Wrecked (38 page)

“No! It’ll
change everything!” I pounded the mattress pad with a fist, panic coursing
through my veins.

“I’m going
to tell her, you can’t stop me Hunter!” She started fiddling with the buttons
on the phone and my panic shifted to horror.

“NO! SHE
CAN’T SEE ME LIKE THIS!” I roared, reaching for my phone and violently
snatching it from her hands.

Ada backed
away as if I’d slapped her, eyes wide and frightened. I gazed at her harshly,
sucking in deep shuddering breaths. “Please Ada. She can’t see me like this . .
. not like this . . .” I breathed. This was my pain, mine alone to struggle
with. I couldn’t share it with Lorrie yet. I blinked a few times, my eyes
stinging with shame and took a deep breath to calm myself.

Lorrie
wasn’t ready. No,
I
wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready for things to change just
yet.

Ada shook
her head slowly, her expression shifting from shock to disgust. “Both of you
are sick. You deserve each other.”

She took a
seat in the corner, not saying another word until the doctor came in to
discharge me. She put on a fake smile, but I could tell she was still fuming as
we walked out of the hospital via the health center entrance on campus. I knew
this was far from over.

A few hours ago

I wanted to vomit as I
looked at Lorrie’s shaky handwriting on the note she left me. I had read it
again and again, hoping the words would change, but they never did.

Ada was
out of control when we ran into Lorrie outside the health center. I wanted to
talk to Lorrie, try to fix things to how they were, but Ada was gonna tell her
about me and things would never be the same again.

“Give
me something, Hunter. Don’t leave me with just this.”
I heard Lorrie desperately call after me.
I wanted to talk to Lorrie in private. But I had to stop Ada first. I couldn’t
let Ada tell Lorrie. Even if she didn’t tell Lorrie that day, she would tell
Lorrie some other time and it’d ruin everything. So, like an asshole, I ran
after Ada, instead of facing Lorrie.

After I
convinced Ada to calm down, and she promised me she wouldn’t talk to Lorrie, I
went straight to Lorrie’s room, hoping she’d be able to forgive me. She wasn’t
there and neither was Daniela. A couple of girls were hanging around in the
suite and told me that they hadn’t seen Lorrie in a while.

I pulled out my phone and called Lorrie. The phone didn’t even ring
before going to voicemail.
Fuck, she turned her phone off
. I tried
again. Still no luck. Why would she do that? Was she purposely trying to avoid
me?

Damnit, I had to find her. I ran around frantically and checked all of
her favorite sketching spots, but she wasn’t at any of them. After an hour of
searching and repeatedly trying her phone,
I was almost ready to quit, but then I thought of one last spot
to look for her.

Feeling
sick, I sprinted across campus. My knees were almost ready to give out when I
got to the bridge over Lake Teewee. I saw that the frozen lake was undisturbed
and intense relief washed over me.

She was
probably out with Daniela somewhere, avoiding me.

I’d fucked
it up big time. I should have let Ada go. I should have stayed and talked to
Lorrie. She needed me, but I was too afraid to talk to her.  Lorrie was
right, I should have explained things to her, told her something at least. Now
it was too late.

Not
knowing what to do and desperate, I went over to the PKD house to talk to Gary.
We drank and tried to put together the pieces. Soon we were wasted, no closer
to coming up with a way to get my ass out of this mess. I passed out on his
couch feeling worse than when I came.

It was
only after I woke up hungover that I came back to my apartment and saw Lorrie’s
note. It was already noon, Lorrie was probably long gone by now. She had come
looking for me, she waited for me and she wanted to talk, but instead, I was
fucking stupidly drinking away my pain with Gary.

Lorrie
needed me but I wasn’t there for her. Something had happened and she needed me
to be there for her, but I was too fucking selfish and afraid to come clean to
her. Now she had gone to deal with her pain herself. I had lost my only chance
to explain things, make things right with her. That killed the shit out of me.

As I stood
in my kitchen and reread the note she’d left me, a cold sense of dread began to
sink in.

