His foot came up and his heel landed on my back with impressive force. The gym seemed to come to life in those moments as others began to gather around the ring. They cheered for Fernando.
On the mat, we grappled, each of us avoiding an arm around the neck or an arm grab that would undoubtedly lead to a painful submission hold. The bell rang before either of us was willing to surrender our position.
“Separate!” called Carlos. I kicked Fernando off of me and scrambled to my feet. We stared at one another and heaved for breath. Carlos was laughing and remarked that I had more fight than he thought.
Fernando told me not to get too excited. He’d been taking it easy on me but was ready to kick my ass just as soon as Carlos rung the bell.
I took off my headgear and threw it outside the ring. Mimicking Fernando’s hand gesture from earlier, I raised my hands and told him to kick my ass if he thought he could. Everyone seemed pleasantly surprised by my ability to speak Spanish. Everyone except Fernando. He removed his own headgear and tossed it. Carlos rang the bell.
Fernando rushed again, but I was ready this time. I waited until he was within arm‘s reach and used his momentum against him. I stepped to the side, caught his neck with my arm and jumped on his back. We went down with a loud thud as I rode Fernando to the ground. With my knees firmly planted in his sides, I went to work punching Fernando in the face before he covered himself. My hands throbbed with pain after colliding with bone.
Fernando rolled, knocking me to the side, and delivered a backward kick that landed between my shoulder blades. I cried out, my hands scrambling for purchase on the other man’s sweaty flesh. Wearing jeans had been a mistake. The fabric trapped me. Two more kicks landed on my back and I saw spots.
The fight had gone from a sparring match to an earnest struggle. Fernando scrambled to get on my back, his arms trying to wind their way around my neck. I kept my arm up to protect my windpipe.
A familiar feeling spread throughout my body. Suddenly, the only thing that mattered was winning. A fist collided with the side of my face and my teeth bit down hard on the mouth guard. I could taste blood in my mouth.
“You can’t kill me, Khoya. I’m a god here.”
I gritted my teeth and pushed with all my strength on the arm attempting to circle my neck. Fernando’s arm trembled and eventually he was forced to readjust his position on my back. The bell rang and Carlos yelled for us to separate, but neither of us listened. I refused to be saved by the bell for a second time.
I pushed myself up with my arms, exposing my neck to Fernando in a way he couldn’t resist. As he wrapped his arm around my neck, his face pressed to the side of my own, I reached behind his head with one arm and grasped my other hand. I squeezed. Fernando grunted into my ear. I crushed his windpipe with my shoulder as I pressed him from behind.
With each of us having the other by the throat, it became a test of endurance. Fernando’s position was better than mine, but he was used to fighting for sport. I was accustomed to fighting to live. I squeezed until my shoulders burned. I had run out of oxygen long ago and black spots invaded my vision. But I held on. I held on until I felt Fernando sag against me, only seconds before I blacked out.
I was jolted into consciousness by a forceful slap and cold water being splashed on my face. Carlos’ angry glare was all I needed to realize what had happened. I looked beyond him to watch as another man treated Fernando to the same. He sat up with a cough and rubbed at his neck.
“I knew you were a troublemaker when you walked in,” Carlos said in Spanish. “Get dressed and get the fuck out.” He stood and tossed my shirt onto my chest. I pulled it on and stood as quickly as I was able.
“Good fight,” I managed through a strained throat. “We’ll do it again.” Fernando managed to smile and nod as I turned to leave the ring.
I grabbed my socks and shoes and left without putting them on. The cold was bracing as I walked toward my car, but I didn’t mind. It was the only thing keeping me upright. I knew I’d be bruised to hell in the morning. At last, something felt normal.
I managed to get back to the hotel before the first stirrings of bruised muscle, scraped flesh, and weary bones had me longing for the comfort of a hot bath. Slowly, I eased my body into the water. It stung viciously. I put ice on my face. No one could accuse me of being pretty at that moment.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I was sound asleep when I heard the pounding on the door. I moaned as I attempted to move all at once. The light coming in through the curtains told me it wasn’t yet evening. Livvie hadn’t waited long before coming to find me.
I decided further movement was ill advised. My throat was too sore to yell. A strange pinch occurred in my chest. I wanted to see Livvie, but I didn’t want to fight with her.
Vivisected. It’s the only word I can think of to describe how I’m feeling—vivisected. As though someone has cut me open with a scalpel, the pain not sinking in until the flesh begins to separate and my blood bubbles out. I can hear the crack as my ribs are flayed open. Slowly, my organs, wet and sticky, are pulled out of me one at a time. Until I am hollow. Hollow and yet, in excruciating pain—still alive. Still. Alive.
