Knockout

by Tracey Ward

  “I have to write a letter. I don’t write letters in English so I don’t know how I’m supposed to write one in French.”

  Kellen slid down the couch onto the floor beside me. I melted a little having him so close. I heard from Laney that he was the shit at Weston High. He was the guy all of the girls wanted to get with and the guy that all the guys wanted to be. Laney said it was because he was so hot and yeah, that was probably a huge part of it because no doubt about it, the guy was gorgeous in the worst possible way. The haunt your dreams for the rest of your life kind of way. But I thought it was mostly because he was so confident. Nothing phased him. No one scared him. He was a man in a room full of boys and the boys knew it. The girls really knew it.

  When he settled in next to me his broad shoulder bumped against my bony one. I inhaled deeply. Yeah, that’s right, I sniffed him. Creepy? Yes. Worth it? You have no idea. He smelled so good. A faint cologne, laundry detergent and Old Spice body wash.

  French had just become very interesting for me.

  “Okay, it looks like you’re trying to do it sentence by sentence when it’d be easier to write it all out in English and then translate it,” he said as he looked over my paper. “It also looks like you’re doodling.”

  He was right. I had gotten frustrated and zoned out. My extremely stunted letter was surrounded by an intricate design of curling and coiling vines, full waxy leaves and spiky barbed wire breaking in and out of shadows.

  “If you spent half as much time on your studies as you do on doodling, you’d be through college by now,” I said in a high, nagging voice.

  Kellen grinned at me. “Your mom?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted glumly. “Don’t tell her I did that. It was mean.”

  He intentionally bumped my shoulder, knocking me lightly to the side. “I’d never sell you out. Let me help you knock this out so you don’t have to worry about a lecture later, okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks, Kellen.”

  I went to tear the page out of my notebook but he reached over and pressed his large hand on top of mine to stop me. What I did was stop breathing.

  “No, don’t toss it. We’ll write the letter in the blank space in the middle. It’ll look gothic and tragic. Perfect for French.”

  “It’s just a doodle. Mom would want me to throw it away.”

  He shook his head, taking his hand away. “Don’t throw that away. It’s killer.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, of course. You’re really talented.”

  My art teacher had said the same thing, but I thought it was his job to say that to everyone. Even the girl who drew a picture of what was supposed to be a dog but really looked like a rabid badger. An A for effort and all that. No one else had ever told me I was any good at drawing but I still did it because I loved it. It centered me. It made me feel level and calm. Everyone needs that thing that takes them out of themselves and gives them a break from their world for a while. Drawing was that thing for me.

  For Kellen I knew it was boxing. He’d been doing it since he was eight years old. He’d signed up the day he was old enough, following in his grandpa’s footsteps but with a lot more talent and way more diligence.

  The fight that he got into, the one that had landed him in our house meeting with my dad, had been for a girl. For her, not over her. Dad was working on getting him off light with some community service. It helped that the girl had come forward and spoken to the judge. She explained Kellen had come to her rescue against a group of bullies, an act of chivalry that softened the old man’s heart. But Kellen had still used his fists to get his point across instead of words and there wasn’t much my dad could do about that.

  He had become completely attached to Kellen though and he was working hard to get him as much slack as he could. I knew that he was really worried about an assault charge landing on Kellen’s record, something that would slam a lot of doors in his face for years to come. He was a crazy smart kid who knew how to play his cards right and that could land him at an excellent college, setting him up for a future far brighter than his past had been. My dad didn’t want to see that all disappear because of one impulsive moment.

  “Hey, Kellen?” I asked hesitantly. I wasn’t sure if the question I wanted to ask was an okay one to bring up. I didn’t want him to get pissed and stop talking to me altogether.

  “Yeah?”

  “You said your mom ‘knew’ more than you. Is she…”

  “Yeah, she’s dead,” he said plainly.

  “Oh,” I replied awkwardly. “Sorry.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I shouldn’t have asked. That was stupid.”

  “No, seriously, it’s fine,” he assured me, and it sounded like he meant it. He wasn’t pissed and he wasn’t sad. If it was something that upset him, he was good at hiding it. “It happened when I was nine. I’m good with it. It is what it is.”

  “So it’s just you and your dad?”

  He shook his head. “Nah. It’s just me and whatever foster parent I’m earning checks for at the moment. I never knew my dad.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Stop it,” Kellen ordered.

  His tone surprised me. I’d never heard him anything but happy and calm. This was darker. Angry.

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong. Unless you’re apologizing for my life because you feel sorry for me and if that’s what you’re doing then I want you to stop that shit too.”

  “I’m sor—“ I started to say reflexively before catching myself. “I mean, I was apologizing for being nosey. I don’t feel sorry for you.”

  “Good. Who are you writing this letter to?” he asked, changing the subject and his demeanor with it. He instantly looked relaxed again.

  “I don’t know yet. Anyone, I guess.”

  “You should write it to your boyfriend. Love letters sound better in French.”

  I shook my head, feeling oddly frustrated. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Why?”

  He grinned. “Because you’re too good for boys your age.”

