by Bry Ann
“Where are you going?” she asked as her body visibly relaxed.
“I’m just going to lead from the front. Probably easier that way,” I said. I tried to make it sound like it had nothing to do with the anxiety I had just noticed in her. I didn’t want her to feel bad or anything.
There was silence for about another mile before she spoke again. “Axel?”
“Mm-hmm, what’s up?”
“Thank you,” she said quietly. I stopped and looked back at her. Her cheeks were red, but she looked grateful. “You got off because of me, and you didn’t make me feel bad.”
I nodded. She didn’t need to thank me.
“You can get back on. I was just caught off guard.”
“No, Aly. It’s okay.”
“No, Axel, I want you back on,” she said with determination and a small flirty smile.
My eyes blazed. She didn’t need to tell me twice. I jumped back on the horse and kissed her neck. She giggled and relaxed into me. It was the best feeling ever. I loved when she said my name; my real name. She was one of the very few people I liked hearing it from. One of the few people who didn’t make me feel like a young teenage punk when they used it. What I loved more was how she only used my real name in the most personal, intimate settings. She never used it around other people.
“Do you trust me?” I asked as I put my head on her neck.
“Yeah,” she said with only a second’s hesitation. “I do.”
I laughed and clicked the reins. The horse took off in a jog, and she fell back a bit. I put one hand around her waist to steady her. She seemed to like it. Less than a few minutes later, we were at the creek, so I stopped the horse. If she would allow it, I wasn’t going to stop touching her.
“Why did we stop?” she asked as I hopped off the horse and extended my hand to help her.
“Follow me.”
It only took a few steps for her to see the creek.
Aly gasped and sprinted for the water. “This is beautiful. You lived here. You are so lucky. All I had around was a stupid homemade pond.”
This whole date was making me realize how little we knew about each other. I realized it the minute she told me about her sister at the bar too. That was why we were here. She didn’t want to talk today, but she couldn’t always get what she wanted. She fiddled with the water for a bit before turning to me for direction. I lay down in a clearing by the spring. It had a layer of soft sand, and was where I used to come as a kid to think all the time. She came right over and sat next to me. I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her down. She put her head on my chest, and I stroked her hair. After a few minutes, she put her hand on my chest too.
“There’s so much I don’t know about you,” I whispered in her ear.
“I feel the same way about you.”
“Let’s remedy that, then. Tell me about yourself; everything.”
“Axel, that’s not a good idea.”
“I want to know.”
“It’s boring and depressing. I’d rather not.”
“What? You’d rather continue with your secrets?” I waited for her to respond. When she didn’t, I continued. “Well, since you know me, you know that I won’t accept that. I want to know about you, and you’re going to tell me. Secrets keep you sick.”
“I’m not sick.”
“Have you been to church yet? Prayed? Doneany ofthat shit you do?”
She immediately sat up. “How can you talk? You have no right to say that to me!”
“This isn’t about me. It’s about you, Aly. That stuff is important to you, and you refuse to acknowledge anything that’s happened, and it’s hurting you. It’s making you hate yourself. I see it in everything you do. I see it every Sunday and every night before you go to bed. I see it in the way you talk about yourself. Talk to me, babe. Talk to me,” I said, grabbing her face and forcing her to look at me.
“You said we’d talk tomorrow,” she said as she bit her shaking lower lip.
“I compromised.”
“Without me.”
“We have to talk, Al. I’m sorry.”
“It’s our first date. Our first one.”
“But it’s not really. You know that.”
She looked down. “Fine, but I expect the same from you.”
I nodded and encouraged her to sit back down. I stroked her hair since that always seemed to relax her. I could tell by the way she softened when I touched her and the way she pulled closer to me the longer we lay there. Once I had started stroking Aly’s hair, she began to tell me about her life. What it was like growing up in a strict Christian home, how she and that fucker Brandon became friends, how Carmen and her used to sneak out and eat lollipops in the front yard when her parents went to bed, and what it was like when Carmen left and how she dealt with it. I was glued to every word she said. She told me about our meeting on the train and how meeting me somehow gave her the courage to stay in Seattle, and why she even went back “home” in the first place.
