Knockout (25 page)

“Let me inside before I get mugged,” Laney demanded.

She pushed past me into my apartment.

I swung the door closed irritably. “Laney, I don’t live in the ghetto. Give me a break. It’s a nice neighborhood.”

“Our definitions of ‘nice’ are very different.”

“Did you come here to judge my home or yell at me? Cause it sounded like you were going to yell at me.”

“No,” she said, her voice suddenly soft. She spun around to face me and I sighed when I saw the tears forming in her eyes. “I came to cry on your shoulder.”

“What happened?”

Her lower lip quivered. She breathed in shakily through her nose, snorting slightly. “He left me!”

“What?”

She breathe/snorted again. “Kellen left me! He broke off the engagement!”

I stared at her in shock. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it when they got engaged and I really couldn’t believe that he had called it off. Part of me soared inside as some kind of sick hope took hold of me while another part plummeted, dropping like a heavy stone of dread in my gut.

“What happened?” I asked softly.

“He’s lost his mind, that’s what!”

“Okay, stop yelling, sit down and tell me what happened.”

She collapsed on my couch, only giving it a vague look of disdain. Ikea wasn’t her thing, I knew that.

“He’s been different since the accident. You’ve seen it.”

“Yeah, he’s not quite himself.”

“Well, I thought it was just a phase. That it would pass. He’s been going to rehab and working on building his strength back. They’ve been working on his mind too. He was so worried he couldn’t practice law anymore. He talked about quitting!”

“Yelling,” I reminded her, wincing again.

“Sorry. But he’s been getting so much better. He’s not exactly where he was before but he was a freaking genius before. He can stand to be a little…”

“Dumber?”

“No. But less intelligent. It doesn’t make him stupid. He’s still smarter than most people out there. But he doesn’t want to hear it. He said he’s quitting law. He said it isn’t what he wants to do with his life anyway.”

I chewed on the inside of my lip, feeling nervous. This was a huge life change for him. He’d spent years in college and who knew how much money working toward this goal. He was already a member of my dad’s firm. I was shocked and amazed that he was going to give it all up. But then again, he’d given up boxing too. I was beginning to worry if he didn’t stop quitting on things there’d be nothing of him left. But maybe that was the plan. Maybe this was what hitting the reset button looked like.

“Well, if he isn’t happy doing it then that’s a good thing, right?”

“No!” Laney cried. “What is he going to do now? Work at McDonald’s?”

“I doubt that.”

“Who knows? I don’t think he even knows. I asked him what he was going to do instead and he couldn’t answer me. He just shut down. Went silent. Finally I asked him if there was anything he wanted to do. Anything that he liked anymore because it seems to me he hates everything lately. Do you know what his answer was?”

“Boxing.”

She stared at me for a moment, surprised, though I didn’t know why she would be. To me the answer was so obvious.

“Yeah,” she finally muttered. “He wants to box again. I told him fine, whatever, go back to the gym and get back in shape but you can’t make a career out of that. How is that going to pay the bills? He said he doesn’t know, that’s not why he wants to do it. That he’d find a full time job doing something, but that his free time was going to be spent boxing again and he’d never have that free time being a lawyer. So just like that he’s making minimum wage and we’re living in a place like this—“

“Thanks for that.”

“And I’m clipping coupons and making Ramen Noodles. Who can live like that?”

I raised my hand silently but she ignored me. I let it drop by my side.

“That’s not what we had talked about. It’s not what we had planned.”

“Plans change. His whole life changed the day he was in that accident, Lane. If you love the man, you have to love all of him. And this is part of him. A big part.”

“But this isn’t the man I was going to marry,” she says weakly, wiping tears from under her eyes.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t be marrying him,” I told her gently.

She laughed harshly. “I’m not. He broke it off. He said he cared about me and that he always would, but he wasn’t ready to marry me or anyone. He said he had a lot to figure out and he didn’t think we were right for each other. You know what? I don’t think so either! I’m not marrying some boxing bum working at
Denny’s
with no life goals and no…”

“Money?”

