T H I R T Y - F O U R
I was trying to sleep, really I was.
I told Charlie that Perry needed some girl time, but really I was still hiding out.
But I'd been laying there for the past five minutes as Perry tried to quietly move around the apartment, only to knock over a stack of books, and she stubbed her toe on the bathroom door. I almost giggled as she wailed in silence at the throbbing pain. So rather than continue to torture the both of us, I sat up and turned the lamp on.
Perry screams. “You scared the shit out of me.” Her face had gone pale, and she clutched her hairbrush to her chest.
“Where are you off to?” I snicker.
“Well...” she inhales, leaning against the door frame after restarting her heart. “The mail guy told me about this event thing tonight and I decided why not.” She rolls her shoulders. “You told me to get back out there so here I am.”
“Event thing?”
“I don't really know what it is,” she confesses. “But he told me it would be fun so—”
“Perry,” I roll my eyes with a laugh.
“What?” she huffs. “I'm not dating the mail guy. He's not my type.”
“Too wholesome?”
She grins. “Want to come with?”
I think for a beat.
More time to avoid my mess of a life ?
Sold.
“Alright,” I give. “But we have to be back by midnight,” I throw my leg over the bed.
“Yes, Mom,” she winks.
As we stepped out the door into the night, I saw a text from Charlie. He had sent it a couple of hours ago.
I love you. And I swear I'll prove it to you.
The existence of love has never been a question for me. Not even the existence of his love for me. I am just terrified I can't trust him. Even when every molecule in my body wants to.
“Are you avoiding him?” Perry lifts a brow at me, seeing me shove my phone back in my pocket without responding.
“No,” I utter too quickly, and she shoots me a look. “Yes.”
“Why?” she chirps.
I huff. “Because if I avoid him, I can avoid the fight we’re going to keep having.”
“You can't hide forever,” she says. “It's Charlie.”
“I know that,” I reply. “I just—”
Perry is patient with me.
“The last time I saw him for more than five minutes, I gave into my sexual desire over my anger.”
“You had hate sex?”
I nod. “And it was so good. I just... I know if I don't figure out what I'm feeling, it will happen again and I'll keep digging this hole.”
“So, you think in order to get your heart and head to align, you have to avoid Charlie like the plague?”
“Basically.” I shrug. “Jumping his bones is too tempting. The lines between mad and lust are too thin with us. ”
“Do you ever think your connection is based too much on sex?”
“Not really,” I say. “It's a pretty big perk though.”
“That it is,” Perry giggles. “I miss it a little.”
“With Dan?”
She nods. “I think I miss the connection more than him specifically.”
“So, a hook-up won't fill the void?”
“Not even close.” She affectionately bumps my arm with hers. “So, I knit.”
“So, you knit.”
“And drag you out and about,” she teases. “Let's just have fun tonight. No boys. No drama. Just us.”
“And where are we going?”
She reaches into her pocket and grabs her phone. “It's an address.”
“Are you sure we aren't heading to our deaths?”
“Oh c'mon, live a little.” She brushes off my usual dramatics.
“A guy you just met tells you about an event thing and just sends a sketchy address?”
Perry cringes a little as we continue down the sidewalk. It's not totally empty, but it has calmed down for the evening, though still well lit. People are in and out of restaurants and the surrounding bars.
“Alright, you might have a point.” She hooks her arm around mine. “We'll just take a peek,” she decides. “A whiff of sketchy and we're out.”
“If this is my karma for avoiding my boyfriend—”
“Oh, shut up,” she elates .
We decided to take the train tonight rather than deal with cars and driving if we decided to have a drink or two. Normally I wouldn't drink on work nights, but one won't kill me. As a responsible adult, I needed to live a little .
“So how do you like the job?” I quiz Perry as we slump into a pair of seats on the train.
She rolls her shoulders. “It's too soon to tell I think.”
“No creepy vibes?”
