THE BELL CHIMED, and the smell of freshly brewed caffeine danced its way toward me. It did its job of pepping me up a bit without even entering my bloodstream. After close to seventy-five laps around the block, second-guessing this meeting with Drew, I made a mental pact with myself not to let Damon’s text message get the better of me. And I came.
I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and looked to the left, searching the tables. Warmth met my cheekbones when my sights landed on Drew’s waiting gaze. Both hands were curled around an ivory ceramic mug, the tips of his dirty blond hair falling into his hazel eyes. The hazel eyes that practically danced with a hopeful promise.
The corner of his mouth rose in a half smile, and he nodded to the empty chair across from him. I smiled and bit the edge of my lip, a nervous flutter smacking me in the belly. I clutched at it as the realization hit me that I’d felt that. Felt something after being numb for so long. I stood before him, a lightheartedness washing over me at the prospect of some type of normal returning to my empty life.
“You came.” He wet his lips before a full smile complemented the sparkle in his eyes.
“I did.” I removed my coat and draped it over the back of the chair, then pulled it out and took a seat.
A peppy young waitress appeared, her blonde hair pulled back in a haphazard bun. She extracted a notepad from her trim waist and snapped her gum. “What can I get ya, hon?”
“Hazelnut coffee, please.”
“Sure thing.” She looked at Drew, a pink hue meeting her cheek. “You good, sugar?”
“For now. Thanks.” He winked, and her breathing ceased for an instant before she walked away, reminding me of why I’d referred to him as a runway model when we had first met.
He turned his sights back to me. “Now, where were we?” He adjusted himself, leaning farther across the table, locking his focus on mine.
“Right here.” I relaxed, grateful for a distraction from my normal heartbreak.
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I wasn’t sure I would, either. I contemplated standing you up, but I didn’t want to disappoint Doctor Christianson.” My tone was clearly playful as I lightened the mood.
His shoulders visibly relaxed, making me realize Drew was good at the game but felt more than he let on. He sat back in his chair, analyzing me. “That all?”
I smiled a purposely sarcastic smile and nodded. “Yes.”
What began as a slow crawl spread into the widest smile imaginable, lighting up his face. He dipped his head back in a hearty chuckle. “This is why.”
I blew on the coffee the waitress just deposited in front of me. “Why what?”
He didn’t answer right away as if trying to find the right, safe words. “Why I’m glad you came.”
I smiled and sucked down a sip of coffee. “So, now what? We trade woes? Sing Kumbaya and throw our arms up to the universe, giving her our middle fingers that she’s fucked us up the ass of life?”
Drew chuckled. “Well, I was hoping to maybe just get to know each other a little first. I need to be sure I want to trust you with my woes.” Always wearing a friendly smile, I wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastically flirty or if he had really meant that.
I’d normally never open up to anyone, certainly not an almost stranger, but he apparently had his own mess of shit. If he was in therapy, he was used to the whole confidentiality thing, and I could really use somebody to talk to.
“Okay, I can agree with that.” I sat back in my chair. “You first.”
Drew seemed to roll his thoughts around, before finding his starting point. He scratched the ceramic cup a couple times in thought before beginning. “I’m twenty-two. I started martial arts when I was fourteen, and loved it so much I got a job to pay for extra classes. I became a black belt in a year’s time. Now I teach a combination martial arts, self-defense course.”
I perked up in my seat, intrigued. “Go on.”
Drew paused, seeming to size up his next words, rolling them around, judging what he did and didn’t want to say. “I’m a foster home kid.” His eyes roamed my features. “Took me a while to find the right family, but once I did, a lot changed for me.”
I fidgeted in my seat, uncertain of how to respond to that little tidbit.
“It’s all right, Evangelina.” He chuckled softly, trying to ease the heavy topic. “I’m a grown up now. You don’t need to feel sorry that I didn’t spend my childhood dipping silver spoons in caviar.”
My cheeks flushed, embarrassed I’d given him the impression he was less-than. “That wasn’t what I was thinking. I was just surprised is all. Go on.” He opened his mouth, but I waved a hand, shushing him before he could continue. “And call me Eva.”