She glared at me. “It matters, okay. It matters to me. Some people care about religion, some people care about politics, I care about money. I want to know I’m financially safe, how is that a bad thing?”

“You could make yourself financially safe, then it wouldn’t matter if the guy is.”

“I went to college,” she snapped, standing suddenly and sliding her purse over her arm. “I’ll get a job. People need to leave me the hell alone about that. Look, I have to go. I have an engagement ring to sell. Maybe I’ll have it turned into earrings or a necklace.”

I stood as well, surprised that she was suddenly leaving. “You’re not going to give it back to him?”

“He doesn’t want it. He said it was mine to do what I wanted with. All the furniture we bought together too. It’s the least he can do. Dad already bought my dress and we’re losing money on deposits. This break up is costing a fortune.”

“Less than a wedding followed by a divorce would have.”

“I guess. I’m meeting mom for breakfast before I go to the jewelers. Do you want to come?” She looked at my hair which I imagined was insane. She grinned. “I could wait while you shower.”

I chuckled, patting my hair down uselessly. “No, I’m not hungry. You guys have fun. And, Lane, I’m sorry. I know you must be hurting.”

“Yeah,” she agreed softly. “Thanks. Can I get a hug?”

“Of course.”

It was rare for us. I wasn’t the affectionate type but that day I hugged my sister tightly and told her as convincingly as I could that everything would be okay. And I believed it. I really felt like they were better off apart. I wasn’t thinking then of what that would mean for Kellen and I because I was sticking to my theory that people do not change. Just because Kellen had finally gotten tired of being told what to do and what to wear and where to go, that didn’t mean he was a changed man. That just meant he was a man. One that was taking his life back one chunk at a time.

***

“You heard the news?” dad asked.

I tipped my beer to my lips, nodding emphatically. “Oh yeah. Loudly.”

“She was yelling, huh?”

“As she so loves to do.”

Dad flipped through the channels lazily, never committing to anything. “It makes it more dramatic. I heard legitimate wailing the night it happened.”

“Poor Laney.”

“She’ll be fine.”

I looked at him, surprised. “You’re being very okay with all of this.”

“So are you."

“Maybe, yeah, but shouldn’t you be angry? A guy broke your daughter’s heart.”

“Normally I’d be furious but they've broken up so many times before, after a while you start to get used to it. The surprise wears off."

"I don't think they're getting back together this time. Since the accident Kellen hasn't been putting up with her drama."

"Hopefully not. I'd like to see them both move on. Stop the cycle."

"Yeah, I guess," I muttered.

Now dad looked at me with surprise. “You don't have an opinion on this?”

I shrugged. “Not one that matters.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“It’s none of my business.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Quit asking me that,” I snapped.

“Answer me and I will.”

I didn’t answer him. I stared at the TV and I sipped my beer wishing I'd lied. I was good at it by now.

I'm happy for them.

Congrats on the engagement.

No, we're just friends.

“Jenna,” dad said patiently.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Nope.”

“You’re in love with him.”

I closed my eyes hard, willing this world to go away. I wasn’t surprised he knew. He’d hinted at it over the years but he always left it alone. We all did that. Just let it lie there in the middle of the room where everyone could see it but no one talked about it. I was so tired. I was tired of wishing and wanting. I was tired of pretending it was okay, of being happy about things I hated.

“Jenna,” he said again.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Okay.”

I looked at him hesitantly. “Okay? That’s it?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Shouldn’t you say it’s wrong? That he’s Laney’s, or at least he was.”

“I don’t think it’s wrong, but it doesn’t matter what I think.”

“It does to me.”

Dad laughed quietly.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing. Kellen said the exact same thing.”

“When?”

He glanced at me, a grin still on his face. “When he told me he loved you.”

