Maybe I’m not quite as fast as I used to be, but I’m damn close. It’s why I enjoy jumping into the octagon to teach these young kids a trick or two. Now, if the rest of my life offered that same level of satisfaction because what I feel most days is something I thought I’d stop feeling when I left Alaska behind to devote myself to mixed martial art training.
It’s envy.
And it’s brutal especially when the people you’re most envious of are your best friends.
After I left the foster care system at eighteen, I took multiple jobs to afford living in a small apartment over a bar in Ketchikan. One of those jobs was being on a rotation as a part of Team Canada with John Jennings. A very quiet man, John wanted to talk about his life about as little as I did, other than for it to be known he wanted to be called Jennings. I shrugged, knowing eventually I’d be known by something else as well. But what astounded me was when Jennings and I reported in for training, I ran into the boy—now man—who had rescued me years before. Whereas Jennings and I were forced to wear kitschy tourist-wear to show off our muscles, the man—Jed—was wearing overalls and an apron, and frankly looked even more like a wild-ass serial killer when he smiled.
And he still laughed when I told him so.
“Come on. Let me introduce you to your other stage-mates, Brad and Kody. Every time you all perform, you guys will be together.”
It was Jennings who said, “Then should we meet them?”
Jed laughed. “I guarantee, by the end of the summer, we’ll all be inseparable.”
And we were.
Over twenty-plus years they’ve been in my life, and I hate feeling even the slightest lick of jealousy. But it’s hard not to envy men who are kings, not merely champions. As I push myself harder through the lather of sweat, I examine why.
Brad kept hold of Rainey through thick and thin to form a bond so strong, nothing can destroy it.
Jennings found the love he lost—and so much more—when he and Kara reconnected at Jed’s funeral.
And recently, Kody and Meadow were given a second chance at the first time.
I slow my pace a little when I realize I’m ahead of pace and recall words Jed spoke to me at our last reunion in Montana.
“What in your life will give you contentment, Nick?”
I don’t remember what smart-ass remark I threw back, but I recall his deliberate eye roll. “I’ll bet you anything you want, anything, Champ. Because you’re too afraid to go after what you really want.”
“And what’s that?” I challenged him.
I’d just taken a drink of bourbon when Jed bluntly spit out, “My sister.”
I choked on the drink. “Excuse me?” I wheezed.
“You’re too scarred by your past, afraid of your mistakes, and frankly of her, to make a move now that things have changed so drastically in your life. You won’t even tell the guys about what you’re doing with Razor, with those kids, for fear it will change how they look at you. And that’s why I don’t think you’ll ever be man enough for her.”
Jed’s words echo as much as my footfalls do on the empty street.
Because he was right. He was always right.
How can someone who’s been wounded, who’s deliberately taken jabs at others the way I have, deserve to reach out for the only thing I’ve ever truly wanted?
As I turn down my street, the sun begins to rise above the mountains, turning the clouds above them the exact shade of Maris’s indigo-colored eyes. Soon enough, the clouds will burn away much like this urge to haul my ass to Juneau to claim the one woman I have no right to.
Now or ever.
Because as much as I’ve changed, I’m still that guy who’s just not right for her.
I always will be the man who hurt her.
And she needs to find a man who never will.
Maris
May
“Maris thinks this is the only life she deserves. She couldn’t be more wrong. She’s stronger than this place, but she doesn’t see it. She’s letting the past hold her back.” - From the journals of Jedidiah Smith.
“I can’t believe it’s been three years.” I sit cross-legged in front of my brother’s grave. The graveyard is quiet at this time of day—the exact moment when we lowered the combined ashes of Jed and his husband, Dean, into the ground.
“How are Mom and Dad? Gram and Gramps? Dean? I bet the lot of you are wreaking havoc up in heaven, aren’t you? And, of course, since it’s your version of the place, you’re wearing those blasted flamingo shorts constantly. Come on, Jed, tell me the truth. After all, you’ve shared so many secrets with me both before and since you passed. There was an outlet you bought them at, wasn’t there?”
My smile might be kissed by my tears, but I can’t stop thinking about the roar of laughter the first night Jed made an appearance wearing the atrocious swimwear I’m describing in our backyard. “You were up from Ketchikan with the Jacks. Mom and Dad abandoned us for the peace and quiet of the bar—and that’s saying a hell of a lot. God, Jed. It was so long ago. Did we all feel invincible in that moment, or were we just that damn good at hiding our insecurities?”
Suspecting it was the latter, I reach out and slowly trace my finger over each letter of his tombstone. “Well, we did a damn good job, then, didn’t we? We used so much to deflect from the fact we were kids who didn’t know shit about the depths of hell we’d be forced to live through. And still”—my voice breaks—“you didn’t make it. The one person whose very presence unified us all.”
Standing, I lean forward and press my lips to the top of the cool marble marker—such a contrast to the hearts of the men whose remains are buried beneath.
Then again, in my heart, Jedidiah Jonas Smith will never be gone. He can’t be because if he is, then I truly am alone in this world. Oh, I know I have friends, but I gave up long ago on finding the other part of my soul. Because in those moments of brutal honesty, I acknowledge I already met him. And like an ugly hunger that can’t be assuaged, I interact with Nick enough to remind myself exactly why I end up sabotaging every other relationship I’ve ever been in.
Other men will never call to my soul the exact same way he did those long-ago summer nights when he opened up to me about why he may not believe in anything, but his faith in my brother was absolute. I might have to crawl into the darkest part of the Tongass Forest in the dead of winter to find eyes the same shade as his when he’d scowl at one of us shoving a camera in front of his face. The few times I made him laugh, the rush to my head was more intoxicating than wine.
I fell head over heels in love with the angry young man who let me into his heart when he let no one else close to his skin.
Those summer nights Nicholas Cain warmed me from the inside by opening up about who he was ended by me making more out of them than what they really were. I’m the one who read more into his casual touches that sent shivers all over my body. I put more stock into his brief hugs he grudgingly bestowed upon me, but no one else. I truly thought he meant it when he promised me in a tormented voice that last night, “We’ll keep in touch. We will.”