Rampage
nuzzled against my leg. The little guy didn’t know anything was wrong. Or maybe
he did. I scooped him up and brought him to my face. His brown eyes looked at
me curiously, maybe as confused as I was right now.

I set him
down and watched him run off. What the fuck happened that she decided she
needed to leave like that?

I exhaled
and picked up my phone. Still nothing from her. I had called her a few times
but it went straight to voicemail.

How did I
keep messing up my life this badly? What was I thinking? I was so fucking
selfish. I couldn’t see past my own self-pity to think that Lorrie needed me
when I was in the hospital during the flare-up. I had fucked up again
.

And now
it was over.

I punched
the kitchen cabinet door to the left of the sink. The door caved in, sending
splinters and Cheerios from inside flying everywhere. My fist exploded in pain.
Breathing hard, I flexed it to make sure nothing was broken. It hurt, but I was
okay.

The
kittens had scattered at the loud noise of my outburst, but they were now
cautiously approaching the cereal and splinters on the floor. Seeing them
brought me back to my senses. If I needed to blow off some steam, I should do
it at the gym instead; I didn’t want to hurt the kittens.

They were
reminders the time Lorrie and I had spent together. Looking at them had always
made me happy but now it filled me with grief.

One hour ago

I kept my head down and
brushed past the rest of the guys at the gym. They saw the look on my face and
nobody tried to stop me to chat. I didn’t see Gary; he must’ve been sleeping
off the hangover. I headed straight for the heavy bag and began to work it with
my bare fists.

Thwack.
Thwack. Thwackathwackathwack.

I wasn’t
just punching the faded leather; I imagined punching my own face in. I deserved
it. Lorrie was special and I fucked it up. I couldn’t help her and I couldn’t
save her. I was too weak. Too stupid. Too selfish.

Thwackathwackathwack.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwackathwack.

Lorrie,
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Thwack.
Thwack. Thwack.

Feeling
dizzy, I tripped over my feet. I shot my gloves out and grabbed onto the bag
before I could fall. I leaned heavily against the leather bag for a second
before pushing it away and getting back up.

Fuck
this disease.

I kept
hitting the bag until sweat stung my eyes, my arms were sore, and my fists were
angry and raw, but I still didn’t feel any better when I was done. It didn’t
matter how hard I punched those bags, I’d never be able to take back the pain
that I had caused Lorrie.

I don’t
know what’s going to happen to me if I don’t find something solid in my life.

I bent
over, breathing heavy, and leaned against the leather punching bag that had
just taken all the punishment I could deal out. When I walked over to the water
fountain to get some water, the other guys gave me plenty of space.

It was
supposed to be me; I was supposed to be that solid thing in her life. I
promised her that but I fucked it all up. What the hell was I going to do
without her?

As I
headed back for another round with the bag, the gym doors swung open and
Johnson, the fight coordinator at the Squirrel, came in with a clipboard in
hand. I stopped for a second to see why he was there.

“Listen up
guys! I know this is real short notice, but I’ve got a fight lined up in the
next hour. So if any of you want a shot at Walter Morris, here’s your chance. I
had him scheduled for a fight with Dan Evans, but Danny boy’s got the flu and
canceled this morning.”

Walter
Morris was one of the top fighters in the area. Six foot four, built like an
ox. I’d never fought him before but I knew that I’d have a hard time with him
even on my best days.

Johnson
looked around the room at the other guys there. No one was volunteering. I
didn’t blame them. One hour wasn’t really a lot of time to prepare to fight
Morris. Taking a fight on such short notice against an opponent like that was a
deathwish. But maybe I needed that right now.

Johnson
was getting desperate. I only half heard him say, “Come on, if you win, I’ll
double your winnings, you got my word.”

I couldn’t
care less about the winnings but I needed to forget what I had done. I needed
to feel that rush of being in the cage, hovering on the edge of violence and
oblivion. I wanted the clarity of fighting for survival against a caged animal.
I didn’t give a shit that this particular animal was going to be Walter Morris.