A slow smile crept up his face. “Progress.” Then his gaze fell as he focused on the wood grain in the table before inching up to meet mine once again. “Well, I love chocolate and coffee, and girly pop music.” His smile mocked himself over that bit of trivia. As almost an afterthought, he threw in a bonus. “And, I’ve never had a steady girlfriend.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Done. Your turn.”
I blushed and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Fair enough. I sing and write poetry. I appear to be in shape, but I’m totally out of shape since I don’t remember the last time I saw the inside of a gym. I grew up in New Jersey, have one sister, and love chocolate as well. Oh, and my best friend is gay, but you’ve met him already.” I smirked.
“How could I forget?” Drew purposely rolled his eyes and we both laughed, lifting whatever tension remained. We were still strangers essentially, so it was odd that either of us would want to open up to the other. It felt good, though, and I didn’t want to stop, so I wasn’t about to question it.
Suddenly, Blake’s face flashed before my eyes, his dimple proudly displayed as he peeked over a long-stemmed red rose and a pang of guilt knocked into my belly. I closed my eyes briefly, wanting to soak up the memory of him and savor it. Then a new vision appeared, a photograph of him and his new girl, replacing his kind, loving face, and the sourness in my stomach rose and filled my mouth.
I swallowed down my guilt, remembering he wasn’t mine anymore. I’d sent him away. Though I wished more than anything that I could take it back, I knew that I couldn’t.
When my eyes reopened, they met Drew’s watchful gaze. “Penny for your thoughts?”
I chuckled and clutched my cup tighter. “You’d need hundreds.” I took a deep breath, needing a distraction. “So, tell me more. Why Doctor Christianson? Or do you have another test for me to see if I’m woe-worthy?” I cocked my head with a playful tilt on my lips.
Drew laughed lightly and leaned across the table once again. “You’ll do.” He inhaled deeply and blew a burst of coffee-infused air out of his mouth. “In a nutshell, foster care is not the place to be when you’re two, three, and four.” He paused, sending his hidden meaning straight for me. “Or seven, eight, or nine. Get my drift?”
He pushed back the sleeves of his forearms and rested them on the table, leaning forward. A small silver circle about the size of the head of a cigarette rested in the flesh, and I swallowed hard, hoping that wasn’t what I thought it was. Drew followed my line of sight to the scar. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.” He gave me a moment to process, and I did so with tears welling in my eyes before he continued. “Eventually, even the smallest boys get bigger.” A confident smile replaced his woe-stricken face. “I started karate lessons, began disappearing to the gym, and got a part-time job so I could take self-defense training. I became a well-oiled machine. A bull. I had a ton of rage, and no matter how I tried to cage it, it always simmered just beneath my skin.”
He took another sip, looking far away into his past and I knew he was no longer with me at the table. “One night, after a bad day, I went home and let’s just say, when I saw the shit-storm brewing, the tables got turned the opposite way. I spent a month in juvie for hospitalizing my ‘father,’” he air-quoted, “and then I was placed in a different home with three other brothers. We became real tight. Because of my past, I refused to go anywhere without them, thinking I needed to protect them or something.” He flicked his head in a nod. “You saw them the day I met you. We’re rarely apart.”
Thinking back to that day at the pizzeria, I recalled a table full of guys, a light bulb slowly illuminated in my mind.
Drew continued. “My new parents were amazing. I never knew a love like they showed me. Little by little, the hostility faded away, but the scars never did. It’s all good, though. Every now and then I need the reminder of how harsh reality can be and how much better off I am now.” He puffed up his chest, gaining confidence in his new reality. “I kept training, and I always will. It’s good for my head, and I never want to feel weak again. Besides, I get to harness all that and use the experience to help my students. People that can’t help themselves. Show them how to find their strength and how to take down the scum in the world. That it’s possible.”
I gaped at him. He always seemed so happy and carefree. This was the furthest thing from what I’d imagined he would tell me. Although his story was devastating, a swath of jealousy found me that he had found his strength, and for a fleeting moment, I wondered if he could help me find mine. But then I pushed that small bit of hope back into its box.
“So go ahead. Your turn.” He winked.