There was silence when we finally got to the part of her story that involved her being locked in a storage closet. She tried to brush past it and tell me it was my turn, but she had to talk about it. She wouldn’t heal unless she talked about it. To be honest, I didn’t want to fucking hear it either. I didn’t want to relive that moment. Controlling my anger, my flashbacks to Sarah would be nearly impossible, but Aly needed to talk to someone she trusted and not to be cocky or anything, but I knew the best person for her to talk to in that moment was me. I knew I could understand her and calm her.
“So it’s your turn,” she said quietly. She knew she wasn’t getting out of here without talking about what happened, but she was trying desperately to fight it.
“Aly,” I said, rolling her over and trapping her under my body. Her breath hitched. “Tell me. Please talk about it.”
“It’s over,” she whimpered.
“Physically, yes, it is, but not in here,” I said, pointing to her head, “or here,” I said, pointing to her heart.
Then I got off her and sat up. She followed suit and turned her body to face me.
“When I saw your headline,” she said quietly, “my heart broke for you. You know I texted you and all that. Well, when Brandon saw me packing, he seemed nice at first, but then he said sorry, and I just remember blacking out. I woke up tied to a chair and very confused. I didn’t know what was going on and then Dad walked in, and I was even more confused. Panic didn’t set in until I looked in Brandon’s eyes. He started ranting about me leaving, and I instantly knew that it was about me rejecting him when I was sixteen. It was revenge.”
I glanced at her. She bit her lip, and tears welled up in her eyes.
“He had always warned me it would happen. I knew he had roped Dad in somehow and I couldn’t imagine it was that hard to do. My dad had always been prone to violence. I think somewhere along the line; my dad knew what they were doing was wrong. Not that it makes it any better.” She looked down at her feet and took a deep breath. She was trying to continue on without crying and I respected that, so I stayed quiet. “Anyway, they started quizzing me on Bible verses and stuff and I got most of them right, but I fumbled the wording on a few. They’d tase me when I messed up even slightly. They had untied me by then, and every time they tased me, I just saw stars. I felt like I was going to pass out or vomit or something. That wasn’t the worst part, though. After three days, I was so hungry and thirsty and alone. I couldn’t believe they were doing this to me. What hurts the most was knowing that the closest people to me didn’t care that I was hurting, and despite how much danger I was in, there was no one in the world who would help me. I tried to get out on my own, but I couldn’t. Everything was locked up. My heart burned more than my body. When Brandon brought out the knife, I was terrified. I begged my dad to save me. I tried to reason with him on a fatherly level, but he just kept saying I needed to learn.”
Aly started tearing up, and I had to close my eyes for the second to regain composure. The pain
in her eyes was too much.
“I just didn’t get it. I still don’t. What was I supposed to learn? What did I do so bad?” she cried. “I asked God to save me. I knew what they were doing to me couldn’t be his willThey said they were doing this because they love me, but I knew love wasn’t supposed to hurt that much. I think the most desperate I got to escape was when Brandon pulled out the knife. Luckily, he didn’t get too far with it because you showed up. When you came, I was barely conscious. I thought I’d died. Then I realized you were real.” She choked up and bit her lip so hard it started to bleed.
“Aly, you can cry.” I said, rubbing her arm.
She nodded. “I won’t stop.” She continued biting her lip and started blinking her eyes rapidly to hold back the tears that were threatening to slide down her cheeks.
I put my hand on her mouth to both stop her from biting herself and to wipe the blood off her lip. “I’ll stay down here until you stop. I promise.”
She looked at me and then burst out in tears. “What did I do so bad, Axel? I don’t get it. They kept saying what a whore I was. I don’t understand.”
