“You say that, but I’m having a real hard time believing it.” He rubs his lips together. “If you don’t want to tell me, fine, but at least talk to Sebastian. He’ll help you through whatever you’re going through, and he won’t be afraid to call his own flesh and blood out on his bullshit.”
Webber’s name comes from behind me, someone shouting it over the clunking of a nearby weight machine. He lifts his gaze over my shoulder before I have the chance to thank him for being decent. With everything we’ve been through, it’s nice to know that he’s not holding grudges.
“That’s a buddy of mine I’ve been training with,” he explains, tossing a thumb over his shoulder. “I gotta go.”
“Yeah, sure. Go ahead.”
He looks at me for one long stretch. Almost like he doesn’t want to go to his friend at all. But we both know he can’t stay rooted in front of me. We’re living two different lives now, and his is calling him back into its orbit.
“Keep your head up, Vi. And never fucking forget that you deserve the world. You know you do. Don’t settle for whatever shit you’re going through. Go after what makes you happy.”
I nod with a tiny smile, holding my water bottle to my chest despite my ribcage trying to reflect the crack in my cup. Webber steps around me, getting lost in the mix of chaos happening in the gym. I don’t turn around to see where he goes or if he turns and steals one last glance of me. It’s not until I’m halfway home that I notice I never picked up my earbud from the gym floor.
EIGHTEEN
COLSON
The thwackingof fists against leather helps me zone out until I put in my headphones and hit play on my usual playlist. My gloves are next. I tug them tight over my knuckles as I prepare to let all my fury out on the bag in front of me.
After the ordeal with Sebastian, and Violet inevitably settling on calling me herfriend, I need to get my frustrations out. I have no right to be upset about the lines she’s drawn after I tried forging my own—and said the things I have—but I fucking detest them.
It’s so much different being the one who’s lacking control. I have no say in the thick rope she’s laid between us. No jurisdiction over it vanishing or thickening. Over if it moves or stays there forever.
I don’t want it to be there that long.
It’s hard as hell getting her pretty smile out of my head. Harder forgetting what she tastes like when I fall into bed at night. She’s the only one out there for me, but it has to be this way.
I drive my fist into the boxing bag.
I’ve never despised my life more than I do now. How I didn’t have a mother to teach me how to work through my emotions.How I don’t have a father who I can trust and turn to for girl advice when I’ve fucked up. Being branded the name “prick” wouldn’t do me justice. Bastard is more like it. Not just because I've acted like an idiot but because it’s a fact. Iamone.
That’s the other reason I’m at Gulliver’s. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around Mom being married to Clyde. I’ve been trying to look back at my life, the timeline of my childhood, but none of it makes sense, and I only get so far before my memory cuts off. I don’t recall if he was around when I was young. Did he show up at the house when I was a toddler? Did he sneak around with Mom, coming in through the back door past my bedtime?
I have no answers, and it only tests my patience and the theories I’ve been fed, making that pit deep in my stomach that thinks Clyde could be my father even more assuming.
I used to wonder how Mom got caught up with the Lincolns so easily. It makes sense now. She was doing business with them because she knew Clyde. Their relationship gave her a shoe in the door despite them not playing house. It was easier for her to seek him out versus finding someone else on the streets. And she was so caught up that she never once questioned his motives or why he continued to keep their marriage going while he was off living with Finn’s mother.
If they didn’t want to be together and no one knew about it, then why didn’t they get a divorce? Clyde went on to have a son with another woman. I don’t know what Finn’s mom’s name is, but I recall seeing her a time or two when we were still young enough for parents to show their faces at school.
My fist hits the leather again before I lay down a killer of a combo.
Clyde had, single-handedly, poured fuel on Mom’s fire by giving her drugs to sell then forced me to helicopter in the gallons of water, chiseling away at my exterior bit by bit untilmy entire focus was on paying her debts and not on what truly mattered; her addiction and need for help.
How could he do that?
I shouldn’t be surprised, but I can’t help but to be. Not when he’s Clyde and the Lincolns have the reputation they do.
My gloved fist drives into the leather harder. I go with a simple jabbing pattern and welcome the way it pulls at my muscles. It’s been a minute since I’ve gotten to beat the shit out of something. It doesn’t help that I’ve been drinking and haven’t been sleeping well. It takes me a little longer than normal to warm up, but once I do I put my entire focus on my movements.
My mind, however, doesn’t get the hint that it’s break time. It goes right back to considering everything that’s been going on and settles on Clyde again. Could he really be my father?
It doesn’t fucking matter.
Music thumps in my ears, and my heartbeat plays along to the drums. Thump, thump, thumping in a way that brings me back to life. I haven’t felt like this since before the fundraiser, when I spent most of my days outside of work with Violet.
A reprieve curls up over my shoulders and trickles down my arms and into my hands. A sizzling current makes way, and by the time I’m done with my set, sweat drips off my forehead and temples. I’m a disgusting mess, so much that I have to pull my clinging shirt away from my sticky skin. I peel my gloves off and sit on the bench near my bag and electrolyte drink.
I should’ve gotten out of the house sooner.