I expelled the largest exhale ever. My legs were numb beneath the table from the prospect of letting it all out right now. Then I remembered Doctor Christianson’s words: you need to set it free. Let go of the evil trapped inside of you. Tell everyone who’ll listen until you rid yourself of it. Free yourself, Eva.
Free myself, my subconscious scoffed.
But he’s the wrong person.
I’d always imagined the day I unloaded this. I would be looking into the eyes of the man who’d stolen my heart.
He’s not yours anymore.
And there she was with a dose of the harsh truth. My subconscious was never far away when it came to mocking me.
This felt like such a betrayal, but my insides were so saturated with the weight of my misery. I was never able to tell Blake because he was too close to it. He would have done something, pressured me, and I wasn’t ready for that. Or worse, he might have even killed him. I had to protect him.
Drew is safe.
He wasn’t romantically involved, and he didn’t know my family the way Blake did. He was an outsider. And for fuck’s sake, I needed the poison out already.
I allowed my eyelids to drift closed while I gathered all my words. Blowing out a full breath of air, I let the first one leave my mouth. “I was fortunate enough to come from a great family. We were always very close, still are for the most part. I was probably part of the family you thought you envied growing up. But all that glitters isn’t always what it appears to be.” I dragged in another large breath and swallowed hard, finding Drew’s eyes for confirmation I should continue.
With kind eyes, he reached across the table and covered my hands with his own, stopping me before I could make the skin around my nail beds bleed. I hadn’t even noticed I’d been picking.
I smiled softly and drew them onto my lap. “From as young as I could remember, Damon was around. He was the cliché boy next door, always in our yard and at our dinner table. He was older than me, and once puberty hit, he took a shine to my older sister, Abby. For years I was the tagalong. I wanted so badly for them to see me as mature—not to treat me like a baby.” My chuckle at the remembrance was humorless.
“Well, one day . . .” I looked up and buried my gaze into his, trying to drive home my meaning without having to voice the words. “One day he did.”
With a sharp gasp, Drew’s mouth clamped into a hard line, the bones of his jaw protruding as his eyebrows pulled inward. When tingles prickled my forehead, I realized I had stopped breathing to analyze him, and my chest began a deep rise and fall to gain some lost oxygen. But damn, that had felt good. Not only did I say what had happened, but who. Fuck it. I’d lost it all anyway. Lost the one person who mattered most, and my sister and the rest of my family would soon be on his heels, leaving my life as well.
“I was fourteen when he began to notice me.” My line of sight dipped back to my nail beds. “He still does.”
“What do you mean he still does?” At the harsh tone of his voice, my head whipped up to meet the hard line between his eyebrows. “She’s still with the bastard?”
“It’s a long story, but yes.” I exhaled, feeling myself shrink a bit in embarrassment.
“What kind of people are your family for allowing that to happen?” The redness of his skin and flare of his nostrils spoke for his outrage.
“They don’t know.” My voice was meek, barely registering.
As good as it had felt to finally get it off my chest, I was starting to feel claustrophobic and stupid. I wanted to end the conversation and run.
My back stiffened and all the hair on my body prickled. “You know what? I think this may have been a bit premature. We’re perfect strangers really, and all this stuff is personal.” I shot to my feet just as Drew did the same, his hand shooting out to cup my shoulder and place pressure downward.
“Sit down, Eva.” The forcefulness of his tone took me by surprise, but the command in his eyes gave me pause. It wasn’t one of a controlling demand, but one that you would expect to see from an army drill sergeant or a person of power that had every right to tell you what to do because they knew what was best for you. Although under every other circumstance, I would run from this kind of situation, the look in his eyes halted my pursuit. Drew was a helper of the weak, and it radiated off of him. I was sure he was genuinely concerned and looking to help me, not hurt me.
Keeping my eyes on his, I returned to my seat in a slow slump. His shoulders relaxed marginally, but not enough to drop his guard or whatever this protective thing that came over him was. He sat, chomping down on his jaw.
“You can tell me. I’m used to this stuff.”
“Maybe that’s enough for today.” I'd lost the drive I had earlier to share, my voice weakening.
“Don’t clam up on me, please.” Drew’s voice softened. “I want to know. Go on.”
