Burn Before Reading(26)
I see red. Before I can control myself I throw a punch at his jaw, and it connects with a sickening crunch. The senior comes up gasping for air, and lunges for me. We tangle underwater, my eyes and ears full of chlorine as he punches me in the stomach, the air shooting out of my mouth and molten pain replacing it. The sound from above is muted, but I can still hear it - the team starts shouting, Coach blows her whistle, her hands fishing madly underwater for us. She sends in half the team after us, pulling the two of us apart in the shallow end.
“What the fuck is your problem?” The senior snarls at me. I spit water mixed with blood from my split lip. He isn’t any better off – his left eye socket is starting to bruise.
“If you talk about her like that again,” I growl. “I’ll ruin more than just your face.”
“Why do you care?” He shouts. “She’s just the scholarship girl!”
“Enough!” Coach bellows. “The two of you – in my office, now. The rest of you, in the showers. Practice is over.”
The senior and I begrudgingly enter her office, the only thing keeping my fist from his face the fact that Coach is staring right at us from across her desk.
“What seems to be the problem, gentlemen?” She asks.
“I said something about that girl who came in and he fucking flipped!” The senior protests. “He flipped on me just like he flipped on that Mark guy!”
“Don’t say his name,” I flinch.
“I’ll say whatever the fuck I want!”
“Language,” Coach warns, then looks to me. “Here’s how this is gonna go; Harris, you keep your nose out of Blackthorn’s business. Blackthorn, don’t go punching people, no matter how bad they piss you off. If I hear or see this one more time, you’re both off the team, and I’m warning your parents.”
Harris glowers at me. “Like it’ll matter for him. His dad runs this place.”
“No one’s getting any favoritism, Harris,” Coach warns. “Now get out of here. Go change. And try to talk about your problems like grown-ups instead of flinging poop at each other like monkeys, alright?”
We both echo ‘yes coach’, and head to the lockers. I let him go first, just to make sure he doesn’t turn on me and try to start something. The urge to red-card him is strong, but there’s no point – he hasn’t done anything ‘wrong’ in the ultimate sense. He pissed me off, that’s all. That isn’t worthy of a red-card. If I did red-card him I’d basically be a dictator, and that’s the last thing I want people to see me as.
Every guy in the locker room falls silent when I walk in. I change as quickly as I can and get out, riding my bike a little faster than normal, like it’ll leave the stares behind. I know what they were thinking behind their silence – Wolf Blackthorn, never once seems to give a shit about a girl, and then all of a sudden starts a fight over one. I know the rumors that’ll spread like wildfire tonight, and the stares that will follow tomorrow. When I get home and open my computer, it’s confirmed – Twitter and Facebook are ablaze with what went down today. Speculations fly - scholarship girl and Wolf have slept together, she’s pregnant and Harris is the real father – stupid shit that only makes me angrier. Pent-up energy blazes through me, half fury and half something else I can’t name, something that leaves me sore in the chest and utterly confused in the head.
I don’t start fights. I haven’t touched someone purposefully since Mark. But at the single mention of Beatrix, the thought of someone like Harris touching her, I flew off the handle. All my reservations, all my avoidance of physical touch, flew out the window. For a split second, I forgot myself. She eclipsed my fear – something no one else in my life had ever done.
Mark came close. As much as I hate to admit it, he came close. But with him it was slow, gradual. With her, it was instant. I lashed out in an instant, without thinking, without hesitation.
I get up, unable to take a moment more of this storm of energy. I knock on Burn’s door, but he isn’t home. Of course he isn’t. Part of me wants him to be – he would listen to my problems. Or, he used to. Since Mom died he’s never really been there for me, or Fitz, not like he used to be. I want to open the door and see him there, smiling patiently, waiting for me to tell him whatever awful secrets I’d been keeping inside. His advice was good. Would be good, if he was here for me anymore. But he’s not.
So I settle for the next best thing.
Burn’s punching bag hangs from the ceiling, a heavy column of sand covered by plastic. I punch it, as hard and fast as I can, willing all the confusion in me to drain out with my fatigue, willing my physical efforts to clear my head. I punch until sweat drips down into my eyes, until my knuckles sting like someone’s poured lemon juice in open wounds. And the words – everyone’s words clamber over each other, like a chaotic tornado in my mind.
She’s just the scholarship girl, why do you care –
- You think you know everything about my life?
- you can tell she’s got some amazing tits under all that. I’d do her too.
I feel stupid. I feel weak. I feel powerless. Just thinking about the look on her face when I offered the twenty makes me feel even stupider. Thinking about how gentle her fingers were on my cheek makes me feel even weaker.
People aren’t supposed to affect me like this. I thought I was over this. After Mark I swore to myself I’d allow no one to make me feel things ever again. And then Beatrix came and ruined everything. I’m powerless all over again, and it scares the ever-living shit out of me.