Dirty Fighter: A Bad Boy MMA Romance (4 page)

I
t was getting dark out
. I had been standing on the corner of Ash and Gladstone, my backpack stuffed to the brim, for almost an hour at that point. My bag had been packed before I even left for Brooklyn’s home, but she didn’t need to know that. The summer air was full of the smell of honeysuckle and fresh cut grass, fireflies orbed through the air like little ghosts. It was too peaceful, too normal for what I had just done and for what I had confirmed about Brooklyn.

It’s not like I was glad I was right, I wouldn’t have wished what we’d been through on anyone else, but I was somehow relieved to be able to say I was correct. That Brooklyn wasn’t a monster. That she was like me and understood me as well as I did her. As I stood there, awkwardly shuffling my feet, I felt at peace with her, even if I knew she didn’t actually know me. I wasn’t even sure if she knew my name.

She was taking forever though.

I didn’t really know what I expected of her. Did I think she would just run away with me? I wouldn’t have complained if she wanted to though. She was beautiful and intelligent. We wouldn’t get bored. We could run off to some giant city and get lost there, starting entirely new lives from the bottom up. New names, new career paths, new goals. We could be friends, or even more.

I would have loved to be more.

I knew I didn’t deserve that though, I had done too much to be able to just ride off into the sunset. I wasn’t exactly religious but I knew I had sins that I needed to atone for.

The thought that she might be setting me up had flooded through my mind more than a few times. Maybe she was mad at me for knocking out her dad. She’d given me the money and what if she sent me out here so that she could tell her dad I’d stolen from them and knocked him out? He’d murder me. She could turn me in to the cops, the creepy dude who stood outside of her house all the time staring in. The guy who broke into their house.

She never asked for help. She never told me that she needed me to step in. She could side with her dad and decide it was all my fault. That it could have been settled if I hadn’t of escalated it. I couldn’t blame her for it if she did, brains are messy things.

Abuse victims can have weird ways of coping with having no control over their own lives.

The sound of the lamp cracking down on her father’s head mingled around with the other sleepless noises in my mind. They echoed there, feeding off my own self-doubt. I was a fighter, a trained fighter who knew the importance of using it as self-defense. There were other ways I could have handled that, other routes I could have taken to take the situation down a couple pegs. I hadn’t though, I chose to grab that lamp and knock him the fuck out. He hadn’t even had a gun in his hands or the safe open yet.

He couldn’t have defended himself. I could have just subdued him until they could call the cops. He would have been arrested, probably charged with abuse. Brooklyn wouldn’t have had to see me like that. I would have had to have been around cops, though, and at the moment I wasn’t so keen on that idea.

I remembered seeing him slap Brooklyn, her nose bloodied, and it eased up a small fraction of my guilt. Nobody who abuses their children deserves to have any. When you have kids, you’re agreeing that you’re going to care for them for life. You don’t get to be a coward and beat on them just because they’re there.

The shadows of the night drew longer, until only the streetlamps kept me company.

The short hairs on the back of my neck would rise and prickle against the collar of my shirt every time I’d hear a noise. The start of a car, the closing of a house door, someone talking. When cars passed by, I felt like their lights went right through me, exposing me for everything I’d done in the last day.

I felt my nerves setting in deeper and deeper until I was no longer content with just switching from foot to foot uncomfortably. I wasn’t sure if it was the paranoia from not sleeping the night before that had me antsy, but I couldn’t just stand there.

I had to move.

Trying to remember where exactly the bus station on Ash was, I started to walk along the shadows, not letting the lamps tattle out my whereabouts. Suddenly there were loud footsteps running up to me. For the second time that night, I steadied myself for a punch, or a police siren, or someone who had seen what I’d done, but when I turned it was only Brooklyn running towards me.

She was carrying a suitcase with a backpack strapped to her back, and my brain retraced the idea of her running away with me. Sometimes I still think about where our lives would be now if she had.

“Where are you going?” she asked, panting and setting down her suitcase for a moment to catch her breath. She’d been crying, her eyes were red and puffy. She was still so beautiful though.

“I thought you bailed,” I admitted, not wanting to lie to her. She looked affronted, and then sighed.

