying that tomorrow. Tomorrow, you’d all be scared and nervous whenever we’d talk about that ass licker.”
“Ass licker, har har har!” he laughed maniacally. “What’s he got on yah, Con? Just height, I tell ya’. He’s just taller, s’all. That’s all he got!”
It’s true. At 6’1”, Jones was a good inch and half taller than me. That meant that he had a longer reach. An inch and a half in height usually translated to two to three inches in reach advantage. When it comes to a standing game, those two to three inches are huge. Striking is all about angles and inches, as they say. A fraction on an inch can spell the difference between a hit and a miss.
But Artemis, being drunk, wasn’t through with his professional analysis just yet.
“He’s so fucking taller than ya’, Con,” he continued. “Yah don’t have ta’ kneel down to give him a blowjob.”
“You are this close to getting your ass kicked,” I warned him. “I don’t care if you’re fucking drunk.”
He still had enough sense to understand that he was treading on very dangerous territory, so he stopped his yapping.
We arrived at the inn he was staying, a bed and breakfast place just down Wellsworth Drive, a few minutes away from the pub. I led him in and left, but not before he gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Like I said, he was drunk as hell.
My father’s place was a twenty minute walk away from there. At three in the morning, there were no longer any taxi cabs plying the roads. It didn’t help that there were only like three taxis servicing the entire area, of course. I should’ve brought my SUV... but I was too lazy to drive to Route 22 for gas that morning, so I just left it at Haunting Ground. Stupid!
Walking was my only means of getting back.
I was at the corner of Wilson Ave. and Fourth when it happened.
Five guys, dressed in black, approached me from behind. All of them were quite burly, except one who was a tad shorter and thinner than the rest. He was wearing a hoodie. His hands were on his pockets, and his head was bowed down as he walked with this posse.
One of them was carrying a baseball bat... and when I saw him, I knew that trouble wasn’t far behind.
“Hey friend,” one of the bigger men said in a loud, menacing voice.
“Yeah?” I asked as I stopped walking. Conventional wisdom would’ve told me that I shouldn’t have... that I should’ve just kept walking, running even, towards the opposite direction. Yet, I stopped. They didn’t intimidate me. Nothing intimidates me.
“Someone wants to have a word with you,” the big guy said.
As if on cue, the smallest of them removed his hood, revealing his medium length, light brown hair that seemed like it came out of the eighties. He didn’t have a smile on his face. Rather, he had a grimace... a mean and angry scowl.
Oh crap. It’s Bruce Jenner.
“Hello McXavier, it’s been a while,” he greeted me rather threateningly.
“Yeah, yeah,” I replied with a smirk. “Missed me?”
“Hardly,” he said. “But after tonight, a lot of people will be missing you.”
Okay... now that was definitely a threat.
I let out a laugh, mocking in nature, telling them to bring it on.
“I could tell you to leave my girl alone,” he said, “but I know you’re the type of guy who wouldn’t listen.”
“Oh... you know me so well now, eh?” I retorted. “Been thinking about me a lot, I see.”
“Oh yes... I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” he agreed, his mouth curling upwards into a smile... a wide, ominous smile. “I’ve been thinking about how you can’t keep your dick away from my girl.”
“Oh... so that’s what this is all about?” I said, feigning shock. “Can’t you just let bygones be bygones?” It was a comment that was meant to ridicule him. I could’ve easily told him that I haven’t spoken to her for days... that she had decided to avoid me, and I may have - unwittingly - done the same. But it was clear that he confronted me for a fight, and to tell him the truth would mean that I was avoiding one.
I never avoid a fight.
The smile disappeared from his face, replaced by a look of complete and utter rage.
I liked it.
“You embarrassed me in front of my own town... the whole country... the entire world!” he screamed at me. “And you just want me to, what? Forgive and forget?”
“Hey! It’s what Bruce Jenner would do,” I answered with the widest beam I could muster.
He lost it.
He nodded at his boys, signaling that they could proceed to beat the shit out of me.
Wrong move.
The guy with the baseball bat was the first to approach. He took a swing towards my head. He wasn’t holding back. His intention was to hurt... if not to kill. But he was big... and big guys are slow, lumbering do
lts. I was able to duck long before the bat could come near me.
Opening.
I punched his stomach and he grimaced in pain. Another blow and he went down on his knees, dropping the bat on the ground.
