In His Corner

by Alexandra Warren

  Once again, I could only nod, accepting her confession without the judgment I came into the meeting with. And while I wished having her be a part of baby’s girl life was as simple as picking between being called, “Grandma” or “Nana”, I knew there was still one more piece to this missing. “I… wouldn’t want to keep you away from your grandchild, Lucy. But I hope you understand that I’d like to discuss this with Princeton first.”

  This time, it was her nodding. “Of course! And now that I know Sir Kingfield is in no condition to make good on that threat, I’d be willing to do the same,” she replied with a laugh that made me a little uneasy since I knew it came from such a sad place.

  Still, I managed to keep my face pleasant when I said, “I’ll be sure to let him know. And thank you… for sharing your story with me.”

  As a journalist, her history was definitely intriguing. But on a basic human-to-human level, I was especially drawn to her triumphs; her survival. And that was a highlight for her as well, for obvious reasons, as she replied, “Glad to still be alive to tell it, Bella. Thank you for meeting with me, for listening, for believing. Oh, and I got a gift for the baby. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help myself.”

  I hadn’t noticed it when she came in, but there was a bright pink bag full of more than just a single gift; a sign that Lucinda was quite excited about the baby I hoped Princeton would be okay with letting her meet.

  In my opinion, she deserved it.

  But since it wasn’t solely up to me, I offered, “Thank you, Lucy. I’ll be in touch.” This time, accepting the hug she pulled me into and giving her a genuine one in return before parting ways.

  For a while after, I just sat in my car trying to piece and package together all of the information she had given me in a way that I could deliver it to Princeton. I didn’t want to upset or alarm him, but I also knew there really wasn’t anyway around it. So instead of holding onto the news, trying to make it perfect, I used the fresh energy of our conversation to head over to the gym, ready to get it off of my chest and leave the rest up to him.

  When I walked into the gym, I was surprised to see a wheelchair-bound Sir Kingfield delivering training orders like he hadn’t been in a hospital bed not too long ago. But just the sight of him also gave me mixed emotions, from angry to disgusted to plain out sad. And while his condition - and mine - was enough for me to not take it out on him in a physical way, interrupting his session was plenty to show my blatant disrespect, even when a concerned Princeton asked, “B, what’s up? Something wrong?”

  My face was stiff and my voice was sharp as I crossed my arms over my chest and demanded, “We need to talk. Now.”

  “Can it wait?” he asked, swiping at the sweat that was dripping from his forehead.

  While I respected his work, once I peeked over to Sir Kingfield who looked just as disgusted with me as I was with him, I replied, “It can’t. Not even a second.”

  Of course that only upset his father even more as he snapped, “Boy, you have got to be shittin’ me! You’re still lettin’ this broad come between you and boxing?!”

  “Pops, chill…” Princeton groaned, trying to diffuse yet another inevitable confrontation between us.

  But his attempt at calming his father did nothing to calm me, growing even more furious when I said, “Nah, let Pops dig himself into an even deeper hole since that’s exactly what he threatened to do to you and your mother if she didn’t disappear!”

  “What?”

  “You crazy bitch…”

  His father’s harsh words might’ve stumbled me in the past. But I refused to let him win, continuing on, “I’m sorry, Princeton. But you deserve to know the truth. That this demon wrote your mother a check to go away so he could have you all to himself. And if she hadn’t left, or if she would’ve tried taking you with her, he would’ve killed the both of you.”

  My chest was heaving by the time I finished. And while Sir Kingfield’s eyes were burning into me like lasers, his son’s were even tighter when he asked him, “Pops, is that true?”

  To me, his reaction was enough to answer that question. But I shouldn’t have been surprised when he tried to discredit me by replying, “I don’t know who this girl’s been getting her information from. But if she was as good of a journalist as she claims to be, she’d know to at least find credible sources.”

  “Credible sources like your ex-wife? The woman you gave this check to?” I asked, pulling the paper out of the pocket of my purse that I had left it in.