I stared at him, shocked.

“He hasn’t told you that, has he?”

I shook my head.

“But you know it. You’ve known it for a long time.”

I shook my head again. Dad frowned.

“Yeah, you do. Honey, I’ll tell you what I told him. No one knows what or who is right for you but you. I can’t tell you where to go or how to live. I definitely can’t tell you who to love.” He looked at me pointedly. “Neither can your mom. You’ve got to figure all that out for yourself and make your life what you want it to be. And you need to do it fearlessly. You can’t waste your time worrying what anyone else is going to think. You can’t be who or what anyone else wants you to be.”

“But what if I’m the girl in love with her sister’s ex-fiancé?” I whispered.

“Then that’s who you are and you need to own it. I’m not going to tell you that loving him is wrong and I’m not going to tell you that it’s right. But I will tell you this – it’s time to shit or get off the pot.”

I laughed shakily. “What?’

“It’s what I told him. You and Kellen have been dancing around each other for years. Pull the trigger or put down the gun, but it’s time to make a decision.”

“What did he say to that?”

Dad picked up his beer, a faint smile on his lips as he pressed the bottle to them.

“Bang, bang.”

The smell of sweat hit me hard as it always did. I'd never get used to it. The rough men with the busted lips, swollen eyes and cagey stares, that I could handle, that I saw at the shop on the regular, but the smell was too much.

What hit me second was Kellen. He was a standout in the room, and not just to me. As the other men moved around the gym I could see them eyeing him surreptitiously. They were watching his workout, his moves,
and his hits because he was the big fish in this piranha infested tank and he’d been out of the game for a while. Everyone was watching for a weakness.

I spotted him immediately in the crowd where he stood with his back to the door, his shirt off and sweat glistening off the muscles of his back as he worked a worn, black bag. I walked slowly toward him, watching as he moved, gauging his throws the same way the others were. He was at the end of the workout. He was getting tired. He was also holding back.

"You’re hesitating.”

He paused, his wrapped hands stilling the bag as it swung from his last punch.

“You saw it?” he asked over his shoulder, not turning to look at me.

“The entire gym can see it. You’re right hand still hurts, doesn’t it?”

He turned to face me, flexing the hand out and nodding curtly. His eyes scanned the room.

“It’s healing,” he responded loudly.

I stepped close, lowering my voice to barely a whisper. “Is that true?”

“No,” he murmured. “It’s as healed as it’s ever going to be.”

“How bad does it hurt?”

“Enough.”

“What are you going to do?”

His eyes flashed. “I’m not going to quit.”

“No joke. I meant how are you going to adjust? Can you go Southpaw?”

“I don’t know. It’d be tough.”

“Tougher than fighting through the pain? One bout and everyone will know your right hand is weaksauce. You gotta flip a bitch, go left handed. Anyone who knows you will be thrown by it.”

He grinned. “Are you my coach now?”

“I’ll gladly start charging.”

“I think you make plenty.”

“Not half as much as you.”

He lowered his eyes, tugging at the tape on his right hand. “Twice as much as me now.”

“I heard you quit,” I said gently.

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to do instead?”

He snorted, bringing his eyes back to mine. “Laney didn’t tell you?”

“No, because
you
didn’t tell
Laney.
She said you wouldn’t answer her.”

He nodded silently.

“What then?”

“Ugh,” he groaned, taking a step back and roaming his eyes over the ceiling.

I waited patiently. I could tell this was a conversation he was sick of having with Laney, probably with my mom, maybe with my dad and definitely with himself. But still I waited.

“I’m not sure yet,” he said finally.

“You have no idea?”

“I have some. I’m working on them. Feeling them out.”

“Okay,” I said easily, bending down to pick up a pair of punch mitts off a bench. “Let’s go.”

“What are you doing?”

“This is next right? After the bag?”

He shook his head, watching me put the mitts on. “How do you remember that?”