I took in a large breath of air. “The first time it happened, I agreed. He tricked me, I know that now, but my whole life he’s had me convinced they’d never believe me because I said yes. That they’d see me as the whore who slept with her sister’s boyfriend.” I rubbed the tops of my arms and held myself tight. “So I’ve never said anything.”
“And why not tell them now?” His forehead still had tight confused lines crisscrossing it.
“Because I’m still scared they won’t believe me.” Defeat started to creep inside again. “Or, even if they did, I’m afraid they’d think it was my fault. They love him.” The idea of them giving their love to that monster both infuriated and disgusted me to my core.
Drew covered my hand with his own once again. “Eva, I’m sure they love you more.”
“But, I did agree! I did it, Drew!” I looked around, ashamed and nervous that someone may have overheard. Then I licked my lips and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.
“You were a kid,” he said quietly but emphatically.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Don’t you think logically I know that?” I shook out my head. “Don’t ask me to explain how my mind works because I can’t.”
Drew paused, chomping down on his jaw, while a wild ride swam in his eyes. I could only imagine what he was thinking. Before I could get too self-conscious, he relaxed back in his chair, as though a decision had been made. “So what happened recently? This have anything to do with your breakup or the fact that you’re half-skeleton and look like you haven’t slept in months?” He motioned to my body with his hands.
“Gee, thanks.” I fidgeted and sat up straighter.
“Well?” he asked, not backing down.
“Jeez, you’re a tough one. You realize we just met, don’t you?”
“Yes. So?” His gaze never faltered.
I sighed. “Well, besides the fact that she’s agreed to marry him—”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Drew interrupted.
“I kid you not.” I cleared my throat. “More recently, he’s turned it up a notch. Our last encounter was pretty violent, and I basically tried to kill myself after. Put myself in the hospital.” I looked away momentarily, gathering my shame. When I looked back to Drew, there was an enlightened understanding in his eyes. Tension whooshed from me, making me feel lighter than I could remember, and I was grateful I had listened to the doctor and unloaded some of this. It was surprisingly easier than I had thought it would be.
“I’m just done with it all. I tried to tell my sister, and she brushed it aside like it’d never be possible.”
Drew’s face hardened. “I’ve heard enough. You need to protect yourself.”
“Pfft.” I rolled my eyes. The thought of me doing anything physical was comical.
“I’m serious.” His face hardened. “You need to learn how, and I can help you.” He sat back in his seat and crossed his arms over his broad chest.
I hadn’t contemplated something like that, but I wasn’t sure it was even necessary anymore. Or that I would have the strength.
“I appreciate it, Drew. Really, I do. But I don’t plan on going back there until it’s absolutely necessary. Right now I have to figure out how to stop Abby from marrying him, and I’m just tired of it all. I’m tired, Drew.”
Saying it out loud brought that feeling to the forefront. I was exhausted. Drained. Daily I carried around limbs that felt too heavy, a head that felt too clouded, and a heart that felt too lifeless. And I was exhausted. Of everything.
“You can’t just give up on yourself. Let me do this for you,” he insisted. “I pray you never have to use any of what I teach you, but if nothing else, we’ll get you strong again. Build you.”
“Build me?” I asked, uncertain.
“Yep.” There was a light in his eyes I’d never noticed before, like glowing embers as he seemed to envision the possibilities. I could tell he lived for this, and that the thought of passing on his knowledge made his pulse quicken.
I mulled it over, tossing it around in my head like a game of Toss Across.
Do I? Don’t I?
Build me.
Live me.
I swallowed that down and let it settle in the pit of my stomach.
You might as well. You’re only rotting away anyway.
Was I strong enough? Did it matter? Eh, fuck it. “Okay, I’ll try.”
A smile crept up his face until the corners of his eyes crinkled in delight. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. But be sure to bring your A-game. You’ll be sore as hell after. Be well-rested and get your head ready. We’ll be working on that, too. Your body will never be able to handle what I’m going to put it through without that.” A gleeful warning shone in his eyes. “Be at Hard Knock’s Gym tomorrow at seven sharp.”
I gulped. His words made me nervous, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle it, but I had to try. A small tick-tock in my chest, the faintest firefly in my heart, flickering as it awakened.
Try or die. Those were my only two options.