Lie to Me (3 page)

And I’m the guy who’s still dumb enough to get closer, because I can’t fucking help it.

I’m not thinking about my job as I walk towards her. I’m not thinking about my plan. I’m not thinking about anything but Harlow as I stoop to get her umbrella.

And then she meets my eyes, and I’m done.

Here’s what I see, all at once: I see her pain, I see her anger, and I meet it with my own. I know there’s no way she can hate me as much as I hate myself. I see the nakedness of it, the fearlessness of it, the way she was always unafraid to feel the worst things life had to offer.

And for one split second, I see that she misses me. And that’s it. That’s what undoes everything. That one sliver of a second chance, shining softly in front of me, and everything inside me reaches for it.

And then she runs.

Harlow Chase runs.

I’m so surprised by it that I don’t even move immediately; I just stand there, stupid. And by the time it clicks, she’s jumping on that bus and the doors are closing, and I’m just thinking: No. This is Harlow. And Harlow doesn’t run away from anything.

I don’t even chase after her because I want something from her. I chase after her because I want to give her the chance to do it differently. Slap me in the face, kick me in the balls, tell me the hard truth—any of that would be better than this, this thing that scares me more than anything, this thing that makes me think she has no more fight in her.

It’s all wrong.

I’ve done more bad things than I like to think about, working for Alex, and the very worst thing I ever did was leave Harlow the way I did. But for some reason none of it clicks fully into place until I see the consequences of all those things right in front of me. Until I see Harlow running away, as if she weren’t the strongest woman in the world, as if she had anything to fear. And right then it sets a fire inside me: I have to make it right. I have to do it
now.
No more fucking waiting, no more planning. I have to make her whole.

I have to make us both whole.

And now I’m running. I’m pounding on the door of that goddamn bus, thinking about that look, that moment where she forgot to hate me the way I deserve to be hated and was just happy to see me. Thinking about what she used to look like when I made her happy. When I made her come.

Five years away from Harlow and working for Alex Wolfe has turned me into a ruthless son of a bitch. I will do anything to get what I want. And this ruthless son of a bitch wants Harlow Chase.

Fuck this bus. Fuck this bridge. Fuck me, too, because I’m still running, sprinting past the joggers in their reflective jerseys plodding through the rain, dodging a dude on a bike, and now it’s just me and the open walkway on the bridge, no other people. Just me and the bus I’m going to catch.

Legs pumping. Lungs burning. Hands shaking, I’m working so hard, pushing through, further into the pain, as far as I can go, because as that bus gets farther and farther away I know: this is how I should feel. The pain feels good, it feels right, like I should feel this every goddamn moment of every goddamn day, a reminder of the pain I’ve caused her.

I run harder.

I think about the first time that I saw Harlow, and I run harder.

***

All the other days that I spent at Pop’s Gym, they blur together, the way that kind of thing does. One workout isn’t so different from another; one day of training ’til you throw up is basically the same as any other.

Except for the day she showed up.

All the girls in my high school, the pretty ones, the ones who looked old enough to do the things the fighters at my gym wanted to do with them, they’d all show up after school and hang out right outside with those jeans on while we sweated in the sun. You’d get heat stroke and a boner.

I was used to it. Kind of a perk of the boxing thing. I’d had most of those girls already, would have them again when I wanted, wasn’t interested in much more. I was always honest about it. But the older guys at Pop’s Gym? They’d been
around
. And I’d see those girls trying to look older than they were, but still thinking about writing a dude’s name on their school notebook with hearts around it and shit, and it was just like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Like throwing Bambi in with some wolves.

So I’d warn ‘em once, then stay the hell away. Not my business. Generally I just put my head down and hit the bag harder, knowing I had to push myself, had to get great. I had an exhibition match coming up against Manny Dolan, this guy who was about to go pro. And I wanted it. I wanted it so bad, I’d bite my cheek while I worked until I  tasted blood. I was sure my dad would have to come to this one; the whole damn gym was talking about it. And I wasn’t going to lose.