I pulled her head into my chest and held her tightly. She sobbed quietly in my arms. I wanted to take her pain away, and it killed me that I couldn’t.
“If there’s a God, Axel, how could he let this happen? Did I deserve it? Was He punishing me?”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed her shoulders and made her look at me.
“Aly,” I said, trying to fight back my own tears.
I’m not a pussy; anyone would have cried hearing the way she spoke. Aly was the purest, best person I’d ever met, and she was feeling like she was a career criminal who needed ongoing punishment. I couldn’t take it.
“That is THEIR SHIT. Not yours. You are a good fuckin’ person. I came to save you because you are the best person I’ve ever met. Ever. If there’s a God, He wasn’t punishing you. I imagine He let it happen for a reason. I don’t understand what that couldbe, and honestly, I can’t think about it because it pisses me off, but...“Aly cut me off.
“You saved my life, you know that?” she said, wide-eyed. “You are my hero. You made the pain stop.”
“I’m no hero, Aly.”
“Well, you are mine. Okay, I’m done,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s your turn. That’s all I can handle emotionally for today.” She wiped the tears off her face. “You know, this is some date, Axel. Do you make all your dates cry?”
“Try not to,” I said with a small smile. “While we are on the topic, there is one more thing we should discuss.”
“Okay?” she said hesitantly.
“There’s a warrant for your dad and Brandon’s arrest.”
She drew back. “What?”
I watched her reactions carefully. “They got served, and neither of them responded.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, how do you feel about that?”
“Honestly?”
“No, please just feed me a bunch of bullshit.”
“Oh, ha-ha. Anyway, I feel confused about my dad, but Brandon, I hope they find him. I hope he spends the rest of his life in prison. I hate him.”
That answer threw me off guard, but I tried not to show it. I didn’t expect that from her. She was angrier than I thought.
“Now it’s your turn! Come on, man.” Her eyes looked desperate.
I laughed and told her as much as I could about me. I told her about how I never felt like I fit in, how deep my anger truly ran, how boxing helped my sanity, about Sarah and how I truly loved one another, about how I met Ginger at the local fair and came here nearly every day after boxing and most importantly about the day I found Sarah and what I did to Ryan. I was scared to tell her about my time in juvie and what sent me there, scared she’d see me different, but she didn’t. She asked questions, wanted to know all about me. She held my hand when I talked about Sarah and asked all about her. I felt like I was honoring Sarah in a way. Aly felt for her and the life she had, and it made me care about Aly in a way I never thought I was capable of. When I was done spilling my guts to her, she looked at me and smiled.
“We done?”
“Yeah, we’re done.” I laughed. “Ya know, for someone with the worst case of word vomit I’ve ever seen, you sure hate to talk about your feelings.”
“Feelings suck,” she said with a shrug.
I stared at her for a second and then grabbed the back of her neck and kissed her like I was sure she’d never been kissed before. I let my tongue slip into her mouth, and she opened it for me immediately. She grabbed the back of my head and pulled me towards her, and I eased her back onto the ground. We kissed each other like horny teenagers, and I couldn’t get enough of her. I wanted so bad to go further, but I couldn’t. It hurt me to pull away, but somehow, I managed. Aly took a deep breath and wiped her mouth. I could see it in her face that she was just as turned on as I was. The difference between us was she felt conflicted with her faith and where she was with that. I would not so much as touch her below the waist until she was sure of what she wanted. I could hurt a girl like Aly, I had to be careful. Even if it was fucking killing me to do it.
“We should head back,” I said.
She nodded, clearly feeling every bit as flustered as I was.