She burrows her brows. “One of the higher-ups gives me the creeps but a job without at least one guy having off vibes is unheard of.”
I bob my head because unfortunately, she is correct. That's the price we pay as working women.
“It will do till I figure out what I want to do with myself.” She lets out a gush of air.
I intertwine our arms again. “I know I haven't really said it but I'm really glad you're back, Perry.”
Her pale pink painted nails squeeze my arm. “I'm glad too,” she concurs. “Besides, even if you and Charlie are going through it right now, I would be pissed to have missed out on this.”
“On what?”
Her light brown eyes sparkle. “Seeing you in love.”
I toss mine.
“You're like a completely different person but the same all at once. It's like Banks 2.0.”
“I never wanted to be the girl who a guy changed.”
“I don't mean it like that.”
“He's like... an extended part of my soul. ”
“Life-shattering,” Perry flushes. “Perfect is never really perfect, Banks, but from the looks of it you found the closest you could ever get to perfect .”
“I thought we weren't talking about boys.” I lift a brow.
“Right.” She playfully hardens her face. “No boys.” She zips her lips and tosses the key toward the other end of the fluorescent-lit train car.
A small laugh leaves my lips.
The idea of perfect is something I equate with Charlie too often. Perfect doesn't exist. Perfection lies in the ability to have compassion. Perfection is to be human. A thought it's taken me a moment to grasp. I never truly wanted the perfect made-up man. I wanted someone who made me feel human. Too long I felt like an object or a device of some sort. And perhaps by my own doing. I can admit that now.
Good and bad must exist for the balance of it all. And no doubt all the good about my life and relationship outweigh the bad. But living in the dark about the bad can be detrimental. I meant it when I said nothing could make me love him less, however, I want the chance to love all of him. His secrets and darkness. I want the chance to give him the compassion he's given me with my broken parts. I just don't know how to earn his trust or show him that nothing is too dark or too evil.
Maps led us to the industrial slice of the city. A bustling place during the day but utterly abandoned at night.
“Are you sure this is right?”
“Says it's just around the corner,” Perry insists as we walk under the flickering streetlights. A few cars did line the street, but nothing like twenty minutes over by our side of the city.
We walk with our arms locked, a trick most girls know before high school. It's harder to be snatched off the street if you are suddenly the weight of two girls rather than one.
Turning the corner was a bit like walking into a different country. Cars covered the entire length of the street on both sides and a small line huddles outside what appears to be an alleyway. The door looks like it's just a back door but in reality, it seems to be the entrance to an underground club.
An usher outside checking IDs is mostly letting in women as the men outnumbered the women five to one.
“Perry!”
Her name comes from a tall, lanky man with Harry Potter glasses.
“Hey, Wade.” Perry waves as we approach him. He wears a short-sleeved light blue button-up with his arms pushed into his jeans. “So, what is this place?”
No objections are made as we basically cut four other men in line.
Wade only appears about twenty years old, I'm not entirely sure if he is even old enough to drink.
Though he must be, right?
“You'll see,” he replies. “You must be Banks?” He offers me a boyish grin and his hand.
“Wade?”
He nods as I accept it.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
I quickly realized why Wade made friends with Perry and why he invited her. He needed a hot girl to get in .
“I think I was just used,” Perry whispers in my ear, realizing the same thing as we were let inside, directly into a very long set of metal stairs.
“He seems harmless though,” I utter back as Wade leads the way, and the music that was completely undetected outside gets much louder.
“Let me explain myself,” he pauses at the bottom of the stairs, before a pair of black velvet curtains that most certainly has a club behind them. “Unless you have lots of money or are well known, without a hot girl you can't get in.”
“We figured that out already, Wade,” Perry mutters, unimpressed.
“I do think you're cool, Perry.” He flashes that boyish grin again. His ashy brown hair brushes against his glasses. “I just bat for the other team, you know?”
“I know that too, Wade.”
“Friends?”