So the fact that I looked up and paid attention to anybody else at all was practically a miracle. I was training day and night, sweat stinging my eyes, gut churning, thinking about nothing else but winning that fight in front of my father, not giving a crap about all the flirtatious bullshit going on around me, all that jailbait trouble. And then the bell went off, I looked up, and there she was.

Blonde girl, skinny, kinda young. Like an awkward colt, not fully grown, but not a girl, either. Definitely not a girl. Grown enough to get the attention of the fighters, young enough for it to piss me off. She didn’t stand like a girl, though, unsure of herself or how to hold her body. She stood like she owned the ground she was standing on. Sun glaring off that pale skin, eyes narrowed, hair shining. And she wasn’t there looking for a man’s attention, either. She was watching us work like she was trying to figure out how it was done.

I don’t know. I’ve thought about it many times since then. Why I went over there on that day. What it was about her. I think I just had to know more.

And then I got up close, and she hit me with those eyes.

I don’t know how to describe it. It wasn’t all sexual, even then. I’ll admit that was part of it. But there was something so nakedly unashamed about how she looked at me, those baby blues taking everything in, and not reacting like anyone else did. Not reacting to who she thought I was, like those other girls at school, talking to me like they were desperate to get with me, or the guys in the gym, giving me shit until I proved myself. Or my father, pretending not to see me at all.

It made me want to know her. And it made me want to protect her.

Then I got an even better look at how beautiful she was, and how young, and I thought about all the other fighters in the gym looking at her, making cracks, and I got mad.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her. I didn’t even introduce myself, just got right into it. She looked up at me like I was nuts.

The bell rang. I was missing a round on the bag. I never missed rounds.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” she said.

“These aren’t nice guys,” I said to her.

“So? I’m not here for them.”

She was tough. I liked it.

“You sure?” I asked. “Your friends are.”

She kind of screwed up her lip, looked over at Rosa and a girl called Katya, the girls who ran their crew over at Lafayette High. Now that I was looking a little bit closer I could see she was with them, but maybe not one of them. I don’t know—female drama was always complicated.

“Well, I was curious,” the girl said. “I think boxing’s cool. I’m not looking for a date or anything.”

“They don’t know that,” I told her, looking back at the guys working the bags.

She bristled, maybe because she knew I was right.

“I’ve got a swift kick to the ‘nads for them if they need convincing,” she said.

I laughed. “I’m Marcus.”

“Harlow,” she said, and she smiled at me for the first time, and I swear to God the whole world got brighter. My lips smiled back all on their own, creaking on the way, because I didn’t do a whole lot of that back then.

“Why are you really here?” I asked her. “You want to fight?”

She was quiet a moment. Then she shrugged and said, “Yes.”

Man, I was almost kidding. I don’t even know why I said it. Pops was old school, not the kind of guy to let a female fighter in his gym. I’d never thought about it much before, but thinking about it now, I didn’t like it. I wanted this girl at the gym.

She was looking at me, too, like she didn’t know if she could ask.

“You want me to talk to Pops for you?” I said.

“You would do that?”

She smiled shyly at me, and I tried to ignore how it made me feel—good, like I had done something worthwhile. Man, all I’d done was ask a question. I shook my head, tore off the velcro strap of my gloves with my teeth, let my hands air out.

“Don’t get excited,” I told her. “Pops is old.”

“So?” she asked.

“So I’ve never seen a woman in this gym, ever,” I said.

“Then there’s got to be a first,” she said, looked me in the eye, and laughed a crooked little laugh. Her eyes were twinkling, I swear. One moment she’s young and scared, pretending to be tough, and then the next she does something like that, laugh up at me like she can’t wait to cause trouble, and it’s like she knows far more of the world than she lets on. First too young, because two years can be a long ass time when you’re in high school, then too damn beautiful. All the time seeing through me.

That was my first hit of Harlow. That was the first time I saw how beautiful she really was. And I didn’t know what I was feeling, but no way in hell I was going to let any other man get at her. No way I was going to let anyone else mess with her. I was fucking mesmerized.