As I lay unable or unwilling to move with Livvie pounding on my door, it occurred to me: It’s always going to hurt. Yes, vivisected had been a very apt word to use. Loving Livvie was like allowing myself to be peeled open and hollowed out. She made me weak. She made me vulnerable. She made me ache and long and hope for all the things that could never be mine.
The door opened.
“Caleb?” Livvie called out. It was the first time she’d ever used the key I’d given her and I groaned at my own stupidity. That was another thing Livvie made me—stupid.
“I’m in here,” I said. Getting choked until unconscious is hard on the vocal chords. I hated the way my heart knocked in my chest. I really wanted to see her. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. Shamefully, I wanted her to see me battered and use it to keep her from screaming at me.
She gasped when she saw me but didn’t reach out to touch me.
“What did you do now? I mean, aside from invade my privacy and break my trust? It’s been a busy day for you.”
I let her words hang in the air between us. What could I say? Finally, she stepped closer and brushed her fingers across my cheek. I hissed.
“Serves you right,” she snapped. Beneath the anger I heard concern. “What happened?”
“I picked a fight,” I whispered. “You should see the other guy.” I laughed and it hurt.
“Is—is the other guy alive?” she asked without inflection.
“Yes,” I said just as coldly. “You would ask me, wouldn’t you? I’m always killing people for petty reasons.” I turned away from her. “If you came for a fight, don’t bother. I surrender.” I felt an intense pressure in my chest. “Just go.”
“Do you really want me to go?” she asked. There was no emotion in her voice and it scared the fuck out me. Please, don’t go. Don’t leave me.
“If you’re done with me,” I said instead.
“Coward,” she spat. “You’ll take a beating. You’ll face men with guns. You’ll kill. But God forbid you have to swallow your goddamn pride and apologize for being a nosy little shit.”
I sat up fast.
“You think I don’t swallow my pride? Fuck you! All I’ve done for months is swallow my pride. I’ve apologized ad nauseum. I fuck you when you want to be fucked. I play nice for your friends. I wait for you to come home because I have nothing more to do. You’ve become my whole life!
“Meanwhile, you’re writing about me. You still see me as the man I was. You still see the killer—beautiful on the outside and hideous on the inside. Why are you with me? Why am I trying so hard to be someone else when all I’ll ever be to you is the man who ruined your life? I follow you around like a love-sick bitch and every day I fight the urge to go back to what I know. There are days when I want to go back to being the person I was because that person couldn’t love you. The man I was would never be this weak!”
I shouted through the pain in my throat and that, coupled with the emotion working its way to the surface, threatened to close off my airway. Livvie’s face was a mask of indifference. It chilled my bones. How had she learned to be so cold? I knew the answer even as I asked the question.
“You love me?” she asked as she looked into my eyes. “When did you come to the realization? Was it when I told you I loved you and you said it was cute? Or maybe it was after I killed a man? Possibly when I begged you not to leave me at the border?
“Did you realize you loved me while I was alone in the hospital and weeping over you? When did you shout your love from the rooftops, Caleb? I couldn’t hear you. I was too busy trying to fucking breathe without you. I was busy convincing everyone around me I wasn’t crazy for defending my kidnapper. So, remind me. When did you say the words? I’ll be sure to go back in time and comfort the broken girl you left in your wake. Your love can comfort her, because I’m not the same person anymore.
“I’ve learned to breathe without you. I’ve learned there’s no one in this life I can trust. It isn’t that you read my words. I don’t care about that. I would have shown you eventually. It’s the note you left. It’s now. It’s knowing that at any moment you’re going to run off and leave me again. How can I tell you I love you? How could I survive it again?”
I was stunned into silence. Every cell in my body crawled with shame. Livvie was a survivor. She’d survived me. I realized then what I was witnessing was not indifference—it was pain. Livvie was in pain and it was my fault.
I didn’t know what was happening, but it came on suddenly. My nose started running and I sniffled. I knew Livvie was watching me. I knew how ridiculous I must look, how weak and broken. I couldn’t even care. I had nothing left to lose. I did my best to clear my throat before I spoke.
“I couldn’t say it, Kitten. I’d just finished… I loved him.” I felt my chest shaking.
“Who?” Livvie whispered. She was still so stoic.
“Rafiq,” I said softly. Livvie sighed.
“Why, Caleb? You know what he did.”
“Yes. I know what he did. I also know what he didn’t do: He never touched me the way the others did.” A part of me couldn’t believe I was about to go into this with her. I’d read her story and it had me thinking of my own. I suppose I thought I owed her the other half of our tale. I needed her to know I hadn’t cast her out without good reasons. “I was so young, Livvie. I was so powerless. Every day I was raped by someone. I was raped every day until I started to convince myself it wasn’t rape. I let them touch me. I let them… fuck me. I smiled at the ones I saw more often than the others, imagining they must care for me. Why else would they come back to use me repeatedly?