  I wasn’t sure why Lucinda wanted me to have it, but I was glad I did once I watched the way Sir Kingfield’s eyes went wide in response knowing he was officially caught up in his lies. But that still didn’t mean I was completely in the clear as Princeton growled, “Man, you need to get the fuck outta here.”

  For a second, I thought he was talking to me until his father replied, “Aww come on, Prince. You really gonna let this…”

  “I said, you need to go!” he belted loud enough to make me jump, my eyes falling closed as I tried to calm myself. And when I finally opened them back up, I found Sir Kingfield struggling to wheel himself out, a sight that might’ve pleased me if I didn’t have to deal with the aftermath.

  I had a feeling Princeton needed a moment to digest the information, but that still didn’t stop me from attempting to soothe him, reaching out to stroke his arm as I said, “Princeton, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he’d be here.”

  Unfortunately, my words and actions only seemed to make things worse as he snatched away from my touch, his expression even more troubled than before when he asked, “Why’d you do this, Bella? Why’d you go digging for this shit, huh? What is this even for? Another one of your stupid write-ups?”

  “What?” was the only thing that came out, completely caught off-guard by his attack, unable to even make sense of where it was coming from until he continued, “The other day you asked about her. For her name. I didn’t think anything of it, but now I know. You were on some journalistic bullshit.”

  My face was almost as tight as his when I repeated, “Journalistic bullshit? Are you kidding me right now?”

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Bella! You went too fuckin’ far! I never asked you to dig into my past more than you already have, never asked for any proof of what I already knew to be true. But you did it anyway! You crossed the line, and for what? A story? How much you gonna get paid for this one, huh?” he asked, his heavy steps towards me intimidating enough for me to step back in avoidance.

  But when he still continued his pursuit, I crossed my arms over my chest to create space between us as I huffed, “Wow. You really think I’d do that to you? That I’d… completely violate your privacy, for a story?”

  “Ain’t that how I got you? Anything for an exclusive, right?” he asked, looking down at me with an expression so arrogant that I almost didn’t recognize him.

  In fact, it reminded me of something his father would do, making me sick enough to stab him in the chest with my finger as I shouted, “Lucinda reached out to me, Princeton! She was the one who got in touch with me, wanted to meet with me, wants to have a relationship with her grandchild; our baby! And you really think I went through all that for a fuckin’ story? No. I went through that to protect you! To protect your feelings even though you clearly don’t give a damn about mine!”

  “Bella…”

  I was already digging through my purse for the number I had taken down days ago while I continued, “If you think I’m lying, you can ask her yourself. But I don’t have to take this verbal pounding from you. I did absolutely nothing wrong and neither did she.”

  “You don’t understand, Bella! He put me through hell when she left us! I caught every beating she didn’t! Even if he framed it as toughening me up for the sport, I still suffered so fuckin’ much because of her, man. Because of them.”

  Seeing Princeton brought to tears had me wanting to forget every hurtful thing he had said just so that I could comfort him, my heart
strings tugged in the worst way since I knew there was nothing but truth to his words. But I also knew it wasn’t fair for me to have to accept the wrath that wasn’t even truly for me.

  This was bigger than me, wasn’t even my problem to solve. And while it hurt me to be used as a scapegoat, and especially hurt me to see him hurt, I had no choice but to leave, dropping his mother’s number on the stool nearby as I told him, “Well I suggest you take that up with your parents. Because attacking me, the person who’s always been in your corner, is no longer an option.”

  Princeton

  Training was the only thing keeping me sane. Though even that - being in the gym, period - was stirring up sick feelings as I replayed the day before in my head for the hundredth time. An interruption to my training that turned into an interruption to my life.

  Bella and I were good.

  We were happy, thriving, in love and falling deeper, especially as we watched our baby grow inside of her day-to-day. But now everything had been thrown out of whack thanks to my mother popping out from whatever rock she had been hiding under in hopes of having a relationship with her grandchild; deliberately skipping past building any relationship with me as if I wasn’t the one who connected the two.

