Chapter 20 #2
“Right, sorry. Got a little distracted there.” Staring at the mole on your face.
Yeah, that might be a bit weird, even for me.
“Not quite, but you get an A for effort and flair. What you wanna do is get low and then turn, so you’re facing your attacker, but not head-to-head.
” I pivoted, planting a leg between his, my front to his back.
“You’re actually gonna end up somewhat behind me, like this,” I said into his ear.
The second I did, his whole body went tight. Damn it. There it was, that split-second flinch I’d prayed I wouldn’t trigger.
“Hey,” I murmured, lifting my hand and running it down the length of his arm, from shoulder to elbow. “You’re safe. It’s just me. You’re in control. Talk to me. What color ya at?”
He trembled, a soft whimper falling from his mouth, but he didn’t pull away.
“Green.” His voice came out broken. He cleared his throat.
“I’m good. I’m green. It’s not . . .” He released a frustrated exhale.
“You didn’t . . . I mean . . .” Another breath.
“I’m green.” He cocked his head back to look at me.
“I promise. Tell me where I went wrong this time.”
“Alright, you see, self-defense from any attack is all about exploiting weak points in your attacker’s body to shift the balance and force the advantage back into your hands.”
“Oh, goodie, exploiting your weak points. The moment I’ve been waiting for. It’s about time someone should.”
“Trust me, I’ve got no shortage of weak points. Why do you think I have a gym membership and a therapist?”
“I just assumed you did it for the flex, literal and metaphorical. Have to feed that ego and the mirror, right? I know how much you love to show off,” he teased.
“Yep, you got me pegged except for the whole fact that you’re wrong. The gym is for pretending I have control. The therapist is for admitting I don’t.”
“I love how honest you are about that,” he said, sincere and serious. “You don’t try to pretend you’re invincible or above any of it. You’re real. You make it okay to be scared and still want to learn how to fight back.”
“Anyone who pretends they’re unaffected by emotion is only fooling themselves. Emotions aren’t the enemy. Fear isn’t weakness. Hell, being scared is often what keeps us alive.”
“What do you fear Luke?” The question came as a whisper but the intensity in Oliver’s eyes told me he needed the answer. He needed the confirmation that even someone like me got scared.
“Whenever I’m assigned a DV case at work, I’m afraid of reliving my sister’s ending with someone else’s name on it and this time knowing it happened on my watch.
I’m scared that I’ll say, ‘You’re safe for tonight,’ and come back to find I’d made the wrong call.
I’m scared of being too late and creating the most dreadful reality I lived through for someone else. ”
Stepping closer, he laid his hand on my sternum, tilting his head to look up at me. “How do you face that fear every day?”
Setting my hand over his, I let it press into the thump of my heart, taking a long breath before speaking.
“I lost the person I loved most, and it still knocks me flat sometimes. But all that fear? That grief? It’s part of me now.
I don’t try to bury it. I carry it. It keeps me sharp, and committed.
On the rough days, I remind myself I’m rewriting the ending for someone else.
Every person I help is a promise I keep to her. ”
“I didn’t meet her, so I can only say this based on everything you’ve told me about her, but I think Carrie would be proud of you.”
“Yeah, I think so too.” My voice came out brittle around the familiar lump in my throat, the one that always accompanied her name.
All the fond memories I try to keep alive never protect me from the sorrow.
If anything, the sweetness of them deepens the ache.
Grief, I’ve learned, isn’t just the presence of pain, it’s what absence leaves behind.
It’s a ghost, sometimes invisible, other times haunting me in the most torturous of ways.
It’s the shadow of love that no longer has a place to land.
“Which is why, what I want you to take away from this conversation is that it’s more than okay to be scared and still want to fight. And I admire the hell out of you for wanting to fight, Ollie.”
His mouth fell open in surprise. “You do?”
“Yeah, I do. I admire every step you’ve taken to break free, and the person you’re turning into.
You survived, that’s defiance. Getting up every day in a world that tried to crush you, that’s rebellion.
Courage isn’t about living without fear, it’s about showing up anyway.
And that’s what you do. Every damn day.”
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“It’s the truth. And if you’re ever in a situation where you need to defend yourself again, I’m going to make sure you have the tools to kick ass.”
“Well, then, you best get back to showing me all those mad skills and badass moves.”
“Your command is my wish.”
“That’s not how the saying goes.”
“It’s Walker improved, makes way more sense that way.”
“Does it now?” Oliver asked, voice dipped in that particular brand of teasing that had become his trademark around me. The amusement in his expression said he knew I was about to launch into some absurd Lukeism. He arched his brow as if to say go on then, hit me with your nonsense.
“Alright, hear me out. The whole phrase, ‘your wish is my command,’ most famously quoted by the genie in Aladdin, is all backwards when you remember the genie is bound to serve and obey whoever rubs the lamp. He doesn’t get a say, he has to grant whatever the lamp owner wants.
Total no-agency situation. But now, flip it, ‘your command is my wish.’ You see how the meaning changes?
Like, I’m not just obeying, I’m choosing to do the thing. It’s consent and enthusiasm.”