“Eventually, I believed them. I believed them when they said they cared. I believed them when they promised to buy me from Narweh. I let myself hope that one day I would be free.” I heard myself sob. The sound was far away, as though someone else were falling apart and not me. “It never happened. They never cared. They were never going to set me free. It was the hope they loved to toy with—my hope. I let it die.
“And then one day… Rafiq came. He picked me up, whipped and bloody. He took me home and nursed me. He fed me. He fed my body. He fed my mind. He fed my soul. He taught me how to do more than survive—he taught me how to live. And he never touched me.
“For years he took care of me. I didn’t need hope anymore. I had something better. I had purpose! I loved him for that. And then...” I felt numb as I stared off into space. “I learned the truth.”
My body shook as I recalled the night I murdered him.
“I wasn’t anything, Livvie. I wasn’t anything to him and he’d been everything to me. I would have died for him and the whole time… I was nothing.” I finally looked at Livvie. Tears were on her cheeks. “But that’s not the worst part. No, the worst part is that I meant to kill him before I knew the truth. It was the only way to set you free and I… I killed him, Livvie. I killed him and I buried him in Felipe’s garden where his family will never find him. I buried the only person I thought I could trust. I loved him, and he turned out to be the person responsible for the most horrendous betrayal of my life.
“And then I realized I’d done the same to you. I’d beaten you. I’d raped you, and worse—I even made you like it. I fed you hope and I snatched it away. I made you love me! How could I tell you? I couldn’t tell you, Livvie. I was confused. I was… broken. I’m still broken. I don’t know who I am or what I want. All I know is that without you… without you, there’s nothing. I’m nothing. Do you have any idea how terrifying that is for someone like me?”
My feelings toward her were on the tip of my tongue. I’d been holding the words in since the moment I had watched her walk out of my life, and if she’d turned around and looked at me for even a second, I wouldn’t have been able to resist telling her then.
I love you.
I couldn’t say it in Mexico. I had lost too much that day. I had lost my reality. What could I possibly understand about love when the only person I was sure I did love had lied to me for twelve years? Livvie had said she was mine. How could I be sure? Worse, what if it were true? What if she loved me and all I had to offer was a husk of a heart to love her with? How can anyone understand what love is without experiencing it? It would be like trying to describe color to a blind man. Some things you have to see for yourself. To understand love, you have to feel it for yourself.
It wasn’t until Livvie walked away and I was truly alone in the world that I began to feel what love could be. It didn’t come to me as it came to others; I had to find love as I had found everything else that defined me: through my suffering. The chasm Livvie’s absence opened in me was a hungry void. It was alive, the void, and it would not be filled with vengeance. It was not soothed by my attempts to right my wrongs. It was not pleased by random women. It did not sleep, despite the amount of drink I imbibed to dull my senses.
There was only one thing the void wanted. Greedily tearing me apart, it asked for Livvie. It wanted my hopes, my dreams. It wanted my memories of her face. It wanted the laughter we had shared. “Mine,” the void had decreed. Only Livvie could make me whole, and as soon as I had realized it, I couldn’t stop looking for her. I’d become obsessed with knowing if she really loved me.
The first touch of Livvie’s hand on my shoulder had me sobbing again. Love made me weak. I wished it would go away. Instead, it crushed me under its heel. I let Livvie push me back onto the bed. And when I heard her turn away, love made me beg.
“Please don’t go. Don’t leave me.”
I felt her fingers running through my hair.
“I would never leave you, Caleb. I just wanted to get you some water.”
“I don’t want water.”
“Scotch? Whiskey?”
“Just you.”
There was a long pause.
“Okay.”
I heard her undress before she slipped in behind me. She smelled like smoke. She hadn’t had a cigarette since the first night I’d come to her apartment. I didn’t say anything about it. She had her vises and I had mine. All that mattered to me was that Livvie was warm. And soft. Livvie was always warm and soft. She spoke softly in my ear.
“I’m scared too. You didn’t come to the door and I thought: He left me again. Caleb, you can’t do that to me.”
Livvie kissed my shoulder, but I could feel her vibrating with anger.
“You’re mad at me.”
“Yes,” she said. “But I guess… maybe I can’t blame you. In the grand scheme of things, it’s ridiculous to assume you wouldn’t break into my laptop. To use your words: I know who you are and I know what you do.” Livvie let out a short burst of laughter that quickly became a thoughtful sigh. “It must be hard on you, not having anyone to talk to about… him. I certainly don’t care he’s dead—he can rot in hell for all I care—but I never guessed how much you…” Livvie sighed and went silent.
