by Mj Fields
“Why aren’t they breaking them apart!” I yell at Patrick, eyes still peeled on the scene before me.
“It’s underground fighting, Truth. They don’t stop till one of them taps out or is knocked out.”
I hold my hand over my chest, stopping my heart from its inevitable escape.
They continue grappling until the bell rings, and the ref pulls Ranger off Tobias.
“Isn’t this wrong? He’s clearly older and more experienced than some senior in high school!”
Patrick grips my shoulder and pulls me into his side. “This is their thing, T. You gotta let them do it.”
Round after round, I watch as two men fight, blood and sweat coating their skin, and tears fill my eyes.
I feel Patrick wrap his arm around me and pull me against his side. “Why so emotional, T? It’s just a fight.”
“He has no one in his corner.”
He chuckles, and I look up at him, scowling.
“You see him in school, right?”
“Of course I do,” I snap.
He nods to the guys. “He doesn’t even hang with his boys in school. Clearly, it’s what he wants.”
I look back at him. “Then he’s an ass.”
Patrick laughs. “If that’s how you feel, then enjoy the show.”
I look at Brisa, and she nods toward the couch.
“Brisa and I are gonna sit,” I tell Patrick.
“It’s about time. Wish there was a pillow and blanket around. I’m beat.”
I look past him and see the women eye-banging him, even Dee. I glare at the posse before catching Harrison chuckling behind them.
My finger itches to flip him off, but that would probably not be helpful if I’m deciding to be at least cordial to him over the next fourteen months until graduation.
I give him a tight-lipped, semi-smirk as the bell rings again.
It feels like it should be round seven billion, eight hundred and fifty-five million, four hundred fifty-four thousand, five hundred and forty-three, but the girl in the barely-there bikini, holding the sign high above her head, tells me it’s only round three.
I lean back, cross my arms, and look at Patrick. “I’m with you.”
Ranger strikes first, and I see the pain flash in Tobias’s swollen eyes as his whole body twists to the left. He raises his arms above his face, shielding himself from blow after blow.
I look down and watch his feet stagger as he tries to gain his footing. When he finally does, a light bulb goes off in my head. I pull my phone out of my pocket and open the notes. I try my best to void the emotions and focus on the mechanics.
Ranger’s arms are longer, giving him a farther reach, but Tobias is stronger. Each jab he lands rocks Ranger. Neither have their footing right, though. If they did, they would be able to hold a stance better, take a harder hit. Where Ranger clearly hits to inflict pain wherever he sees an opening, Tobias strikes with intent to bring him down. Ranger is quick to find a way to take them both to the mat. He’s more flexible. Tobias, being stronger, can maneuver them so he’s only down for a few seconds.
The bell rings, and I look up at his face as he spits blood onto the mat, his eyes meeting mine, disdain evident. They shift, and I see he’s watching Harrison walk toward me.
Harrison squats down in front of me and asks, “What do you think?”
“I think it’s shit that he doesn’t have at the very least one of you up there in his corner,” I snap.
“Do you think we haven’t offered before every one of his fights?”
Patrick leans forward. “Told you, T. Some guys need to be inside their own head.”
“Well, when his eyes are swollen shut and he can’t see after the bell, and he steps out and gets annihilated, you’ll wish you’d have fought harder for him to change his damn mind.”
He stands and holds out his hand. “Then let’s stand at the rope and cheer him on, shall we?”
When I don’t take his hand, he tilts his head. “Thought you wanted him to feel not so alone? Brisa and Patrick should come, too.”
“Brisa is sitting right here, cheering for Ranger,” she replies, talking about herself in third person, and looks at me. “Just like you should be after tonight’s crap.”
I look at the ring and see Tobias in his corner, back to the crowd, holding the ropes, head hung low. My chest aches.
I sigh loudly and reach out my hand to take Harrison’s. “Fine.”
“Truth, are you kidding me?” Brisa calls to my back.
I look over my shoulder at her and yell, “I’m a sucker for an underdog!”
Standing at the rope, Tobias turns back toward the center of the ring. I may be imagining things, but he seems to look at the couch where I was sitting then scans the area until his eyes find mine then Harrison’s then back to mine.
Harrison leans in and whispers in my ear, “He’s pissed.”
I watch Tobias’s eyes home in on our hands and realize I’m still holding Harrison’s hand. Something unspoken tells me to release it. When I attempt to, though, Harrison lifts it and places a kiss to the back of it.
I look at him in confusion. His response is the smugness of the lips pursing.
The bell rings, and I pull my hand from his, quickly looking back at the ring, where I see, at breakneck speed and perfect precision, a left, a right, and an uppercut lands on Ranger’s face. I watch as he hits the mat, out cold.
Brisa is at my side, yelling for him to get up.
I watch as Tobias circles him like a jungle cat stalking its prey while stretching his arms across his body.
“Fuck yes.” Harrison grins then cups his mouth and yells, “Fuck. Yes!”
Tobias doesn’t even react to Harrison, or any of the crowd; he continues to circle until the referee raises his arm and announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you tonight’s winner by a knockout, Easton the Experience!”
