After Mac left, or after I kicked her out, I called Darren, leaving message after message. Finally at five a.m. he called me back. I’ve been sitting on his living room couch for two hours, going over all the memories that are still flooding in. He’s listened, comforted, and sat silently with me.
For years, we’ve dissected my dreams, lack of memory, and compulsions. This is the kind of breakthrough he always hoped for. Too bad the triumph in psychology feels like being eaten alive from the inside out.
I’m drained, but I can’t sleep. I’m not hungry. I feel nothing. Numb all over and distant. Like an out of body experience I’m watching from someone else’s perspective.
“I have to fight. Can’t let down the UFL.” My words sound robotic. “They’re all I’ve got.”
He nods. “You’ve had an unimaginable few days, making breakthroughs only to . . .” He shakes his head then rubs his eyes. “Fuck, I’m sorry.” Clearing the emotion from his throat, he sniffs and meets my eyes. “You’ve got me too.”
Yeah, and as much as I know those words are heartfelt, they’re white noise in my ears. I can’t pull up a reaction to them.
“I better go.” I push up from the couch and move to the door like a vapor, there in one aspect, completely gone in another, a body with no life.
He tells me to call if I need anything and that I should meet him at the office tomorrow. I don’t know why. He’s heard all that I know. The past is back; my memories are released from the mental vault I’d had them stored.
Now what?
Can healing ever be found for a boy who was abandoned by his mother and given as a sex toy to adult men only to end up in a group home with not a single person to call family?
Not even close to being ready to answer that question, I move through the day as I should. Back at my condo, I clean up the broken glass and straighten my room. Order is dependable. Cleanliness on the outside covers the dirt that infiltrates my insides.
A hot shower later and I’m staring at a full cup of protein shake. I have to put something in my stomach, or I’ll get destroyed in the fight. My camp needs this win. They depend on me. I pinch my eyes closed and open my throat, throwing back a healthy gulp. My stomach revolts against the intrusion and I gag. I force myself to finish it and pray that it stays down.
On the drive to the training center, my muscles begin to unwind. The guys I fight with don’t know about my past. They won’t look at me with pity or empathy as Mac and Darren do. The weight in my chest lifts enough for me to take a full breath.
To them, I’m just Rex the man, not Rex the boy.
Pushing through the lobby doors, the sweat and plastic covered foam smell of the training center inundates my senses, and its familiarity works as a salve to my nerves. My breath comes easier with every step that brings me closer to the locker room.
“There’s our welterweight.” Cameron’s standing with a couple fighters from Reece’s camp, clipboard in hand. “You’re late. Let’s get you weighed in.” He turns toward the locker room and motions for me to follow.
This is good. The normalcy of fighting is exactly what I need.
“You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to you kicking that cocky shit’s ass,” Cam says over his shoulder. “Punk’s been up my ass all morning.”
The soft pull of a smile tugs my lips. “I got him.”
He pushes through the door and swings his gaze to mine. “I know you—what the fuck happened to you?”
Tension surges back into my muscles. “Too amped to sleep, that’s all.”
“Yeah?” He glares at my neck and my arms. “Looks like you went one-on-one with a mountain lion. The fuck happened to your arms?”
“Yard work. Got scratched up.” I’m the master of lying about where all my scratches come from. I’ve been doing it for years.
His eyes form tight slits. “Yard work.” The way he says it, as if he’s letting me know my lie is believable but he sure as shit isn’t falling for it, settles in my gut.
“I’ve got a fight to win. Mind if we cut the bullshit and get to it?”
“Sure, man.” He’s still fucking standing here, looking at me as if determination will get me to spill.
I cross my arms at my chest and wait. Seconds pass before he gives up on his mission and moves deeper into the locker room. I follow behind him, and for the first time since I found that fucking bear in Mac’s room, a sliver of contentment breaks through my deadened state.
Life lies within the chain link of the octagon: the sweat, blood . . . the pain. It’s the only thing that reminds me I’m alive.
When most of the time I wish I were dead.
~*~
Mac
I can’t help but feel like I’m right back where I started, sitting in a bar full of belligerent drunks, one hand wrapped around a cold beer and the other clutching the bag that holds what’s left of my possessions.
Even though smoking in bars is illegal in the state of Colorado, the room swirls with the stench of burning tobacco and God knows what else. Clearly the rules don’t apply to those whose motto is “Live wild or die.” The clanking of glasses and ruckus of deep manly laughter mix to make this dive exactly what I expected. Everything, from the women who’re walking around half naked and one hundred percent tanked, to the air in the room, screams one thing.
Wild Outlaw MC property.
This is stupid. I shouldn’t have come here. Speeding away from Vegas, I chose highways at random and drove all the way through Utah until I saw the sign: Denver 465 miles. I remembered Hatch talking about a bar between Denver and Leadville that had a motel attached. I decided that’s where I’d go. At least, until I could figure out what the hell I’m going to do.
I blink to focus on the line of bottles against the wall behind the bar, various brands of tequila and bourbon, not a single bottle of vodka. The bartender looks just like the rest of the guys in this hole: too much hair, too much gut, and too much leather to hold it all together.
“Leather and together. That rhymed.” I muffle a giggle and bring my room-temperature beer bottle to my lips. Tilting back the last of the lukewarm liquid, I try to count how many I’ve had. I’m almost positive this is number five, but the way my head is swimming I’ve probably had more.
Not that it matters. Nothing matters.
My heart beats its fluttered objection.
“Nope. Not listening to you ever again.” Stupid heart and its stupid plans.
“Yo, Ann Wilson.” The bartender’s voice sounds as if he’s been smoking since birth. “’Nother beer?”
I face the grungy biker. “Sure, why the hell not?” I’ve got nowhere to go and no one looking for me. I nudge my empty bottle toward him. “What did you call me?”
He coughs or laughs, most likely a combination of both. “Don’t tell me you don’t know who Ann Wilson is.”
I scrunch up my face in thought. “No clue.”
Propping his forearms on the bar, he leans in. “How old’re you, kid?”
“It’s rude to ask a woman how old she is.” And telling a guy who looks as if he’s seen his fair share of death and mutilation anything about me is fucking freaking me out.
“I’m assuming you’re old enough to drink. If not, I don’t really give a shit as long as you don’t get in any trouble.”
I don’t say anything to confirm or deny. I’m old enough to drink, but just barely, not that he needs to know that.
“Ann Wilson’s the lead singer of one of the greatest bands of the late 1970s.”
“Huh.” My head spins. I squint one eye. “Which one?”
“Which one? You’ve got to be kidding me. Your parents did you a huge disservice by not sharing this shit with you.”
Ha. My parents did a lot worse than a simple fucking disservice. “My parents are dead.” Most likely murdered, but whatevs.