Lorrie was
gone. She wasn’t coming back. I was supposed to help her heal, not be a source
of her pain, but that’s exactly what I ended up being. I was pathetic. I didn’t
deserve to be happy.

Then I
decided.

I locked
eyes with Johnson, and just gave him a tilt of my head. That was enough. Johnson
knew what I wanted. Understanding flashed between our eyes and he nodded before
turning and leaving the gym without another word.

Maybe I
could win this fight, maybe I couldn’t. Walter was a hell of a lot more
prepared than me, but I had one advantage. I’d lost the only person that made
me give a damn about myself.

I had
nothing to lose.

DAMAGED

Lorrie

It was Hunter.

A sharp
pain knifed through my chest. He looked beyond exhausted. His chest heaved and
his mouth hung wide open, gasping for breath. There was blood dripping down his
face from one of the cuts on his right cheek and the bruise on his left eye was
a stormy mix of gray and purple. It seemed to be getting darker and swelling
bigger by the second.

A violent
shiver ran through my body, and my mouth opened in horror. I’d never seen
Hunter like this before. I’d never seen someone so broken.

Finally,
the other fighter managed to push Hunter away. The two began circling each
other again. Hunter’s hands were down by his stomach and his legs wobbled with
the effort to remain standing. My heart squeezed in my throat as I watched him
struggle.

Something
was horribly wrong.

I watched
Hunter stumble around the cage. My heart raced, almost ready to explode. There
was no way he should be out there. This wasn’t the lightning quick Hunter that
I first saw in the ring. Maybe he didn’t look like he was dying, but it was
close.

“Hunter!”
I screamed, desperate to do something but unsure what I could even do.

Tension
knotting my muscles, I held my breath as Hunter’s opponent came forward and
took a wild swing. Hunter narrowly ducked the punch and stumbled away without
even trying to throw one himself.

Maybe he
was just trying to make it to the end of this final round without getting
knocked out. If he could just last that long, the fight would be over and he
could get some badly needed medical attention. Maybe there was hope after all.

He dodged
another punch, but this time tried to throw one himself. It missed, and his
opponent countered with a punch to his ribs that landed with a loud thud.
Hunter winced and backed away, circling around. I clenched my jaw nervously.
Hunter moved in and out, but didn’t try to punch the other guy.

The crowd
booed at his refusal to engage. Hunter responded by coming forward and trying
another wild punch. It missed. His opponent tried to knock him out with a high
kick and Hunter just barely got away. This time the crowd cheered. My head
swam, dizzy with images of Hunter hurt or worse.

I couldn’t
let this keep going on. Maybe if Hunter saw me he would stop trying to be a
hero and just stay away from his opponent until this last round was over. It
was clear Hunter was going to lose the fight. He didn’t need to keep trying for
a lucky knockout and risk getting hurt himself. People might boo, but at least
he wouldn’t get injured any worse than he already had. My pulse thundered in my
head as I thought of what to do.

“Hunter!
Just make it through the round!” I yelled. He gave no sign of hearing me.

I began to
swim my way to the front of the crowd, squeezing myself into every opening I
could find. There was some grumbling, but I kept pushing forward. I had to get
him to see me.  He needed to stop fighting.

There was
a roar as I got to the front, just feet from the cage. I looked up at the
action. Hunter was covering up his face as his opponent hit him with several
punches. His opponent was so fast that Hunter could barely defend himself. A
shiver of dread crept up my spine, suffocating me and rooting me to the spot. No,
this couldn’t be happening!

“Hunter,
no!” I cried. “It’s me, Lorrie! Stop fighting! Please, stop!”

His arms
blocked most of the impact, then he hit his opponent with a left jab. The punch
stunned his opponent momentarily, giving Hunter enough time to back away.

“You don’t
have to do this!” I yelled.

Hunter let
his hands fall and he looked around with his mostly open right eye. His gaze
came to meet mine. Dim recognition flickered across his face as his opponent
approached and wound up a right hook.