  I frowned at him. “Are you going to help me write this letter or are you going to feed me lines all night?”

  Kellen laughed his full body laugh. It vibrated through him and into me where our shoulders still touched, leaving me tingling.

  “Alright, Nonpareil. Let’s get down to business.”

  Kellen had me write the letter to an imaginary boyfriend. I fought it but it turned out most of his recent experience with French was of the romantic type. I didn’t ask why, though I kind of knew. Rough guy from the wrong side of town in a school full of Laney’s and he knew how to spout French poetry? You do the math. Here, I’ll help you out.

  Kellen Coulter = Panty Dropper

  “Don’t sign it ‘Love, Jenna,” he told me when we were finishing.

  My shoulders slouched. I was exhausted. Even with him helping me, this sucked.

  “But I already know how to say it,” I whined. “We could be done.”

  “You shouldn’t just learn the language. You should learn to like it or at least appreciate it. You’ll hate having to take the classes less if you find something interesting about it.”

  “What should I sign it then? Sincerely? Devotedly? Eternally and Sappily Yours Forever?”

  Kellen shrugged, a grin on his lips. “You can if you want, but I was thinking you should go with ‘Il vous manque de moi.’”

  “You are… something of me?”

  “You are missing from me. It’s a way of saying ‘I miss you’.”

  “A pretty way,” I mumbled, writing it down.

  Kellen chuckled as he reached for the remote control. “Every time.”

  I elbowed him in the stomach.

  Chapter Three

  Five Months Later

  “He’s asked if he can take her out on a date,” dad told my mom, popping a grape in his mouth.

  I w
as at the kitchen table sitting beside my dad as we snacked and waited eagerly for dinner, watching my mom move around the kitchen like two hungry wolves.

  “It’s about time,” mom laughed, stirring the pasta on the stove.

  “You’re okay with it?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? Kellen’s been in our house almost every day for the better part of a year. I trust him to take her out more than some boy from school I’ve never met.” She paused, turning to face him while she wiped her hands on a towel. “Are you not okay with it?”

  Dad shrugged. “I don’t know. I think he’s a great kid, don’t get me wrong, but that’s just it. I don’t want them to date, break up and then we never see him again.”

  Mom nodded thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “He’s heading off to college soon—“

  Mom brightened. “Did he get an acceptance letter?”

  Dad smiled. “Yeah, a few of them. He didn’t ask me permission to take out Laney until he had them. I think he was waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “Until he felt less like a thug.”

  “Dan—“

  “No, Karen, it’s true. And I know how he feels. When I was his age, coming from where I was from, I wouldn’t have felt right about walking into a house like this and asking out a girl like Laney. And it doesn’t matter that he’s been like a son to us this last year, there’s still a divide.”

  “Not to me.”

  “No, but there is to him. We don’t look down on him, he knows that, but it doesn’t change how he feels. No matter what we do or say, we’ll never change that. Only he can and he’s doing it by making something of himself.”

  “So you think it’s a bad idea for them to date?”

  Dad shrugged. “I think college is a big change for any kid and he doesn’t exactly have family to turn to if he gets into trouble.”

  “No one but us.”

  Dad nodded. “And I’d like him to always have us.”

  Kellen was the only child of an only child. When his grandpa’s boxing career hadn’t panned out, his mom ended up waiting tables at casinos her whole life. At first it was to keep her and her dad afloat but then it was to pay off the gambling debts he left behind for her when he died. Vegas was where she met Kellen’s dad, though if you asked Kellen who or where the guy was he’d simply shrug. I wasn’t sure he knew who his dad was but I knew for certain he didn’t like to talk about him. His mom raised him alone and when she started to get sick with lung cancer, a byproduct of her own father’s chain smoking and the exposure to cigarettes in the casinos she spent her life in, she moved the two of them out here to California. Kellen told me she wanted to be close to the ocean again. That it reminded her of her home back in Ireland.

  When he found us, Kellen hadn’t had a true family in over eight years. When my parents took an interest in him and started inviting him to stay for dinner after meetings with my dad, he didn’t hesitate. He also started spending time at the house with me, tutoring me in French, math, science – you name it. He was a great teacher, making those tedious subjects relatable for me for the first time in my life. I know he did it because he wanted to help me out, but I think he also offered to tutor me as a way of paying dad back for what he’d done for him and his case. For trusting him and taking him into his home.

  Even after his case closed and he was working on his community service, he was a constant presence in our home as he tutored me almost every night. Even on nights when he wasn’t helping me, he was often there purely on invitation or habit. He easily won my mom over with his consideration and good manners, my dad with his intelligence and drive, my sister with his body and bad boy reputation. And me? Well, I was sold by his smile. Kellen was a lot of great things, but the one that mattered to me most was that he made me laugh.

  “We don’t know that they’ll break up,” mom argued, sounding like she was trying to convince herself.

  Dad quirked a skeptical eyebrow at her.

  “What?”

  “Have you met Laney?” I asked, saying what we were all thinking. “She tears through guys.”