He lets out a breath, probably more like a sigh of relief at knowing the fight is over.
Same, Tobias Easton, same, I think.
When he kneels down beside Ranger, I see Frank and another guy from earlier slide into the ring. Oh, shit, I think as Tobias taps him on the side of the face a few times.
Expecting he may get jumped, I slide under the rope, knowing at the very least that Patrick will come to my aid if shit goes down.
“Truth!” Patrick calls from behind me as I hurry toward the ring, and I am not alone. Half the damn spectators are doing the same.
When I see Frank and the other man smiling down at Ranger, and then I see Ranger open his eyes, smile, and flip Tobias the bird, I stop.
Tobias stands, reaches out his hand, and Ranger takes it. When he pulls him up, they do the whole bro hug thing.
I get pushed into the ring, and although I’ve never been afraid of crowds, right now, fear—no, scratch that; panic—sets in. I try to turn and push my way back through the crowd to get to Patrick, but I get knocked back against the ring, my head hitting something, and I start to lose focus.
“This is not how I’m going out!” I yell as I lunge forward, only to be pushed back, twist my ankle, and start to fall.
When I feel myself being jacked up by one arm and my feet hit the mat, I cringe as a sharp pain shoots up my leg. I look up to thank whoever helped me and into very angry, very swollen blue eyes.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I feel my eyes start to burn and my bottom lip starts to quiver.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he growls as he looks over my head.
I watch as he scans the crowd, puts two fingers in his mouth, and nods toward the back. I think it’s the back, anyway. Being disoriented, one never knows. Then he grabs my hand and pulls me to follow him, but I pull back.
“I don’t have time to babysit you!”
I force myself to limp across the ring behind him.
Once at the ropes, he looks back. “Climb through and stay up on the mat.” He holds the ropes apart as
I slide through, feeling dizzy as I look down. Then he jumps down and looks up at me. “Come on!”
When I hesitate, he holds out a bloodied, bruised hand. I take it and jump down, crying out when I land.
“The fuck is wrong with you?”
“I don’t feel very good,” I tell him as I try to move forward and stumble. Pain and I have never been friends, but never have I ever felt like I was going to throw up because of it.
He catches me, sweeps my legs out from under me, and lifts me up. Then he jogs as he carries me toward the back of the building and away from the crowd.
Please put me down, I internally plead when my stomach begins to lurch.
“You throw up on me, and I’m going to drop you on your ass,” he hisses as he turns and slams into a door, pushing it open.
“Just put me down!” I yell, holding my stomach with both hands now.
When he finally does, he grabs the back of my head, forcing it down and toward a sink. I begin to throw up.
His hands gripping my hair roughly, he starts blasting me. “You feel like a badass now, huh?” he snaps as my stomach lurches again. “Getting drunk and acting like a little thug tonight.”
I throw up.
“Breaking into my fucking house and sneaking around like some entitled, little rich bitch who wants the shit she left behind on demand?”
I throw up again.
“Then show up here like a little nymph, looking at me like you want my dick, and when I’m not paying attention, doing the same with Harrison?”
And again.
“Keep your shit up, and I’ll file an order of protection on your ass.”
“Shut up!” I yell at him as I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
“No, you shut the fuck up.” He pulls my hair back and turns my head so I am looking in his direction. “Stay the fuck away from me and my friends, you hear me?”
“I hate you,” I snarl at him.
“Feeling’s mutual.” He lets go of my hair.
“I hate you!” I yell.
He steps back, looking me up and down like I’m disgusting.
“I hate you!” I scream.
His face loses the disdain, and he leans in, looking from one of my eyes to the next. “You hit your fucking head?”
“Did you get dropped on yours, you arrogant, self-centered assh—” I cover my mouth as I turn and throw up once again.
He grips my hair again, gentler this time, as he pulls it away from my face.
“I don’t need your fucking help!”
“You have a knot on the back of your head, and your pupils are jacked. You’re throwing up and probably have a fucking concussion. Good job, Steel. You come to watch a fight and end up in worse shape than the actual fighters.”
“Yeah, well, your face is so fucked up you’re probably going to be showering alone for the foreseeable future!” I lean against the sink, reach up, and turn the faucet, trying to rinse the vomit out of my mouth.
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure that doesn’t mean shit when you’re packing the uppercase Ds and don’t lay with little, spoiled rotten high school brats.”
I look back at him and force a laugh. “Oh, that’s right; you’ve got dirty Dee, with her shitty attitude and her old lady snatch. Go you, Easton the ‘Experience’.” I feel my stomach tighten and turn, gripping the counter, knowing I’m going to throw up again.
“Exactly why, no matter how your eyes beg me to touch you, you’ll never get that experience,” he snaps.
“Newsflash, asshole, I’d never fuck a thug, money or not, and you are a thug. As far as interest in you, I never even knew you had blue eyes until today.” I inhale a couple slow, steady breaths then push myself up. I turn around and look up at him. “And if you think I didn’t notice how you looked for me tonight, you’re wrong.”
“Get the fuck over yourself. I was just watching my back because I had no idea when or where you were going to show up next.”