I liked the idea of her learning how to defend herself, I’ll tell you that.

“Yeah, I’ll talk to Pops,” I said. “Come on.”

It was my fault, no doubt, opening the gate and leading her through the parking lot and in through the open double doors of the gym, feeling all of those male eyes on her and just having to take it. If I did it again, fully grown and knowing what’s what, I’d have knocked every single one of those guys the fuck out.

But like an idiot who still believed in the men he looked up to, I actually thought Pops would help her.

“No,” Pops said, looking at me like I was crazy, shaking his head. “No, no good.”

Normally you didn’t argue with Pops. His gym, his rules, his way. But it was almost like I couldn’t believe he’d heard right, that’s how wrong he was.

“Just give her a chance,” I said, looking down at Harlow. “You work hard, right? You don’t slack off.”

“I always work hard,” she said. But her voice was softer.

“No,” Pops said, angry now, the way he got when a fighter broke his diet or didn’t show any heart. He was shaking his head back and forth, coming out from behind the front desk, waving his arms to get us to go back outside. “What kind of girl wants to fight? Don’t bring this in here, no, no good,” he said again.

Looking at me like
he
was the one who was disappointed.

And Pops didn’t even look at Harlow. Treated her like she was invisible, not even worth talking to. I looked down at Harlow and I recognized the expression on her face, and that’s when I realized I got it. That’s how I would have looked if he’d shut the door in my face when I’d come to the gym. Pissed off and hurt and disappointed and, above all that, humiliated. Cut down.

That’s how I felt around my dad all the damn time.

So it’s what she did next that sold me.

Right in the middle of that disappointment and hurt, she crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at Pops’s back as he walked away.

Now, I know it sounds stupid. It was stupid, yeah. And it sounds juvenile, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t a serious response to a serious thing, it was like…man, I don’t know how to tell it. It was like she took this unfair bullshit and treated it with the seriousness it deserved, which was none at all. Like she took that humiliation you feel when someone treats you like less than what you are and disarmed it with just a silly face.

That’s not something I knew how to do. She taught it to me. I didn’t know it then, but I think that’s when I started to fall in love with her.

And then she looked at me and smiled as we walked back out, still trying to hide that disappointment. She said, “He’s never heard of feminism?”

I wasn’t the most educated guy in the world, but I at least knew enough to laugh at that idea.

“Maybe I should go back and burn my bra,” she said.

I stopped and held the gate open for her, and, I admit it, I looked down. Maybe she wasn’t grown into her limbs, long arms, long legs, and all that, but damn she was grown into that chest. Jesus.

“I’m not gonna let you do that,” I said gruffly.

She smirked up at me. “Maybe I should go back and burn
his
bra.”

For the second time that day, I smiled wide and laughed. Pops had let himself go and had grown himself some man-titties, as the other fighters called them—but never to his face.

Then she got real serious. Softly she said, “Thank you.”

Right then, my heart cracked open a little bit, and she got in. She got right in. And I opened my mouth and said, “I could train you. You come in the mornings, no one else is here but me, I could train you. Just don’t tell anyone.”

And she said yes.

***

That’s what I’m thinking about as I run across that bridge in the rain, my eyes locked on the back of that bus like a goddamned heat-seeking missile, refusing to lose her again, even if it’s only temporary. This is where I draw the line of screwing up, of losing Harlow, and that’s why I’m running. And I’m thinking about the first time she cracked open my heart, and then the last time, which was just a few minutes ago, when she danced in the rain with a little girl and then looked at me like she missed me. After how I left her, after what I’ve done and what I’ve failed to do, she still feels for me. My heart is broken open and filling with happiness, or the memory of happiness, for the first time in five long years. My rotten, withered, crusted over heart is warm again, and it feels good. And I know I don’t deserve it, but I don’t care: I want more.

I yell out into the rain, glad to feel the burn in my legs and my lungs, dare my body to fail me, and run harder. I will catch her. I will.