  “She’s not exactly a one man kind of woman,” dad agreed.

  Mom looked sharply at the two of us. “What exactly are you two saying?”

  “We’re not calling her what you think we are, honey.”

  “I am,” I said. “And it rhymes with door.”

  “Jenna!” mom scolded.

  “What? I didn’t say it.”

  She pointed a warning finger at me. “Thin ice. Do your homework.”

  “I don’t have any. Besides, it’s not only Laney. Kellen isn’t exactly big on dating either.”

  “He’s never had a steady girlfriend,” mom said, thinking.

  Dad shook his head. “He doesn’t like people getting too close. I think he’s embarrassed by his home life.”

  “He’s not embarrassed,” I corrected him. “He doesn’t want people feeling sorry for him. He hates pity and girls hear about his life and suddenly they’re all like, ‘You poor thing. I’m so sorry.’ and he hates that.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “’Cause he told me.”

  “He tells you a lot, doesn’t he?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Yeah. I guess. We’re friends.”

  The room was quiet all of the sudden. When I looked up, I found mom watching me.

  “So what do I tell him?” dad asked her.

  She watched me for a second longer before she pinched her lips together in thought. Eventually she grinned affectionately. “I can’t believe he asked you permission.”

  Dad grinned as well. “He’s a damn good kid.”

  “Language,” she scolded halfheartedly. Then she shook her head. “If only he’d quit with the fighting.”

  “It’s not fighting,” I corrected her. “It’s boxing. It’s a sport. And he’s damn good at it.”

  “Grounded.”

  Shit.

  ***

  The first thing I noticed was that the place wreaked of sweat. It was a gym so, duh, but still. I wasn’t used to it. Even the locker rooms at school didn’t smell like this, but then again I’d never been in the boy’s locker room. Maybe this was what it smelled like. Maybe this gym was basically one huge boy’s locker room.

  It definitely looked like it. There were banners hanging from the ceiling with logos for Everlast, USA Boxing and a bunch of different championships with years and winner’s names under them. Also hanging from the open rafters were punching bags. Tons of them all mismatched and spread across the room hovering over red, blue and black mats. The walls were covered in posters for fights from ten and twenty years ago peppered with newer names that rung a bell with me. Holyfield, Ali, Tyson. Foreman. That one made me smile.

  “You can never tell your mom you were here,” dad reminded me for the millionth time.

  “I know, I know. My lips are forever sealed.”

  “Good.”

  “Does Kellen know we’re here?”

  “He knows I was going to try and bring you, yeah. I think he was more excited about you coming than about the match.”

  I felt a glow in my cheeks. “Well, he already knows he’s going to win.”

  “Tell that to his opponent.”

  I looked where he was staring and I saw what he meant. The guy looked huge.

  Kellen was a big guy himself, tall and pushing 175 pounds of muscle and lean meat. He was in the upper tiers of the Middleweights. He told me he was only three pounds away from landing in the Light heavyweights and he did not want that. If he went up to that class, he’d be the small guy going against the Goliaths. It’s not that he was scared of fighting them, it was just better strategically for him to be the Goliath if he could manage it. And he spent a lot of time and focus managing it.

  I hadn’t understood how much training, time and thought actually went into hitting a guy for three rounds. Not until Kellen laid it all out for me one afternoon
.

  “I run five miles a day, five days a week,” he’d said, making my jaw drop. He grinned at my reaction. “I have to watch what I eat. I make sure I eat a lot of protein to build muscle from my workouts, but I have to be careful not to put on too much muscle weight. I’m toeing the line of my weight class as it is. After running, I jump rope for about forty-five minutes to keep my legs strong. Then I hit the heavy bag until my shoulders and arms are mush.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “That’s not all. After that warm-up—“

  “Warm-up?!”

  He laughed. “That’s to get me ready. At this point, I haven’t even entered the ring yet. Once I’m in, it’s sparring with my coach and one of the other guys he’s working with.”

  “How do you have time for all of that on top of school and everything else?”

  He shrugged. “I make it work. Being at the gym is better than being home. I’ve been slacking lately, though. I need to step it up.”

  I felt sick in my stomach. Guilty. “You mean you’ve been tutoring me and that’s taking up your time.”

  “No,” he said firmly, looking at me hard, “this is something I want to do. That’s why I make time for it, because I like it and I like you, Jen. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

  I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. “Good. ‘Cause I like having you here too.”

  After that, Kellen stopped having dinner with us as often. He told my mom that it was because he had things to take care of at home, but I knew what it was. He was training at night after he tutored me instead of in the afternoon right after school. He started doing his schoolwork there at the house with me so he’d have more time at night and he told me he had moved his runs to early morning. I still felt guilty, but the fact that he gave up his very limited free time to stick around and help me meant the world to me. My grades were skyrocketing since he had started tutoring me and some of the tension that had been building between my mom and I over it disappeared. It was nice.

  “Did you tell Kellen over and over not to let mom know I was here?” I asked dad, thinking of mom and tension and arguments.

  He snorted. “No. Kellen can keep a secret.”