Hunter tried
to dodge at the last second, but the punch landed right on his nose, crushing
his face grotesquely with a sickening snap. His body went limp as the blow
reverberated through his body. There was a half-second of silence as everyone
in the room gasped at once.

My stomach
dropped and I felt an intense pain in my chest. “NO!” I screamed, my hands in
my hair.

Then the
crowd exploded in screams and cheers. I stood stunned, watching Hunter hit the
mat stiff as a board. The referee crouched over him and waved his hand over his
head. Hunter continued to lay there motionless. His nose was bleeding badly and
looked crooked. I couldn’t tell, but I was pretty sure it was broken.

I stared
at the cage numbly, overwhelmed. My head seemed to float away. This didn’t feel
real, but I couldn’t wake up. The bell was ringing and the other fighter was
running around the cage with his arms raised. Hunter didn’t move except for the
rise and fall of his chest. The referee hovered over him, concern etched on his
goateed face.

I tore my
eyes away from the scene in the cage, flooded with emotion. Hunter looked badly
hurt. Could I have done something different? People were clapping around me,
ecstatic at the knockout. They didn’t care at all about Hunter’s well-being.
One figure stood out, stone-faced. He was the only one who looked the way I
felt. It was Gary.

He stood
by the cage’s entrance about ten feet away, looking in. Two medics rushed past
him and into the cage with a stretcher. I watched them begin attending to
Hunter and was gripped by sadness.

Time
passed as I kept my eyes locked on his prone body, trying to grab ahold of
reality. He still wouldn’t move.

“. . .
fault,” a voice said.

I turned
and saw it had come from Gary. He’d apparently walked over to me. His brows were
angled sharply downward and his eyes were burning with anger. “What?” I asked.

“This is
your fucking fault,” he spat.

“My
fault?” I said, shocked by his accusation. “Are you nuts? How are you thinking
about fault right now? Hunter’s hurt!”

He scoffed
bitterly. “Trust me, I know. I’ve been playing this scene over and over in my
head since I heard he took the fight. I rushed here to try and stop him but it
was too late. I know what a wreck you made of him. For that and a ton of other
reasons, there’s no way he should’ve been in there just now. This is your
fault!”

I shook my
head, confused over why he would think I was the one who made Hunter a wreck.
“I sat at his apartment for hours last night waiting to talk to him. It’s not
my fault he never showed up. What’s wrong with Hunter, anyway? He didn’t look
right in there at all.”

Before he
could answer, a shout came from above us in the cage. “Make way,” a man’s voice
yelled.

I turned
and saw it was one of the medics helping Hunter. They had put him on a stretcher
and were trying to get through the crowd to what I guessed would be an
ambulance waiting at the front entrance to the bar. People were still packed in
tightly, so they put the stretcher down at the top of the steps while one medic
went to clear space. The other stayed behind and watched over Hunter.

I peered
down at the stretcher and got a clear look at Hunter. My heart sank to the pit
of my stomach. His left eye was swollen nearly shut and his right wasn’t far
behind. Bruises and cuts marred the area around his cheeks and eyes.

The worst
was his nose. The medics had wiped away most of the blood and tried to clot it
with gauze, but there was still plenty smeared around the lower half of his
face. The way it was turned awkwardly to the left made it clear it was broken.

Tears
formed in my eyes. Seeing the man I loved so horribly injured crushed my heart.
“Hunter, I’m sorry,” I said, my vision a blur. “I’m sorry about this whole
mess. I just wanted to see you one last time and talk to you. I’m sorry Hunter.”

His eyes
fluttered open and he looked toward me unfocused. He opened his mouth slightly
but no words came out. The small smile that crept onto his lips made me sick
with sorrow.

“Dude,”
Gary said unsteadily next to me, “are you with us? What’s your name?”

His eyes
slid over toward Gary; they were badly dilated. “Hunter,” he slurred.

My heart
leaped at the small positive sign. Even if he was slurring his speech, at least
he knew who he was.

I looked
up at the medic that had stayed with Hunter, desperate for any sliver of hope.
“He woke up. That’s good, right?”

