And yet it’s not enough. Not for him or for me.
So he keeps going.
He keeps punching me, hitting me, and I keep taking it and stumbling back and when I think he’s finally beaten me down enough that I’m going to lose my footing, my back connects with something.
My Mustang.
My fucking Mustang saves me from going down.
And Ledger grabs my collar, pulling at it and smashing my back against the metal. “Did that jog your memory, huh? You remember what you did now?”
I’m panting; every muscle in my body throbs and pulses. My fucking legs are trembling and yet I’m still standing. It pisses me the fuck off.
“I think…” I breathe out, tasting blood. “I’m gonna need a little more.”
He shakes me again, making my bones jar, and I groan.
“You fucking asshole, you ruined her life. You ruined her life. You realize that, don’t you? You realize what you did to my sister.”
I do, yeah.
I do realize it. I realize that I’ve ruined her now. I’ve destroyed her.
I speak through the pain in my chest, in my body. “You really don’t wanna know… what I did to your sister.”
As expected, he pushes me into the car again.
“You’re a fucking piece of shit, aren’t you?” He tightens his grip on the collar of my dress shirt. “I should kill you for what you did to her.”
“You should.”
“But if I killed you tonight, then you wouldn’t be able to see.”
I spit out blood. “Yeah? See what?”
He chuckles then, his fingers tightening. “What I’m going to do to your sister.” Another chuckle. “She’s a firecracker, isn’t she? Tempest.”
I don’t know where I get the energy, the strength to move my hands, let alone grab his collar. I don’t know where I get the strength to shake off his hold and fucking maneuver him so I have his back against my Mustang now.
All I know is that if he says my sister’s name again, I’m going to rearrange his face in a way that he’s not going to like.
“Don’t talk about my sister,” I growl, my body screaming in pain.
“Yeah?” he bites out. “Pisses you the fuck off, doesn’t it? And I haven’t even done anything yet. To her.”
“You want to kill me, Ledger, you better stop talking. Because if you rile me up enough, it’s going to be you who dies tonight.”
He laughs, sharp and hollow. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
And then, I feel the sharpest, fieriest pain that I’ve ever felt in my life. So much so that I finally stumble back and my body goes down.
I finally fall on my knees, my vision going blurry for a few seconds.
Because Ledger has kicked my ankle. My right ankle, which has weakened from years of playing soccer. And since he’s played with me, used my weakness against me on the field due to our rivalry, he knows about that.
Like I know that his left knee bothers him more than the right because of an old injury he had back in our junior year.
“Watch your back, Jackson,” he says, moving away from the car and laying a last punch on my jaw that makes me go completely down on my back. “You don’t want to mess with people who know your weaknesses. Years of soccer should’ve taught you that.”
He leaves then.
While I stay on the ground, my entire body on fire, chuckling at the pain, watching the night sky.
***
In a white dress and a flimsy green cardigan, she stares at something.
Through the window of her darkened studio.
She doesn’t know that there’s a Mustang parked a block over and I’m sitting in it. And that I’m watching her. I’ve been watching ever since she scared the fuck out of me when she appeared out of nowhere, walking down the street.
In fact, I don’t think she knows anything that’s happening around her.
And with every second that passes, my anger mounts.
What the fuck is she thinking?
What the fuck is she doing here in the middle of the night?
Where in the fucking fuck are her brothers now? Especially now when they know that she needs to take better care of herself. Especially now that they know how I fucked her over.
Again.
Only this time I’ve done it worse.
And so this is pissing me the fuck off.
That she’s out here alone.
But more than that, it’s making my chest tight, my lungs contract as I watch her stand there, looking at her dream through the glass.
I’ve been watching it too.
That dream.
For the past week, I’ve either been working on my Chevy at Auto Alpha for long hours — Pete thinks I’ve gone crazy but he doesn’t interfere because he knows what I did — or I’ve been driving here to this street, watching her dark studio.
Just so I can imagine her, dancing, spinning on her toes inside that building.
Like a fairy.
Like she was born to do.
She moves then.
She walks away from her studio and I can’t get air inside my body. I choke on the pain as she stops a few paces down. In front of another ballet studio: Baby Blues.
A sister branch of Blue Madonna, where they teach ballet to little girls.
It was the studio she went to before switching over to Blue Madonna, I know. I’ve seen her through the glass window countless times.
She’s pressing her hands on that same window now, as if she can see something. As if she can see, she can imagine, picture her — our…
“Fuck,” I mutter quietly as my sternum almost caves in on me, and climb out of the car.
I snap the door shut, the sound of it echoing in the night and finally alerting her that someone’s here.
She spins around, her eyes finding me.
I stride toward her and I see her shoulders sag in relief. I even see a small, trembling smile on her lips and I think I’ve lost my mind, that pain is making me hallucinate.
But at least I have enough sense left that I know it’s real when she stumbles on her feet. And I hasten my steps to get to her, catch her, before she falls.
I wind one arm around her tiny waist and the other behind her knees and pick her up.
“Reed,” she gasps, her blue eyes wide. “Thanks.”
I clench my jaw. “What are you doing out here?”
She frowns and clutches my t-shirt. “I’m taking a walk.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I can too.” She sticks her bottom lip out. “If you put me down, I can show you.”
“I’m not fucking putting you down.”
She rests her head on my shoulder, peeking up at me through her eyelashes. “You know, you curse too much, Reed.”
“That’s the least of my crimes.”
She sighs. “I know.”
I squeeze her body in response and it feels much too thin.
She’s small to begin with, tiny bird-like bones, but I know that she’s lost weight. I can feel it.