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
We headed back to Ginger’s in silence. There was this tension between us as the weight of everything we had just said and done set in. It wasn’t until we saw Ging leaning against the door of the stables that we both visibly relaxed. I got off the horse first and then helped Aly. Aly still looked a little thrown by the kiss and the heaviness of our conversation. Not only did she have to dig up a lot of emotional baggage and hear a lot about me, but she also found out there were warrants out for her dad and ex best friend’s arrest. That had to be hard for her, even if they were the ones who kidnapped her. I emphasize “for her” because if it wereme, I’d want them dead. I still wanted to fucking kill them for what they did to her. However, her brain didn’t work like mine; she was a much better person, and it did something to her, something bad, when she felt she wasn’t doing the right thing.
Ging approached us and grabbed Panter so she could put him away. We both followed, and she kept turning back to Aly and giving her a funny look.
“So you dump her or something, Axel? Why does Blondie look like she has been crying her eyes out?”
Ginger was crude and sometimes rude, but if you understood her, you knew she didn’t mean to be. It was just the way she talked. At first, Aly seemed offended by her, but I could tell that it bothered her less now. I was glad because I would have hated for Ginger and Aly not to get along.
“I didn’t dump her, Ging. There was just some stuff we had to discuss, and it was heavy.”
She raised an eyebrow at me.“On a date, Axel? Really?”
“That’s what I said,” Aly mumbled. We all laughed.
From there, we ate the best chicken pot pie either of us had ever had, and Ginger was impressed by how much Aly ate. For a girl who wasn’t even five feet tall, the girl could chow. I told Ginger all the best Aly stories I could think of,especially how she showed up at the bar and stopped me from taking drugs and all that shit. Ginger loved that story and laughed her fucking ass off. It was kind of funny now that it was over. I could see how curious Ginger was about how we met and most importantly how serious I was about Aly. She hadn’t seen me care about anyone or let anyone in since Sarah, and I knew she had a lot of questions.
I shot her a look early in the lunch to let her know we’d discuss everything later. Aly would be too embarrassed to discuss it all with someone she just met and probably couldn’t handle any more emotional shit for one day. Ginger seemed annoyed with having to wait, but she nodded and respected my wishes. Ginger was skeptical of Aly. She loved me, and from the outside, Aly just seemed like a sweet little do-gooder. She was confused. I tried to tell her some stories of Aly that showed how f
eisty she was, but every time I did, she just seemed more shocked than convinced. It would take time.
The next three weeks were enjoyable. Aly and I had a good time together. It was easy to be with her, and I genuinely cared about her. The problem was that both of us were getting restless. Aly was ready to move on with her life, and so was I. I tried to keep her occupied, but I could tell she wanted her life back, her own life. Aly was independent and did not want to be controlled by others. Physically, she was healed, but I knew it would be a long time – if ever – for her to heal emotionally.
Although I was secretly hoping to have her dad and Brandon behind bars before either of us left my parents, the police still hadn’t been able to find either of them. We had no way of knowing how long that would take and we couldn’t keep our lives on hold waiting for the police to find them. I had an idea of what I wanted to do going forward. I had a ton of money saved from boxing, and I wanted to start my own fight gym. Something not for pussies like the gym in my hometown. Maybe a place where people like me could get some of their aggression out in a way that wouldn’t send them to prison. The concept wasn’t fully formedyet, but that was what I had my sight set on. Problem was, I didn’t want to go anywhere without Aly and having that conversation meant facing the obvious problems in our relationship. Was I going to follow her when we left? Was she going tofollow me? Were we going to go our separate ways and forget this? Did she even know what she was going to do? Was she safe? And a whole other list of questions I didn’t want to have to acknowledge or have the answers to.
Dad was always on my back about it. He said I just needed to tell her how I felt and that I didn’t want to lose her and the conversation would work itself out. Usually, I found Dad very wise, but in this instance, I thought his advice was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. My relationship with Aly didn’t even feel like it was progressing. I mean, part of it was that neither of us knew how to be in a relationship, but there was more to it than that. We were both great about opening up to each other the first two weeks, but it was somewhere into the third week things felt different. We kissed, shared romantic moments, talked about our past, our struggles, but both of us were too afraid to talk about the future. That was holding us back.