“I was only here for every bout, Kel,” I said, laughing at his surprise. “I watched your warm-ups. I’ve watched you work out a couple times. It’s called paying attention.”

“I don’t know if I pay attention to anyone that closely.”

I shook my hair out of my face and squared my shoulders, bringing up the mitts for him to hit.

“What’s my favorite color?” I asked, shaking my hands to encourage him to start hitting.

He went into his stance. “Purple.”

“Favorite band?”

Punch.

“
Sublime
,” he said, his eyes going focused and intense.

“Favorite food?”

Punch.

“Chinese.”

Punch.

“Noodles and teriyaki chicken,” he specified.

Punch.

“How do I like my popcorn?”

“Dry and salty.”

Punch, Punch.

“What’s—“

“You giggle in your sleep sometimes,” he said suddenly, spinning us around. I turned to follow him, keeping the mitts in his range.
Punch.
“You drive with your hands at 3 and 11 instead of 10 and 2.”
Punch
. “You only turn the volume to odd numbers.”
Punch.
“When you draw or paint, you stick the tip of your tongue out the corner of your mouth.”
Punch. Punch.
“But when you tattoo you chew on your bottom lip.”
Punch.
“Your sister drives you crazy but you love her.”
Punch.
“You’d give up anything to see her happy.” He stopped, pulling up to his full height and dropping his hands. “Even something you want.”

I pressed the mitts together, staring at him as he saw me through and through.

“See,” I said quietly, “you pay very close attention.”

“Are you still mad at me?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I wasn’t mad at you. I’m disappointed. In both of us.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I didn’t plan that.”

“I was in that room too. You weren’t alone in what happened.”

He stared at me for a long time. I looked back, waiting for him to move us past this.

“Jen, I don’t know where we go from here.”

And there it was.

I sighed sadly. “Me either.”

“I know what I want.”

“Me too.”

“I also don’t know how to be what I want.”

I felt my chest tightening with anxiety. With a loss I hadn’t taken yet, or maybe one I’d been taking for years. It was a weight I desperately wanted to escape but at what cost? What would I give up? Was I ready to quit?

“Same shit, different day,” I whispered.

He nodded, watching me closely. “It still seems like a big risk to me. And maybe it’s selfish, but I need you right now. I can’t afford to fuck this up any more than I already have.”

I knew then that I wouldn’t quit on him. Never. Maybe I wouldn’t get what I’d always wanted out of this, out of him, but it didn’t matter. What really mattered to me was my friend. That I loved him.

What mattered was that I was a pisser and I wasn’t lying down. I was Jack “Nonpareil” fucking Dempsey and I’d have to be knocked out and dropped to the ground to make me stop fighting for him.

“We’re good, Kellen. You’ve got a lot on your plate. You have physical therapy, boxing, you need to get a job, you just came out of an engagement. I’m not looking to
jump into anything with you right now. I’ll be here for you while you work on all of that, though. Just like I’ve always been.”

“Is that a dick thing for me to ask, though? Am I asking you to wait?”

“I don’t know, are you?”

He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. This was stressing him out, I could see it and feel it in the tightness in the air, but this was the core of the problem right here. When it came down to this stuff, to the intimacy and the relationship shit, could he do this with me? Could he talk to me?

Eventually he dropped his hands, his eyes falling on mine. They didn’t feel as weighty as usual. There was something light in his look. Hesitant. He was on uncharted ground and I could see it in his eyes – he was scared.

“Yeah,” he told me softly. “I think I am. Is that something you can do?”

I snorted. “Like I haven’t been doing it for years already.”

“See, now that makes me feel like shit. I never meant to do that to you.”

“But you didn’t like me with Alexander.”

He shook his head firmly, his eyes going hard. “No.”

“Okay, well, honesty time. I didn’t like you with Laney. So we’re even.”

“Was it a competition?”