“Friends,” she nods. “Just be up front next time, okay? There won’t happen again if you keep sending me sketchy addresses.”
“There's a reason for just the address but I got it. Ready?” He reaches to pull the curtain.
“What's the reason?” I say.
“No one talks about fight club, Banks,” he snickers like he's wanted to quote Brad Pitt his entire life and unveils what's behind the curtain.
By all appearances, it reveals a club. The neon-lit barback, the standing tables, the DJ booth, and people swaying back and forth. The only thing completely out of place is in the center of it all. An octagon raised three feet into the air .
I get the itch in my belly that this isn't exactly legal, but the look in Perry's eyes tells me to keep my mouth shut, and we'll never speak of tonight again.
“Does this happen often?” Perry asks Wade, maintaining a calm tone.
“Maybe twice a month,” he replies, heading toward the bar. “What something?”
“Vodka sodas,” she rattles off quickly. It looks better to just be holding something.
We stand beside Wade while he orders and I shyly glance around. The place isn't packed to the brim, but there are quite a bit of people here. It's easy to pick out the money, in little circles with fancy watches. The few couches are all taken up by black suits on one side and men, who by all means look to be gangsters. I've read enough mafia books to know, it's best to just look the other way.
“How did you find out about all this?” Perry continues as he hands her a clear glass.
“A friend,” he replies aloofly, handing me the other vodka soda, while he grabbed a beer bottle. “Just stay away from the couches and you'll be fine,” he warns. “If you need anything, come find me.”
And like that, he disappears into the bodies.
“What the fuck?”
Perry shrugs. “That was weird. Should we go?”
I fight the urge to say yes. “Let's stay for a minute,” I sigh. “We did come all the way out here.”
“Really?” She sips on her drink.
I nod. “Live a little, right?”
“I have always wondered about fight club,” she jests. “Do you think any of them will be as hot as Brad Pitt? ”
“No,” I utter. “Not likely.”
“Maybe that's for the best.” She toys with her drink.
The longer we stood there, the more out of place we seemed, so we decided to cast a cloak of bodies around us. It's easy to appear invisible on the little dance floor.
I couldn't tell you the measure of time before the music was cut and the DJ spoke.
“It's about that time folks,” he hollers like a cheesy game show host. “Tonight, we have two back-to-back battles of our very own best of the best. First up—”
“This is like the real deal,” Perry says over the DJ.
“UFC for free?”
She laughs, pinching her eyes shut as she knocks back her beautiful head of hair. “Better than paying for paperview.” She bumps my arm with hers.
Kai would watch the fights from time to time as every boy does. The nurse in me saw blood and wanted to bandage them up while I attempted to not cringe at the physicality of fighting.
The far edge of the club parts, but I can't see much else till they reach the side of the octagon. A guy steps inside after shedding the t-shirt he wore, leaving him in a pair of blue trunks. His fists are wrapped, and his feet are bare. He's just a kid—eighteen maybe.
His competitor is older and much taller. His body is covered in tattoos, including his face. While the crowd was mostly quiet for the kid, they screamed for the other man.
Perry and I share a look, noticing we are now boxed in with patrons, eagerly gluing their eyes to the shape before us. All of them; beaming like bloodthirsty hounds. It would be a fight for ourselves to move an inch .
“First opening, we go.”
“Agreed,” I utter back.
There is no referee in the cage with them and the door is locked shut with a padlock and chains. Wade has most definitely brought us somewhere we shouldn't be, but for now, we would need to just stand and watch.
A bell echoes off the walls and the tattooed guy comes out swinging. The Kid —as the DJ dubbed him—moves with speed and accuracy, avoiding every throw. I felt my body tense with every jab, feeling as if I'd been watching for hours, rather than minutes. Tattoos finally lands a blow that causes The Kid to stagger. A golden smile in the mist of ink raises his fists in victory.
Yet it was too soon.
