Chapter 17
Maverick
We were given the choice of what room we wanted.
There are several, believe it or not. The building is one of those flat, long office places that used to be used for telemarketing.
It shut down years ago and didn’t reopen until last year.
There’s not just rooms for breaking dishes and appliances and stuff.
There’s also axe throwing, and in the basement of the building, there’s a whole gym set up where they do boxing and martial arts lessons in the evenings. It’s a pretty awesome place.
It’ll probably be my favorite place for the rest of my life, given that it’s put a smile on Loreena’s face from the second we walked in here.
We’re both still just standing, taking it all in—the flat screen TV mounted on the wall on the far side of the room, immaculate, but without a picture.
Our eyes sweep to the stacks of plates, cups, and jars sitting on a shelf on the opposite end of the room.
On the wall closest to us, a piece of thick plywood is mounted over stacks of tires, and on it are several old electronics.
Computer monitors, towers, printers, and an old stereo.
Probably all things that have stopped working or gone obsolete.
The parts likely get recycled, if they can be.
Next to the table rests a maul and a sledgehammer.
It’s pretty barren in here other than that and all the padding and reinforcing on the walls.
I read that the rooms are soundproofed and those walls are obviously reinforced behind the blue foamy stuff and black coated panels of wood nailed up.
We were told that we can scream in here, yell, melt the fuck down, cry—whatever it is we need to do—and then we were given matching gray coveralls, hard hats, ear protection, and safety glasses.
We both did have to sign waivers, but that was it and we were led down the hall and turned loose in here.
Loreena stands right beside me, smiling softly to herself, but she also looks a little bit lost. She recovered the minute we walked in here and doesn’t seem to be suffering any lingering panic.
If she’s anxious about having to leave here eventually and head to the clubhouse and then go back home after that, I can’t tell.
My eyes go straight to her lips. They’re so full and so pink.
They remind me of cotton candy. I haven’t had it since I was a kid, when my mom somehow got enough money to take me to the fair.
We only did a few rides, but it was nice just being there, surrounded by the flashing lights and the music and the pressing swell of excited humanity.
The best part came at the end, when she set a bag of blue and pink fluff into my arms and instructed me not to eat it all at once.
I saved it for weeks, pinching off just a little bit each day to savor.
I know her lips taste just as sweet.
I purposely turn my attention to the dishes lined up on the metal shelving. Now isn’t the right time, although I’d like to gather Loreena close, draw her into me, and kiss her so hard that our safety glasses and maybe even our teeth would mash together.
“Should we start over there? Maybe throw a few plates?”
She still doesn’t seem entirely sure about the whole thing, but she ambles over and picks up a dinner plate. Most in the stack don’t match. The one she’s holding isn’t thick and looks like the kind of glass that would shatter into an explosion of shards.
She brushes past me silently, arcs her arm back, and lets the plate fly at the black painted wood on the wall. It hits and bursts apart into tiny little pieces.
Loreena’s breath quickens. Twin spots of color appear on her cheeks. Her eyes flick to my face, glowing brightly with unexpected excitement and her lips curl into an even wider smile.
“Do you want to go again?”
“Yes please.”
I pass her a plate, and she immediately turns and hurls it. I give her another and another, placing them into her waiting hands, and every time she throws one, she turns back to me, shoulders heaving with quick breaths.
She’s enjoying this.
And god, she couldn’t be prettier if she was standing in a field of wildflowers in one of those flowing dresses, hair and makeup professionally done, waiting for a photographer to come put her on the cover of a magazine.
“Want to try a teacup or jar?” I ask, swallowing past the thickness in my throat. The lump refuses to just be pushed down. Not when Loreena looks so truly, exhilaratingly happy. She’s glowing in that jumpsuit and all that safety equipment.
“Sure.”
I pass her a teacup and it quickly meets its demise, followed by two jars that look like they once contained pickles or pasta sauce, though the labels have been scrubbed off.
“Do you want to try?” she spins around and asks.