“I don’t expect you to care. I don’t regret what I did. I just wanted you to know why I couldn’t let you come with me. To be honest, I don’t regret leaving you behind.”
She tensed.
“Sorry you came back?”
I turned and pulled her into my arms. It wasn’t her place to comfort me.
“No. I could never regret any amount of time with you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened in my life. I just wish I could… be that for you.” Her silence was nearly deafening. It was a confirmation.
“I… fuck. I’m so goddamn angry, Caleb. I don’t know how to process everything sometimes. There’s so much living inside me. That’s what the writing is for, it helps me lay shit out and filter through my thoughts.” She propped herself up on her elbow and met my eyes. Her expression was pained. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Caleb. You’re also the worst. I’m trying to reconcile those two things. Help me?”
“How am I supposed to help you?” I asked.
“Tell me your side of things. I want to hear the good and the bad. I have so many questions, so many moments in my life where I only know half the information. You read my side of it. I want your side. Help me understand how I managed to…” Her eyes finished her sentence: fall in love with you. “Help me explain it to the rest of the world.”
Her words left me reeling. I didn’t want the world to know. I didn’t want to know. In fact, I’d been doing everything within my power to make us both forget where we started. How was this supposed to help?
“It’s not for the rest of the world to know, Livvie. I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t, but I do. I wouldn’t betray your trust. I’d tell it the way it’s meant to be told. I’d make them see that some stories aren’t black and white. I’d make them feel this, us. And then I’d feel better. I wouldn’t feel like you got one over on me. I’d feel right about everything between us and I’d defend it. I’ll always defend it.”
What justification did I have against that? I had what I wanted: assurance that Livvie had no desire to leave me. I’d even managed to sidestep the argument over having broken into her laptop. Most importantly, she’d given me a glimpse of the love she’d once professed to have for me. I was determined to nurture that emotion.
“What do you want to know? For example?” I edged. She leaned toward me and placed a soft kiss on my mouth.
“I hate seeing you like this. If anyone is going to fuck up your face, it should be me.” She smiled.
“Think you could take me?” I worked hard not to grin so I wouldn’t split my lip open again.
“I think you’d let me.”
“Well, you’ve got me there. I don’t think anyone has ever slapped me so many times and walked away without having to look over their shoulder forever.” I let my fingers caress her face. I’d slapped her once. “I felt horrible… that one time. I’ll never—”
“I know,” she interrupted. “I’m sorry I asked about the... you know. I know you’re trying to be different and you’ve changed so much. That wasn’t fair.”
“You had a right to ask. I’m trying to change, but it doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with who I used to be. I’ve had blood on my hands.” I silently reflected on my year away from Livvie.
“You’re different now,” Livvie said softly.
I saw the faces of the women I’d once enslaved and then set free. I thought about the ones I’d been too late to save. They would haunt me forever and it was scarcely penance enough. Yet, fate had brought me to Livvie .
“I don’t know that I’m all that different. I’ll never stop looking over my shoulder—or yours. I think part of me will always be someone’s loyal disciple. It’s who I am.” I stroked Livvie’s hair. “I’d kill for you, Livvie. I’d die for you.”
“Caleb. Don’t. You’re no one’s disciple. You’re free, and all that shit is behind you.” Her arm squeezed my waist.
“I hope you’re right, Kitten, but I’d still do anything to protect what’s important to me. I just hope it never comes to violence again. From now on, it’s just fighting in the gym.”
Livvie laughed.
“You mean you did this on purpose? Oh, Caleb,” she sighed, “you’re such a fucking man sometimes.” She kissed me again.
“I’m always a man. Don’t you forget it.” I winked. “Ask your questions, Kitten. I can’t promise I’ll always be this agreeable.” I skimmed her lower back with my fingers.
Livvie’s smile faded a bit, but I could sense her determination nonetheless.
“Why me, Caleb? Why’d you choose me?”
I was sorry I invited her questions. I could think of at least ten other things I would rather suffer than formulate words to loaded questions like those. However, why is always important to people. It had been important to me. I’d wanted to know why I’d been taken. I’d wanted to know why Rafiq showed me genuine affection when I was a boy. My entire life had been about why. I owed Livvie answers.
I cleared my throat.
“You made me curious.” I could practically feel the intensity of Livvie’s stare. “I watched you for weeks before I decided. Every time I saw you… I wanted to know more about you.”
“But why?” She pressed into my side. I let out a huff of air.
“Fuck, I don’t know. I guess… you looked kind of sad.” I raised my free hand and traced her confused brow. “You liked to stare at the ground and it used to make me angry because I couldn’t see your face, your eyes. I wanted to know why