Oliver laughed under his breath, shaking his head. “You’ve thought way too hard about this.”
“Think about it! The first says, ‘You tell me to jump, and I’ll do it ’cause I have to.’ The second says, ‘You tell me to jump, and I’ll do it ’cause I want to.’ Wouldn’t you rather the person who wants to show up than the one who’s just following orders?”
Oliver’s expression turned thoughtful, a little mournful, probably remembering all the times he had to say yes, not willingly but in order to survive. “You have a point.”
“Good, now that I’ve gotten you to see it my way, philosophy class dismissed, Walker’s rambling hour over. Drill time. You ready to actually learn the move so you can get out of somebody’s grip without thinking twice?”
“Ready, Coach.”
“Okay, I’m going to come up now and wrap my arms around your waist, like a real attacker would, but slower. I’ll lock my arms around you, but I won’t squeeze.”
Closing the distance I wrapped my arms around his torso, lacing my hands together above his navel.
I walked him through the first steps. Grab the attackers hands to anchor yourself, drop your weight into a squat, and stay low. From there, pivot, sweeping your inside leg behind the attacker’s, then taking hold of them behind their knees.
“Now for the fun part,” I said once he was in the right position. “You’re going to lift me up and flip me backward onto the floor.”
“You’re joking, right? Pick you up? You’re like, twice my body weight.”
“Hey now, let’s not exaggerate. I’m at most one-point-eight times your body weight.
But this isn’t about brute strength. You’re not throwing me across the room.
You’re using momentum, positioning, and your own center of gravity to get me off balance.
That’s all. Doesn’t matter how big or solid I am.
I’m not exempt from physics. I promise, I’m going down.
Just trust the process, or at least trust me.
Didn’t you learn from the last drill that I know what I’m doing? ”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, his body tensing as he drove upward, flipping me to the floor. My back hit with a small thud.
“I did it!” he exclaimed.
“See? Effortless.”
“Can we do it again?” he said, bouncing with excitement.
“We can run through as many times as you need to be confident in the steps. That was badass,” I said, loving his enthusiasm over his success. I couldn’t say no to that.
After several more tries, Oliver said, “What about ground attacks? Vince used to . . . he’d pin me to the floor. A lot. Is there . . . is there a way out of that?”
“Yeah. There is. We can run through a scenario or two, if you want?”
“I want to know every way to defend myself. Please show me.”
The first run through went by without a hitch, but on the second, when I moved into position, knees bracketing his hips, weight settling above his waist, Oliver’s muscles went taut under me, and he twisted, trying to wiggle free. His breath grew faster. Not quite panicked, but erratic.
“Easy,” I murmured, shifting my weight forward to remove the pressure off his hips. Bracing one hand on the floor beside his shoulder, I reached my other out to his face, stroking along the curve of his jaw, a light touch meant to guide him back to the present.
“You’re okay. Just slow down. Find your body. Both—”
Something twitched against my inner thigh. I almost wrote it off, until his pelvis bucked into me. A raw, choked-off sound tore from him, and the truth hit like a lightning bolt.
Oh.
This wasn’t panic or fear. He wasn’t trying to escape. His body’s response came from a completely different direction. His eyes widened in horror. Color flooded his face—a deep, mortified blush rising from his collar to his hairline.
“Red! Luke, red! Off! Get off me!” he yelled, pushing at my chest.
With care, as quick as I could, I rolled off him.
He scrambled upright. “Shit! Shit! Shit! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“Hey, it’s alright. It happens. Adrenaline, proximity, it’s your body doing its thing. It doesn’t always know the difference between threat and uh . . . other stuff.”
“Please don’t,” he cut in. “Just . . . don’t.”
Not waiting for a response, he turned and fled, rushing up the stairs to his bedroom.
I stood there staring at the spot he’d just bolted from. My thighs tingled where he’d been pressed against me, and my brain, god help it, began instant-replaying the moment.
Why couldn’t my damn heart pick a rhythm? My thoughts switched between dude, what the hell just happened and please, for the love of all that’s holy, let it happen again.
The first I understood, the second was new and blindsiding. But it made me wonder whether, if he hadn’t run off, would I have pulled away? Would I even have wanted to? I gave my head a rough shake, like that could rattle the thoughts away. No dice. It just seemed to dislodge more questions.
Had I misread everything? Misunderstood what Oliver meant to me and what I’d come to feel for him all this time?
I’d always figured I was straight. I’d never been attracted to a guy before.
Then again, it’s not like I’d been attracted to many women, at least not in the sexual sense.
I ran on low gear in that regard, once in a blue moon, during the thirteenth month of a leap year kind of low.
But the way my body lit up a few minutes ago?
Yeah, not sure that was low gear. That was more like I’d hit the ignition and forgotten where the brakes were.
Oliver’s body had moved underneath mine and something in me had activated, not with confusion or panic, but want.
That surfaced the biggest questions of all. Did I want Oliver like that? When I tried to conjure an image to fill the white space that had always existed in my mind when I thought about sex, did Oliver’s face appear? His mouth? His body?
The instant and loud mental affirmative told me everything I needed to know. Well . . . shit.