“I wouldn’t count it as one until I’m in the lead. Let’s just do what we do and we’ll see where it goes. No Laneys, no Alexanders, no age restrictions, no expectations. Just you and me being you and me.”

He nodded in agreement, grinning slightly. He looked relieved.

“I can handle that.”

“Good. Now get back to work. We have to figure out how to hide your right hand.”

I stayed for the rest of his workout. I didn’t sit in the chair and watch as I had before, though. I stayed with him, I hung by his coach, I listened as they talked and I learned. I got to know some of the ins and outs of the sport that I’d remained spectator oblivious to. It felt like the day in the hospital in New York when they’d discharged him and I’d stood beside his wheelchair as they rattled off all of the information about his medications, the specialists he was supposed to see and the rehab he was meant to go through. I absorbed it because it was him. It was what he needed and I wanted to know. I wanted to help.

The last part of his workout was sparring in the ring. That’s where I noticed the biggest change in him. He was slower than before. His power was still pretty on par with where it’d been before the accident but the hesitation was obvious. Not just in his right hand, but in everything. He had lost that confidence in himself, the godlike surety that had made him move like lightening on pure instinct and muscle memory. The thing that made him vibrate with energy and life. You could see his doubt in every footstep. Every jab. I could feel it in every hit he took.

When he was finished I followed him outside. I’d parked my car beside his motorcycle and there wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t want to jump on the back of that thing and wrap myself around him. But as I very well knew, wanting and doing were two completely different things so I unlocked my car and gave him a smile and a wave.

“Practice tomorrow?” I asked. “Same time?”

“Same Bat channel, yeah. That’s a long drive for you.”

“Two and a half hours,” I admitted, shrugging. “I can handle it.”

“Do you like Bakersfield?”

I paused, surprised by the question. “It’s where work is.”

“That’s not what I asked,” he said, sitting sideways on his bike and watching me.

“I don’t know. It’s alright. I miss being right next to the ocean, but like I said, it’s where work is.”

“What about opening your own shop?”

I laughed at the way he said it. Like it was so simple, like opening a can of soda.

“Why is that funny?” he asked seriously. “I thought that’s something you wanted to do.”

“It is, of course it is, but really that’s a huge undertaking. Finding the money to rent or buy the shop space, buying all the equipment, getting licenses, branding, hiring and paying employees, the list goes on and on. I don’t have the money for that.”

“You know people who do.”

“Ugh,” I groaned, feeling the way he did back inside the gym – sick of having this conversation. “Dad, yeah, he has money and I know he’d give it to me but… I don’t
know.” I played with my keys, unwilling to look at him. “What if it fails and I can never pay him back? What if it fails and that means
I
failed and my dreams go swirling down the toilet right in front of me.”

“That’s stupid. You have the talent to make it happen.”

“A lot of people have talent, it doesn’t mean they open their own shop.” I gestured to the broken brick building next to us. “You have talent but you’ve never tried to go pro. I couldn’t even convince you to try out for the Olympic Team, something you could have done, by the way.”

“I know” he said solemnly, “and I should have listened to you. I should have gone. But that wasn’t what I was doing with my life then and I regret it now. I don’t want you to regret anything.”

“I won’t,” I said, not even sounding convincing to myself.

“If you don’t give this a shot, you will. I know you. You’ll always wonder. You have the talent and resources to break out and make it big on your own, things that not everyone has, Jen. It’s a waste. It’s a slap in the face to life if you don’t use all of it to its full potential. Take everything you can from life and put out everything you’ve got. Otherwise what’s the point?”

I smiled. “Are you telling me YOLO?”

He laughed. “Don’t be a jerk. I’m being brilliant here.”

“I know, sorry. And you’re right. I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t think about it. You’ve obviously already done that. Now it’s time to do it.”

“Actually,” I said, glancing down at my watch, “now it’s time to get on the road and get to work or I won’t have a job to fund this big dream of yours.”

“Ours. Do you work tomorrow?”