While he celebrated, The Kid jumped on his back, entangling the entire weight of his body in a choke hold, slamming Tattoos to the ground. I suppose tapping out isn't a thing as we watched the eyes of the man roll into his head and his body fall limp.
“He could have killed him,” I whisper, peering at Perry.
Worry rests in her gaze as she takes my hand in hers.
I expected people to move once Tattoos was drug from the ring, but they all stayed put, nearly creating a mush pit with the uproar. Perry and I could only plant our feet and avoid the drinks splashing through the air.
“How are we going to get out of here?”
“We'll wait it out,” she replies. “If the next one is as quick as this—”
“Now is the fight you've all been waiting for!” Perry is overcome by the DJ. “The Phantom vs. The Man of Steel! ”
I don't know how he manages it, but Wade unexpectedly appears beside Perry. “You alright?” he asks her.
Perry shoots him a glare.
“This is the main event,” he says innocently. “Everyone's been talking about this fight for weeks.”
“Everyone? Talking about an illegal fighting ring?” Perry snaps. “Seems normal.”
He shoos her. “Keep it down,” he cautions. “Look I'm sorry I used you to get in, but I'll make it up to you.”
“I don't want anything from you, Wade.”
“I just had to see The Man of Steel.” He sounds like a teenage girl fanning over the Jonas Brothers. “He's just my type.”
“Why the nickname?” Perry can't help herself.
“He kind of looks like Superman.”
That makes my stomach spoil as the guy they call The Phantom enters the ring.
“Isn't that—”
“The guy from the other night.” Perry completes my sentence, and my nerve endings go paralytic.
Oh no.
No no no.
My eyes shut as my ears bleed at the next words that come from the DJ's mic.
“And finally, THE MAN OF STEEL!”
“Holy shit,” Perry gasps under her breath.
My heart thrashes as I will myself to open my eyes.
Under the spotlights, a man stood with his back to us. A black sweatshirt that he began to unzip, the hood fell and as the fabric continued down with gravity, a pair of eyes stared right at me. Right into the very depths of my heart .
“Hot right?” Wade utters in a tone that I can hear the smirk in, completely oblivious.
I can't take my eyes off of him. The body I know as well as my own. Covered in a sheen, his hair is damp and tied back. He wears a pair of black trunks and his fists are wrapped in black gauze.
He lied.
The bell rings as I hesitantly turn my head to Perry. I find her, watching me, her eyes nearly watering for me.
I shake my head.
Pleading with her to not say a word.
I can't help myself.
I have to watch.
Pray, he really is the man of steel.
The white-haired guy has a sadistic look in his eyes as they dance around each other. He is loose and moves more for show, while Charlie's arms are tucked close and his body is held tight.
I feel so many things, I doubt I am truly feeling anything.
Fear evades it all, taking the forefront. There is no getting out of that cage till one is knocked out. I could be witnessing my boyfriend's attempted murder or maybe even worse, he's the murderer.
“Banks,” Perry whimpers beside me, but I ignore her.
The two men spare, exchanging punches back and forth. Most of them don't connect but a few do. The Phantom spits out blood while Charlie favors the rib that took the hit.
Wade's excitement for it all, yelling at Charlie, boils my skin. Charlie's an object to him. An expendable attraction for his entertainment—for everyone's entertainment .
A body topples over like a lightning-struck tree as the other jumps on it, throwing blow after blow.
They say the moment your life changes, it all flashes before your eyes.
“Hey, do you remember me?”
“Do you want to kiss me?”
“Rawr,” he bops me on the nose with the lion paw.
“You're my best friend, Banks.”
“The only person who knows me.”
“Did you have a crush on me?”
I reach for the police report, seeing Charlie's name on it and the charges being assault.
“Whatever it is that creates us, made you with perfection.”
“You are the stars, Banks.”
“The light in all the dark. Love is too little of a word for what you mean to me.”
“Promise me...”
“Promise me you won't ever do it again.”
And was every bit of it a lie?