Faking It(43)

After I spilled my guts, she had asked me a few more questions and then turned off the recorder. “Do you want me to delete any of that?” she had asked. That was sweet. I could tell she was moved and surprised, but only to the extent that I was aware of anything. I felt like I had come back into my body after going into a trance. I heard someone say that you’re only as sick as your secrets. Did this mean I was cured?

“Do you want me to delete anything?” she repeated.

An earlier version of me wouldn’t even have gotten to the point where she would have needed to ask. I wouldn’t have started blabbing in the first place. But I was surprised to hear myself say no. She could keep it all and use it however she wanted. And I meant it! For the moment at least, I really didn’t care what anyone thought about it, or who might hear it. What had she done to me?

I had to do something. She had put me in motion and now I couldn’t stop circling her, like a shark that won’t be able to breathe if it takes a break and stops swimming.

After my morning session at the gym I waited to catch my breath and then I called her, a million questions running through my mind. I had a horrible moment where I imagined her laughing about how much I had opened up, how I had become less of a man in her eyes...but it was better to just do something than to stay afraid of it. I called her before I could second-guess myself anymore.

“Hey Alyssa, it’s Braden.”

“Hey! What’s up?”

“I want to take you out tonight. I don’t want to beat around the bush, let me take you out.” I felt like a sweaty kid in high school, worried that she would say no. Or like I was trying to pin a corsage to her dress without sticking a needle into her while her dad watched.

She was quiet for a moment. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Braden.”

But I could tell she wanted to say yes. Her voice said that it was a fine idea indeed. And whenever there’s an opening, I can find it. In another life, I might have made a great detective. “It’s a great idea.” I tried to put a laugh in my voice. “Look, last night might have just been another job to you, but it really meant something to me. I’m not sure how well I can explain it. I don’t get like that. I don’t feel like that very often. If I didn’t know you better I might think you had cast some weird spell on me and tricked me into admitting all of my issues. So, I think it’s only fair, witchy woman that you are, that you let me take you out.”

“Not sure my dad would see it that way, hot stuff.”

That’s what I was talking about. She could not help but be playful, and that’s when I knew that her experience had been as good as mine. There was no way she would have called me hot stuff the night I dropped that towel in the locker room, unless she was doing it condescendingly, which wasn’t her style. No, no one can fake the sort of intrigue that was creeping into her voice. I figured she was probably playing with her hair and feeling as good about all this as I was. I liked the thought of that, I really did. As long as she was flirty, this was as good as sealed. But even as we talked, I realized that I wasn’t thinking about getting her home and dragging her into bed. I just wanted to be with her, and I’d never felt anything like that. Nearly everything I was saying to her felt like it would be a cheesy line in some other guy’s mouth, but I was being as authentic as I ever had. What was wrong with me?

“He doesn’t have to know, Alyssa. And if it makes it easier, it can just be for the interview. Maybe I can give you some better stuff, or, I don’t know, like bonus material or something? And that way, even if he did find out we spent some time together, he would be able to support it since it would be for your show.”

I can almost hear her thinking. Say yes say yes say yes.

“I just want to know you better,” I said. “If that means I have to let you learn more about me, so be it.”

“That might work,” she said. “You’d be willing to answer more questions?”

“Not only that, I’m happy to talk to you exclusively. I mean, I’d have to clear it with my agent, but yeah. I’d be willing to tell you anything you want to know,” I said. I checked myself for signs of insincerity. Nope, it was all real. I’ll say this: when you are the toughest, people stop asking if you’re okay. They just assume that you can handle whatever you’re dealing with, and that’s not always the case. Guys like me don’t get to feel defenseless very often. Maybe that’s what part of her appeal was. She made me want to let her in. She reminded me that vulnerability was a real thing.

Once you know how to hurt a body, you have a better chance of knowing how to heal it. Guys like Bruce Lee would have made great doctors if they had different inclinations. Alyssa had been around fighting her whole life and she seemed to have an innate intuition about what people—meaning, me—needed.

“Fantastic,” I said. “I’m going to get in one more quick session, clean up, then come and get you. I’ll take you to dinner and then we’ll keep going on the interview.”

“Where should we meet?”

“I’m going to come pick you up. And unless you’re a picky eater, let me choose, okay? I know just where to take you.”

She agreed and I went back out into the gym. It looked brighter, somehow. Cleaner. Like a place with purpose, not a place to use as a distraction. I worked with a focus unknown even to me. I’d always prided myself on my obsessive training, even with that tough year I had, but this was different. Every time I hit the bag, or the pads, it was like I was pounding on some part of me that I didn’t like. I could hit harder. I was more accurate. I could tie every movement to something bigger. To a future, instead of simply trying to outrun my anger moment to moment.