“Sorry, I got hung up,” she explained. I truly wasn’t upset with her.

“What’s with the suitcase?” I asked, not wanting to get my hopes up. We started walking together. She looked thoughtful for a moment before she gave me an answer.

“My mom and I have decided it’s best if I stay at my aunt’s for a little while,” she told me. I wasn’t sure that I understood.

The bus station was mostly run down. It sat on a large field that became the fairgrounds during half the weekends of the summer. Aside from us, there were a couple people already there; I could tell she wasn’t interested in talking while being that close to them. Maybe it was just that she didn’t want them seeing her talking to me.… I didn’t give that much thought. It wasn’t as alluring an idea as her running off with me had been.

The bus arrived quickly, and we sat at the back together, murmuring between the two of us.

“I don’t understand why you’re running off to your aunt’s to be honest,” I admitted, asking for more information. I didn’t think I deserved it, but I wanted it. She looked troubled.

“My mom said that when my dad wakes up he’s going to be furious, and he’ll need more time to cope,” Brooklyn explained, shifting in her seat. “I mean she isn’t wrong, he gets pissed if someone doesn’t check to make sure the door is locked every time we come inside,” she said, smiling awkwardly.

“I guess I could see that,” I said, although I didn’t completely get it. She just up and left her mom alone with him. I guess I didn’t blame her, she’d seen enough crap in the last afternoon. I watched her, distracting herself with the tag on her backpack, until my head started getting heavy and I needed to lean against the window for a break. I’d been awake for far too long and I wasn’t doing a good job of coping with it.

T
he bus shook madly
, like a clothes dryer with a brick in it, as it carried us through the dark summer night. Cities and towns slipped past us, unaware of what I’d seen, unaware of what we’d done. A slow, dull, migraine was starting behind my ears and creeping up through my head. I distracted myself by focusing on Adam’s bag in front of me.

It was gray and faded military green, aside from a strip that looked newer than the rest it was pretty scuffed up, like someone had ripped a patch off of it. I guessed it was a name patch, but it could have been anything. It didn’t look like he had packed much, not more than a couple outfits and maybe some shoes from the size of it. My head hummed in the dull ache, and brought forward a thought I hadn’t given time yet.

“Why were you there?” I murmured, sitting back and looking over at him. He’d been leaning his head against the window beside him, his breath forming clouds on the glass.

“Hm?” he asked, turning to me. He looked pretty damn tired.

“How did you know what was going on? I mean, don’t get me wrong,” I added, “I’m glad you were there. But why were you there?” I asked, watching his face carefully. I’d only seen him in school a couple times, I wasn’t even entirely sure of his name at that point. He looked troubled at my question, staring down at his hands in his lap for a moment.

“I sometimes just stop by to see if you’re okay,” he said, looking guilty.

“That’s stupid,” I said on instinct. I caught myself, hearing my mother's voice in my own, knowing it wasn’t right to say. “I’m not upset at you for it, but why? We’ve never even talked before. I don’t even know your name.” I didn’t understand. He looked put off, but understanding.

“I’m Adam Peterson,” he said, in what might have been the most delayed introduction in all time. “I saw a bruise on your arm before,” he explained, shaking his head and looking over at my face uneasily. “I know what abuse looks like, and I know how alone it makes you feel,” he said “I just wanted to be sure that if nobody else knew, at least you had someone looking out for you,” he finished, looking away again.

“How often did you do that?” I asked, not sure if I should even expect an honest answer. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure if I wanted one.

“Not that often, once a week tops,” he said, his face unreadable.

That gave me chills.

The problem was that I wasn’t sure if it was the thought of him watching my house—or what would have happened if he wasn’t watching. Sure, it’s not great that my home wasn’t as private as I thought, but if it was I might have been dead.

My dad might have gotten to his gun.

It could have been me lying in my own stink instead of him.

“Well, thank you,” I offered softly. He raised his eyebrows and looked over at me. I smiled softly in return, and let the corners of my lips tilt up slightly. There was something other than guilt weighing heavy on my chest, but I set it aside to think about later.

This strange boy had saved my life, and I owed him more than he knew.