  None of which was Bella’s fault.

  I knew that now, and maybe knew it then too after she broke it down to me. But I had to let her go, feeling too guilty about turning my baggage into our baggage, feeling too guilty for allowing her to get caught in the crossfire when she was only trying to help; only trying to protect me.

  And she was right.

  Attacking her when my fury should’ve been towards my parents - my father, in particular - wasn’t fair. Taking out my pain on her didn’t make any sense when I now had access to both people who had caused it in the first place. And while I had grown numb to my father’s part in this over the years, knowing the extent he had gone to to keeping my mother away only made it all real again; only took me back to those days I had tried my hardest to forget.

  Since I knew doing to him what he had done to us back then wouldn’t bring me any true satisfaction, I took it out on the punching bag, impressing Tony who had no idea what had occurred. In fact, he was so amused by how hard I was working that he found himself laughing, shaking his head as he said, “Whew. I feel sorry for the next mothafucka who gets in your way.”

  To be honest, I wasn’t sure if that would be a sanctioned fight or just a run-in with one of my parents. But for now, it didn’t matter, a mash of the two in my head as I let out all my frustration to the point that hot tears were threatening to come out of my eyes. Or maybe they had already come out, mixed in with the sweat I had worked up from the past two hours we had been at it.

  The way Tony’s reaction changed from amused to concerned told me they weren’t mixed as well as I originally thought, tightening his hold on the bag as he said, “Yo, P. What’s the matter with you, man?”

  “Everything, Tony. Every-fuckin’-thing,” I replied, emphasizing my words with harder punches that I hoped would exhaust me even more than I already was.

  But instead of letting me run myself completely into the ground, Tony stood in front of the bag, catching me by the gloves to suggest, “How about we take a break?”

  I knew stopping for even a minute would be long enough for me to be flooded with all of the emotional bullshit lingering around me. So instead of accepting his offer, I plastered on what I hoped was a convincing smile when I told him, “I’m good, Tony. I don’t need a break. Let’s work.”

  “Prince…”

  “I said I don’t need a break, Tony! I wanna train! Let me train, man,” I pleaded, quickly breaking out of whatever facade I called myself putting up. But if there was any person I trusted to let me have the moment I didn’t even realize I needed, it was him.

  He wrapped an arm around my shoulder, leading me over to the stools as he said, “Prince, I got you, aight? Let’s just take a break.”

  I plopped down on one of the stools as Tony pulled the other over closer for himself while asking, “Now tell me. What’s got you all in a rut?”

  A knot grew in my throat as I tried to find the words, tried to find the right place to start, tried to catch my damn breath. And while I knew the story in its entirety was a complicated one, I also knew exactly what had been the first domino to fall. “My mom reached out to Bella.”

  Tony seemed just as surprised to hear it as I had been, his face scrunched when he asked, “Lucinda? She’s still around, huh?”

  I shrugged. “Apparently. Met up with Bella talking about she wants a relationship with her grandchild.”

  My curiosity had been running wild since I first found out about it, wondering how it had all played out, what exactly she had shared, if there was any motive beyond just wanting to know our baby girl. But Tony wasn’t quite there yet, instead asking, “And how did Miss. Bella feel about that?”

  The question only made me feel worse since, “I… don’t even know, honestly. We didn’t get that far. She came into the gym to tell me while King was here, and… I’m sure you can imagine how that went.”

  Kicking my father out of the gym, even in poor health, wasn’t something I considered an option since it was really the only thing that had saved me from catching a case with Bella as a witness. And while her still being around afterward only put her in the path of my anger, I knew it was better than my daughter not having her father around and my mugshot being front page news.

  Or maybe it wasn’t.

  Either way, I didn’t get a chance to dwell on my own wrongdoings since Tony was still busy acknowledging my father’s. “It’s a damn shame that not even a health scare was enough to knock some sense into his ass.”