The man
whose nametag said his name was Nick nodded. “Yeah, that’s good. If we can get
him to the hospital quickly he should be okay. You never know, but waking up is
positive.”

He
should be okay
. The
thought that Hunter might not be okay—that something might be permanently wrong
with him—nearly paralyzed me. Hopefully Nick was right and Hunter would be fine
now that he had woken up.

“Lorrie?”
Hunter said softly. His eyes darted from my face to the lights at the Bearded
Squirrel and back to me lazily. The in and out movement of his breathing had
slowed down to a normal rate, which seemed good. It was another sign he would
pull through.

The
thoughts that had rushed through my mind when I saw him on the mat—that I loved
him, that I was leaving him, and that he was badly hurt—finally caught up to
me. I began to cry. Sob after sob seized my body so hard I could barely
breathe. How had things gone so wrong so fast in our lives?

I wiped my
eyes with my sleeve, trying to calm down. “Hunter,” I choked out. “It’s not
your fault I’m leaving. I’m so sorry. I wish I had a choice.”

“Lorrie
no,” he slurred. He opened his eyes as wide as he could, but they had swollen
so badly that it wasn’t much. It made me feel ill to watch him struggle.

He finally
pulled his eyes into focus and stared at me through the purple and black of his
bruises. “Lorrie, don’t go,” he muttered again.

I blinked
away fresh tears. “I’m sorry, Hunter. I have to. If I don’t take care of myself
right now, I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to me.”

“No, no no
no,” he trailed off. His eyes drifted unfocused then shut.

My stomach
dropped. What was happening to him? I thought once he had woken up he would
stay awake. I looked up at Gary, who seemed to be in shock.

“Help!” I
yelled. “His eyes closed again.”

Nick, who
had been watching his partner clear a path to the exit, looked back at us over
his shoulder. “Keep talking to him,” he said. “We’re almost done clearing a
path.”

“Hunter,”
I pleaded, clasping his hand. “Please wake up.”

I held my
breath, every dreadful second dragging on. What if he didn’t wake up? Could I
leave Studsen if I wasn’t sure Hunter would be okay?

His eyes
shot open and relief coursed through my veins. He grabbed toward my hand clumsily,
making contact with my fingers but not holding on. “I should have told you,
Lorrie . . . You wouldn’t change. You could still see me.”

I shook my
head, frantically trying to decipher the meaning of his words. “Hunter, I’m
right here with you.”

He made
another grab at my hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, trailing off. “You don’t have to
go.”

His eyes
shut once more. Gary, who had been silent, looked up at me, forehead wrinkled
with worry. Hunter was breathing hard again with his nostrils flared. Gary’s face
twisted in panic. “You’re stressing him out,” he answered. “You need to get out
of here before he gets worse.”

My face
burned with frustration. “Why do you keep blaming me for everything?”

“Because
I’ve watched you turn him into a fucking trainwreck!”

I balled
up my fists, barely able to control my rage. My jaw was clenched tight. “What
does
that
mean?’

Rather
than respond with something nasty, Gary watched as Nick’s partner came back.

“We’ve got
a clear path here,” the medic said. He and Nick hefted Hunter’s stretcher up
and began walking it to the ambulance.

“Where are
you taking him?” I asked anxiously, walking alongside them. Gary followed close
behind.

“Arrowhart
College Hospital,” Nick replied.

I nodded,
my heart racing. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Should
be,” Nick said as we neared the ambulance. “It will be important that he
recover over the next twenty-four hours, but once he’s in the hospital he’ll be
in good hands. I would be very surprised if he had any permanent injuries from
this. Nose might be messed up, but nothing worse.”

Gary
sighed behind me. “God I hope not,” he said.

We stopped
when we got to the ambulance. Nick and his partner paused in front of the
vehicle’s back door.

“One of
you can ride with us to the hospital,” Nick said.

“I will,”
Gary and I said simultaneously.

Nick
grimaced. “I’m sorry, but we can only fit one.”

“You’re
not coming,” Gary said to me sternly. He towered over me, his stare rooting me
to my spot.