Dodging Trains (26 page)

We’re the same.

“I didn’t leave that bathroom unscathed and pissed. I left it wrecked, hours later, on an end station way past Rigita. Because even though he finished fast and got off the train, I was never done cleaning myself up.”

I wiggle closer, the sheets slipping down. My nudity is nothing compared to Keyon’s. He’s a rape victim like me, a survivor like me, a man working fiercely to feel like a man after what he has been through.

I understand. Oh I understand.

This beautiful survivor once urged me to keep fighting, while every day he fought his own battle to keep the trauma under wraps. Keyon’s mind spun up stories that were easier to bear than the truth.

“He ejaculated inside me, that son of a bitch. I spent hours cleaning up. Blood, semen—hours with water, toilet paper, soap, so much soap. Anyway.” He draws wet air in through his nose, accepting my arms around his waist as I lay my head in his lap. I close my eyes, feeling the tremors in his body.

“That’s why you were gone from school for a week.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you tell your parents?”

“I told no one. I was going to handle it. I’d be fine. With it, I took the last of the homo allegations at school too. There’d be no more bullying for looking like something I wasn’t.”

“You were hurt. How…?” I mumble against his stomach. He knows what I mean, knows we’ve both been there.

“I found remedies in Ma’s cabinet, painkillers, leftover antibiotics and such. I was still in a lot of pain when I came back to school though.”

“And then you wasted no time becoming the new bully,” I say. “Everyone was afraid of you. And you didn’t care that the principal kept calling your parents over your infractions.”

“I didn’t give a shit about anything but asserting myself. I needed revenge, and I took it from whomever was in my way.”

“Did you ever search for him?” I ask.

“No. The only fear I had left was of the train creep cornering me and attacking me again. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

I wind my arms tighter around his hips, my own past seeping in strong. “I bet it was the same guy who abused us,” I murmur. Our connection rushes in, the pull so strong it vibrates in my chest. Keyon must feel it too, because he brings me up into his arms, buries his face against my throat, and rocks me close.

“We’re survivors, Paislee. The fittest survive. That’s us.”

“You told me to keep fighting every day.” I’m hoarse with tears. “You said it because you do too.”

He lets out what should be a laugh. It’s not. “I guess. Shit, I wish I could wind back time and do something about what happened. I can’t. I can do nothing.”

We don’t make love before we go to sleep. Right now, I don’t care about day and night; the world doesn’t need us, and we need it less. He holds me with my arms soldered around his neck, and with the grey of morning tickling the curtains, I slip into unconsciousness.

In the afternoon, I come to with Keyon rising from the bed and taking the room in three strides. He grabs clothing, drags them over his head, and pulls them up his legs.

“Keyon?” I say.

When he swings to me, I see that everything has changed.

PAISLEE

B
reakfast in the restaurant is amazing.
Awesome. Delicious. Especially made for the fighter who won and got up late. Keyon makes sure the rest of our group attends too, and soon I realize that he doesn’t want to be alone with me.

We sit next to each other, but his hand is never in my lap, drawing mine to his thigh. His eyes don’t rest on me, don’t stray to my cleavage, and he doesn’t lift his brows in a suggestive arc.

Keyon isn’t playful and happy. He speaks business with the guys and fills my coffee when the waiter isn’t there to assist. I’m nibbling on a Danish, my appetite dwindling with my lover’s behavior.

I rise to go to the restroom, the first time Keyon looks up from his discussions about moves gone wrong yesterday and Vegas events coming up next. He doesn’t comment on my exit but acknowledges my return by retracting his vigilant gaze from the doorway as soon as I am back.

Hearts can feel heavy, and mine does so now. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.

At the end of the meal, he turns fully to me. With the guys still there, still around us, he stares me right in the eye like I’m a contender for a fight purse.

“There’s been a change. I have to go back to Tampa immediately so I can start preparing for the first Vegas match. I’m getting in the zone again, starting ASAP, so I need to cancel the hotel at the beach.”

I feel my eyes go wide. I don’t have anything to say when his hands remain around his coffee, holding it still instead of reaching for me.

There is no
“I’m sorry, baby. I’ll make it up to you”
when he packs his bags in our hotel room and obliterates the time we shared there.

He doesn’t say,
“I’ll fly you out. We’ll be together soon,”
when Markeston’s limo takes him alone to the airport for a flight that leaves before mine.

There’s just me, little me, at the elevator doors, watching him stare at lit-up numbers while the doors close between us. Me full of questions I don’t know how to ask.

I’m Paislee, the town slut, and I put my heart out there to be stomped on. I got so much and then so little. It all disappeared, and I didn’t see where it went.

My change and my future. My connection and my love. It all
poofed
off faster than a shot-down star across the winter sky of my hometown. So here I am, not at all ready, and yet it’s time for me to go home.

I talk to my mother a lot,
but this is too much; I’d need to reveal Keyon’s story for her to help me understand. He didn’t tell me to keep quiet, but despite his treatment, I can’t talk. I’m the only one who knows what happened to him. How can I share when he doesn’t?

I used to live in the bubble he’s in, of being the only one aware of a deed you couldn’t avoid—
you, a recipient of inescapable, everlasting filth.

I message Cugs on Facebook, never getting a reply. It wouldn’t surprise me if he blocked me. I try to keep a few days between each time, but it’s hard when you need someone as much as I need him.

I send my brother a sentence here and there. It’s always light:
We made a mirror named
Botticelli
today—you’d like my crazy boss.
And,
I found a place that serves green mint caf
fe lattes. I might try one if you dared me.

And I spend time at Mom’s house. This isn’t typical, because as much as I love her, she can be a lot with her chatty personality.