  “Did you know he paid her to go and stay away?” I blurted, that detail sitting on my chest the heaviest.

  “You’re shittin’ me…” he muttered more to himself than me, proving that part of it had truly been kept under wraps. But even if my father had tried to deny it, there was nothing like tangible evidence to prove otherwise.

  “Bella showed us the check. My mom never cashed it,” I told Tony, for whatever reason finding comfort in the fact that she hadn’t actually used what I considered dirty money.

  Still, that didn’t stop Tony from believing the same thing I had when he replied, “I always assumed she had just left on her own cause she was tired of taking his shit.”

  “If you knew she was taking his shit, knew she was reaching a breaking point, why didn’t you stop him, Tony? You say he’s like a brother to you. Brothers check brothers when they know they’re fuckin’ up.”

  My inaction could easily be blamed on the fact that I was a child, but Tony was grown through the whole ordeal. And not only was he grown, but he was very much capable of taking my father on, capable of calling him out on his bullshit.

  Once again, I found myself trying to blame everyone else instead of the culprit himself, though I appreciated Tony keeping it real when he answered, “Honestly, I don’t have an answer for that today. But I sure wish I would’ve done more looking back. I suppose I thought I was doing the right thing by sticking around so he couldn’t do what he did to her to you.”

  “What you mean?” I asked, my eyebrow piqued as I waited for him to explain.

  He released a heavy sigh, clasping his hands in front of him as he started, “King has always been known for taking things too far; getting so wrapped up in his own head, his own vision, that he doesn’t even realize everything he’s destroying in the process. And that shit worked well for boxing since, hell… that’s kind of the point. But then he tried applying that same logic to his relationships. And once I saw him do what he did to Lucy, I knew I didn’t want the same thing to happen to you.”

  I could only nod as he continued, “Now I can’t say I was always there to save you, and maybe I should’ve done more. But after your mom left, I made it my mission to keep an eye out for you in any way I could, even if that meant being holed up in this gym wi
th you day after day.”

  “Damn. And I thought you actually enjoyed training me,” I replied with a little chuckle, desperate for even the smallest hint of relief.

  Tony seemed to appreciate it as well, smiling when he said, “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I definitely get a kick out of bringing your big ass to your knees after a good, hard session. But there’s a lot of people who could’ve done that for you. I’m here because I care about you, P. I wanna see you succeed in everything, including being a good man and partner to Bella.”

  Her name alone was enough for me to tense back up since I knew the trail of dominoes were all resting on her, the last to fall, caught in a path she didn’t belong. And while her pregnancy had been “easy” compared to most, knowing I had added stress that could affect not only her health but our baby’s as well really messed with me. But for now, I could only sigh as I told him, “Welp. Already fucked that up.”

  “How bad is the damage?”

  “If she wasn’t pregnant with my child, she’d probably want nothing to do with me. And hell, that might still be true even though she is pregnant with my child,” I replied, the visual of her storming out of the gym forever stamped in my memory.

  Tony tried to put me at ease when he patted my knee and reasoned, “Hurt people hurt people, P. And you’ve been hurting for a very long time; longer than you probably realize.”

  While I knew there was a lot of truth to his words, even that wasn’t enough to convince me as I replied, “That’s still not an excuse. She didn’t deserve that. I took shots I didn’t even mean cause I was just… mad.”

  “So you know what you need to do to make it right then. But the only way it’ll stick is if you also take steps to heal yourself. Otherwise apologies will just become a part of your cycle.”

  With that one I sat back, bringing my still-wrapped hand to my mouth as I processed his words, processed the fact that apologies had already become a part of the cycle even if they were usually in reaction to my father’s bullshit. But my father’s bullshit could easily turn into my own, a cycle I definitely wanted no parts of. And for that to happen, I knew exactly what I needed to do to take those steps Tony had spoken about.