I shake my head. “You look like you’re doing just fine.”
She processes that. “But this is for both of us. You have to warm up too, before we start swinging around mauls and sledgehammers.”
I laugh. “I’ll have a go yet. We still have five shelves to work through.” You really get your money’s worth in here.
She picks up a plate of her own choosing, setting several aside before she makes her choice.
She steps back past me and stands stock-still for a moment, the silence vibrating through the roof, before she raises both hands overhead and hurls it at the wall with unusual force.
It downward spirals and burst apart right at the foot of the wall.
The way it hit, if the thing wasn’t reinforced with wood, it would have stuck the plate clear into the drywall.
She keeps her back to me and then she speaks, her voice metallic and sharp as a blade. “He said that they shouldn’t have posted the party online. The address and everything.”
My heart clangs in my chest. She’s talking about the man who attacked her. I asked her once in her kitchen and I had no idea. I was such a fucking idiot. So unprepared and callous.
I don’t know what to do. Should I touch her shoulder, her hand, take her in my arms and hold her while she spills this out?
She shows me what she wants by pivoting, grabbing another plate, and hurling it at the wall. It shatters violently and her shoulders heave.
“I didn’t know anything about that. My parents wanted my sister to watch out for me.
I’d graduated and she was halfway done college, but she was the one who had done everything.
Had the whole experience. Lived in a dorm, went to parties, made friends, messed around, went to all the shit that was happening.
Plays, music, athletics, art—whatever it was, she was doing it.
She didn’t even have bad grades. She was like that in high school too.
Naturally smart, where I had to work for it.
I had to study. I wanted to spend time writing papers.
I liked the library far more than anywhere else.
She hated that I was the nerd who our parents were so worried about.
She was the younger one. If anyone was taking care of anyone, it should have been the other way around. ”
Another plate, another hard hurl at the wall.
“I didn’t even want to go to the stupid party, and then as soon as we got there, she went off with her friends and left me alone.
I couldn’t find her. No one knew where she was.
I spent so much time looking for her, and the place was so packed and it was just…
horrible. Sticky and loud and full of drunk and high people.
People making out, people having sex in places that weren’t even private.
People can do what they want, I guess, but it wasn’t for me. I wanted to go home.”
She picks up two plates this time and hurls them, one after another.
She goes back for a jar and a cup and lets them fly as well.
She grabs two more plates, her shoulders heaving with hard breaths, but not sobs.
She’s not crying. Her face is perfectly dry as she passes me.
I let her go. Let her get this out on her own terms without interfering.
“The block was so full of cars when we got there earlier that I had to park and we had to walk a long way. My sister had wanted to take a cab, but I knew I wouldn’t be drinking.
I thought that it was the safe, smart decision.
I’d get us home because I could rely on myself.
She might have convinced me to go to the party, even though I knew she didn’t really want me to go at all, but I was going to do the big sister thing and watch out for her.
In the end, I couldn’t watch out for her.
I sent her probably a hundred texts and she didn’t answer any of them.
She was the experienced one. I didn’t want to leave her there, but I figured she’d know how to get home. ”
She hurls another plate, letting out a short little grunt of dismay when it bursts at the wall, but it’s not about the broken glass.
“I decided to cut through the park so I wouldn’t have to walk so far.
The neighborhood was ritzy and there was this wall surrounding the path that led between these massive houses.
It wasn’t that high, but it was made of stone.
Stone blocks. He was waiting just on the other side of it, in the shadows. ”
My blood turns to ice in my veins, but in the next heartbeat, it’s a roaring fire.
I hate this for her. I hate that this is the nightmare she’s lived over and over again.
I can’t take this away from her. I can be her support and let her lean on me now if she wants to, but that’s all I can do. I can comfort, but I can’t fix this.
She doesn’t want to lean on me. She stalks past me and gathers up a whole stack of plates. I figure she’s going to hurl them one after another, but she swings her arms to the side and lets them fly. Some of them crash to the floor, far short of their target, but a few make it across the room.