My old room is still intact. She uses it as her combined sewing room and office, but my childhood bed always stands freshly made, and my shimmery fairy-curtains, so out of place for Icicle Land, swing in front of the windows whenever she commits one of her signature airings out of the house in the dead of winter.

I haven’t been prone to depression since I was a teenager, not since I found out how to deal with my story, but now, after admitting to myself that I’m in love, I’ve regressed to that destructible stage. For a while there, I became a one-man woman, and now I’m paying the price.

I don’t hear much from Keyon. I can’t bear the thought of his answer, so I don’t ask him about our status. We’ve talked on the phone since Mexico, but it’s hardly been productive. He’s taciturn and aloof, only animated when he talks about Markeston’s promotional genius and the latest antics of Zeke or Jaden. I keep a glass of water close by for a swallow if I feel like crying at his lack of emotion.

I’m on my bed in Mom’s house, trying again. Mostly, my calls go to voicemail, but tonight Keyon answers. My heart does an enormous bounce. It might be landing in my esophagus, because it spasms.

“Paislee? Are you okay?” he asks. It’s always his first question when he’s there to pick up the phone. When he’s not, he texts me later, wanting reassurance that I am indeed fine.

“Yeah,” I say and feel the loss of him again. We’re reduced to this—quick health updates over the phone. “How are you?”

“Good. Training like a madman. I practically live at the Cage Warriors.”

“How’s Simon doing? Is he missing me?” I ask, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks at expressing an intimacy we haven’t uttered in weeks.

Air hits the microphone on his side. I’m thinking it’s a silent chortle, but he catches himself before I can fully enjoy it. “That boy, always trying to steal the chicks from under my nose.”

I cherish the undertone in his voice. “He’s a charmer,” I say. “Betcha he’s got a shot with most of the girls. So silky and well-groomed. That look in his eyes. You’ve got nothing on your roommate.”

There’s a suppressed grunt coming through the speaker. He can’t hide his amusement this time, and it makes me high-five myself inwardly.

“What are we doing, Keyon?” I burst out and want to slap myself. Why? Where did that come from? Just, I can’t live like this either. I don’t know what to expect, how to go on in limbo—I have no experience.

At work, Mack keeps staring me down, keeps asking how I am. I still get text messages on my phone. Friends call to see if I’m available for dates, and—

I’ve never felt this alone.

I hide in my hands, trying to keep the despair at bay.

“Paislee, I’m sorry. I’m not being a good boyfriend.”

Fear pricks my spine, so I say, “No, I live so far away, and you’re busy making the cut in Vegas.” I can’t stomach the thought of changing status quo. What do I do if it’s over? Who will I be?

Paislee, you’ll be
yourself
.

I sob. I truly sob. It’s not the understated sounds I’ve disguised on our phone calls earlier.

“
TELL
me how you are,” he growls. “I don’t want stories—”

“How do you
think
I feel, Keyon?” I shout. “You left me in Mexico with some mumbo jumbo about you needing to prepare for Vegas after sharing the best night in my life.”

How can something echo off the wall in such a small room? How can it reverberate in one’s ears after simply expressing it on a phone?

I cry now, regretting my words. I’m scared of the repercussions they will have. He’s going to tell me what I can’t hear, and suddenly I’m glad that my mother is in the den so I don’t have to be alone.

“Are you seeing someone else?”

“What?”

“I said, ‘Are you seeing someone else,’ Paislee?” He sounds like I’m not the only one about to lose my shit right now.

“How can that be the first thing you think of? Are
you,
Keyon? Are you going to Stripes and grabbing girls with Jaden and Zeke? Are you guys having sleepover dates with Hooter chicks?” I lash out.

“No, I’m not. I told you: all I do is train. Train, train, train.”

“Which I have nothing against!”

It’s quiet on the other end. God, I’m hating this. I want to drive to the airport and get on a plane. I want to throw myself into his arms, maybe hurt him–physically.

“We’re fighting,” he tells me. “I don’t think I can do this.”

I have dark, ugly thoughts swirling in my head. They are frustration and heartbreak, and Keyon can’t say another word or I’ll—

“You pussy!” I explode. “You’re such a pussy. After everything I’ve been through—after what
you’ve
been through—how can you be such a pussy? Sure, go hang with your buddies, why don’t you. Fight the stars, strangle the hell out of them and make them bleed until they give up, all right?

“Why don’t you spend all your precious time on that, because God forbid you squander courage on a girl who fell in love with you. That could have scary repercussions.”

“Paislee—”

“
You!
Started this. Remember how you butted in and dragged me out of that coffee shop on Halloween? I would have been perfectly fine with my computer geek.”

“I know…” He trails off sounding like he’s at fault, and damn if that isn’t the reddest flag. He should have sounded happy.

“You spoiled me.”

“What?”

“You made me think I was worth something.”

“Paislee, you’re priceless. You don’t even know how much I value you.”

“Then
how are you treating me like this?”

He destroys me. He can’t make me feel better. There is nothing in Keyon these days that could make me feel better. “I don’t know what happened that last day in Mexico. I don’t know why we didn’t go to the coast, why we didn’t relax and hang out and have all the sex and bathe in tropical waters. I can’t do this anymore.”

I need us to be over.

“Honey?” Mom pokes her head in, loud, apologetic, and revealing how she’s eavesdropped on me. “Dinner’s ready. I’ve got the candles lit.”

Mom’s added flair of nonexistent candles stops my train wreck from unfolding. Because her advice has never led me wrong, I say goodbye to Keyon before I break all ties between us once and for all.