“Hey!” I hear Patrick’s voice boom into the room. “What the fuck is going on!”
I narrow my eyes at Tobias, and he narrows his back at me. Then he turns around.
“Your girl fucked up her ankle, and I’m pretty sure she has a concussion. Her pupils are jacked, and she’s been throwing up.”
Patrick hurries toward me. “T, the fuck was all five-foot-nothing of you gonna do in that ring?”
“I was hoping to get a closer look when Ranger and his boys beat the shit out of Tobias.” I take a step and wince.
“Let’s get you out of here.” He turns, squats down, and looks over his shoulder. “Hop on.”
Chapter Six
Idiom
Actions speak louder than words.
Truth
I prefer discussions.
I wake with the worst headache I’ve ever had, a throbbing ankle, listening to Patrick snore in the bed across the room, and Brisa is curled up next to me like an annoying little blanket-hogging kitten.
When we got home last night, we were all ready to tell my parents the truth about what happened. We thought it was inevitable with me limping. But when Dad wasn’t waiting up for us, we decided that fate had pushed us into the safe zone and all hurried to my room. Brisa and Patrick took turns poking me every hour or so to make sure I didn’t die in my sleep, and even though I feel like I’m half dead, I am completely alive and still very, very angry at Tobias fucking Easton.
I roll over and grab my phone to check the time—it’s freaking noon—and see a couple messages from numbers that I don’t recognize.
I hit the first one.
- Sorry we skated last night. I almost threw up in (What did you call them? Horses’ asses) house. Had a great time with you and Brisa. We need to hang out more often. ~ Alexa
I give her message a heart, because that’s all I have the energy for at the moment. Then I open the next text.
- How’s your head?
There’s no signature, so I don’t reply or even give it a thumbs-up. I mean, rude.
The next text reads:
- How’s your leg?
Again, no signature. And again, I don’t reply.
When I see a notification from The Sound, I ignore that, too, because fuck them all.
When I left on Patrick’s back last night, I didn’t even bother looking back, just beside me to make sure Ranger the Wrecker wasn’t following Brisa out like a lost puppy dog. I had been shocked to see him outside the doorway when Patrick carried me out on his back, looking like hell and standing next to her in a protective manner.
I throw the comforter off my ankle, the only part of me covered due to Brisa hogging the covers and look down at it seeing that it’s still propped up on a pillow. The cold compress has fallen away, revealing the cankle covered in yellow and purple bruises.
“Great,” I grumble as I push myself up and carefully move my leg off the bed.
“Shower. Good Lord, I need a shower.” I stand up, bearing little weight on it at first. The pain is still there, but it’s more achy than sharp.
Stepping out of the shower, I wrap my hair in a towel then reach for the bath towel hanging on the hook outside my shower. As I grab it and wrap it around me, I laugh slightly at the fact that it reminds me of what started the entire mess last night. Tucking the end between my boobs to ensure it stays closed, I realize it’s a wonder I’m even here after the disaster that was last night.
Dad being … Dad has always run through worst-case scenarios in horrific and graphic detail in order to scare the shit out of me so I’d “be aware of my surroundings at all times” before any outing, be it a concert, a school function, or even church service. This is why I was pretty sure I was going to get trampled, die, and leave Brisa and Patrick alone last night to explain the events leading up to my demise, which he would then be able to say, I warned her, and she didn’t listen. I feel a slight tinge of guilt that I left Brisa momentarily while I unthinkingly ran toward the ring, worried about that asshole, Tobias.
Tobias, whose blue eyes haunted my dreams last night.
My nipples pebble beneath the towel at recalling the fact that, even though I’m pissed off at him—more accurately, disgusted by him—he decided to show up in my dream with a white towel in hand, drying his hair while I lay on his bed.
Even in my dream, I knew it was just that—a dream—because my head and face were all me, yet my body was definitely Dee’s, right down to the only article of clothing on my … well, her body—those red hooker heels.
He had dropped the towel, knelt on the bed, and kissed his way up my body. His hands held the sides of my face, as he held his body over mine, propped up by his elbows.
Standing in my mirror, I look over my reflection through the fading condensation on the vanity mirror, comparing my body to hers. She was every guys’ dream—tall, lean, average boobs, slim hips, and a small, pert ass. She’s a girl who shows up at a fight dressed to the nines and doesn’t overreact to her boyfriend possibly getting jumped, because she isn’t dramatic and takes things as they come.
Me? I’m the girl who shoves her too big tits into a shirt two sizes too small, wearing leggings, sneakers, and hair in a ponytail. The girl who gets all too emotional because I know how I’d feel standing in a corner alone, and I know how I’d feel if I thought no one had my back.
Feel, feel, feel, that’s all I ever do. Well, fuck that. Not anymore. No more displaced and wildly disproportionate feelings for anyone’s wellbeing unless they are my friend to begin with. Because all it gets you is a beat-up ankle, a pounding headache, and a bruised self-image.
I hear a loud knock outside the bathroom, and then Dad inside my room. “It’s Steel Sunday, crew. Lunch with the family in an hour.”