My flight wasn’t until the next morning, but the airport was three hours from my home—the bus roared on as the only constant in my life in the moment. I would be in New York in the morning, starting a new life for myself out of what I could scramble together from my current one.

My mom was selfishly becoming the martyr. It might have been the headache, but this thought kept finding ways to seep into my mind. She got to keep her house, probably the cop boyfriend, be rid of dad, and she would get to say that she somehow saved me from a life of stigma. She got to have the good feeling of knowing that even though she was going to ditch me with him, in the end she got to make sure I was free. Too bad she didn’t know she was protecting the wrong person.

I looked over at Adam and couldn’t help but wonder if she would have done the same if she knew it was Adam that had done it. Would she have just called the cops then?

She had only packed for herself; she was going to take off without me. As I sat on the bus, anger mixing in with my anxiety, I began to wonder if sending me off to my aunt was just another way to get rid of me like she already obviously wanted to. She wasn’t going to take me with her if she left, why would she want me there if she stayed.

I couldn’t stand the idea of it.

Eventually the bus was nearing my stop, about ten minutes out, and I nudged Adam. He’d dozed off a couple hours into our trip. I couldn’t imagine how he could sleep after seeing what I did. Granted, he didn’t know my father was dead, but he’d just broken into a house and knocked a man out, and here he was snoozing away.

“Hey,” I said softly. He slowly woke up, his eyes dreamily blinking as he took in his surroundings. What a hell to wake up into.

“Hm?” he said, stretching a bit, his back cracking audibly.

“Here,” I said, pulling out the rest of the money my mother had given me. I still had my debit card to my parent’s account, my aunt was well off enough, and I had no doubt that my dad’s will had something to line my pockets at least a little.

“I can’t take this—” he started, waking the rest of the way up.

“No, here,” I said, unzipping his bag and sliding it in. “You saved my life,” I said softly, looking him directly in the face as I zipped his bag back closed. “Thank you,” I meant it. He looked like he understood.

When the bus got to my stop I only said a short goodbye before lugging my things away. How did I deserve for someone like him to find me and save me. I felt beyond lucky, like I shouldn’t have gotten off the bus, but I had a plane to catch in the morning.

The motel I got off at looked more than shady. The sign out front flickered like it was luring in more insects than people. I asked about a phone and the clerk motioned me over to a hallway.

“Hey mom,” I said softly when she answered. The phone’s receiver smelled like vinegar and a cheap cleaning solution, I didn’t let it touch my face.

“Hi honey,” she said, her fake voice. She sounded like she’d spent the day at a spa, not in the same house as her dead abusive husband after cheating on him.

“So, what’s going on?” I asked, feeling like I needed to be careful of what I said specifically. I wasn’t sure if there was the possibility of anyone else on the line. I was angry at her for acting like it was so normal, like it didn’t affect her. It was tearing me up and she sounded like it never even freaking happened.

“Well, the cops have been gone for a couple hours,” she said thoughtfully. “They’re trying to keep it quiet, even asked if I wanted to stay in a hotel, that they’d pay for it. I just. I want to be here tonight, it’s so peaceful now,” she continued. I was shocked that she already called them. I hadn’t expected her to be home if the cops knew what was going on.

“They’re keeping it quiet?” I asked, willfully ignoring the rest of what she said.

“Yeah. Mostly because of Jim, they didn’t want it getting out that he was sleeping with me right before I had to defend myself from my husband,” she sounded like she was completely convinced of this series of events. She talked like she’d actually killed the bastard.

“So they’re not going to have you charged with anything?” a small relief.

“No, not that I know of yet—why would they? I was defending myself,” she replied sternly.

Her complete conviction to it threw me off and made me question the night as well.

“Baby doll, your flight is early in the morning. It’s all handled, just go and have a good time with Jo,” she said, I heard a clink in the background of glass touching glass and it made sense. She was drunk, of course.

“Alright, I’ll call you in the next couple days then,” I said, I knew it was an empty promise the moment it passed through my lips. We said our goodbyes and hung up, and I checked in. The motel was run down, but as I hit the bed, sliding under sheets of questionable cleanliness, I was relieved and relaxed. The day was over, and I’d only have to deal with it in memory.

I fell into a deep and immediate sleep.