My voice cracked right along with me as I stared at her from the doorjamb, my hands shoved deep in my pockets. “Mad at me?”
Her face seemed to open up. Her yellowy eyes softening, recognizing me. Her entire body relaxing. Still, the look she gave me was foreign. Cautious in a way Ceci had never been with me before. But at least her voice was that same confident promise as she looked at me in the eye and said, “Never.”
And I believed her. I believed she wasn’t mad at me, but I didn’t believe that we weren’t changed. All because of a stupid mistake. If we had gone any further, I might not still have her…this.
I couldn’t make that mistake again.
Chapter Twenty-six
CECI
One, two. One, two.
Jab, cross. Jab, cross.
“Good. Good. Good, Ceci! But remember your footwork.” Jenny stood in front of me with boxing pads as we went through punching sequences during our lesson. Before, I could easily decipher if this was our Monday morning lesson or Tuesday afternoon, or even one of our Wednesday double sessions. But by now I think we had both lost track of when and why I was coming into the gym. It was essentially just all the time.
I loved Jenny. She was a hardass in the best possible way. She pushed her students for the sake of showing them that they had another gear in them. She emphasized the right things, like technique and footwork. but she didn’t shy away from the gritty mental work like motivation and confidence, either. And she was a bit of a shit talker.
“Alright Ceci, you’re done for the day,” she said, straightening up and letting her pads drop to her sides.
“What?” I straightened too and whipping my head around to the digital clock on the wall, I frowned. “It’s only a quarter ‘til.”
“Yeah, and you have PT in a half hour. You were late last time, remember?” she said, already stripping the pads off of her hands and dropping them to the ground. “Not to mention your head’s somewhere else today. You almost punched through the pads and broke your sloppy wrists in the process. What’s up?”
What’s up? Oh, what a fucking question.
Following her lead, I began ripping the Velcro off the base of my boxing gloves. Baby blue, of course, and a gift from Con.
Connor.
It had been weeks since the incident in the bathroom. Weeks in which I had continued taking boxing lessons, along with other sprinkles of martial arts classes. Weeks in which I had started working out with Connor. Starting out with small weights that I was gradually building on every session. Weeks in which I still basically lived with my best friend. But weeks in which things had felt unmistakably different.
I’m almost entirely sure my brain had short circuited and rewired the moment Con had pressed me up against his bathroom wall and grinded against me like we were teenagers dry humping in secret. In the moment I definitely lost all brain function, the only thing I remembered from it was how fucking good it felt to have him touching me. His hands were big and rough and punishing on my skin… On my ass. His mouth was hot and claiming as he ran it over my body. And his fucking body…that motherfucking long, hard rod that he pumped against me not one, not two, butseveralfucking times between pants, and groans, andbegging… Yeah. I was forever changed.
But it wasn’t me I was worried about. I had gotten it under control. I had seen the light at the end of that pleasure tunnel and realized the reality it would send us into if we kept down it.
Connor had been horny, maybe. But thinking straight? Definitely not. I had to stop it to save our friendship. Whatever line we had blurred I redrew it, even if it had taken a lot out of me to do so. And I thought after his walk outside and his twelve fucking apologies after that we had gotten past it. That we would overlook it. We certainly hadn’t brought it up again.
But still Connor was different.
First, he was quiet. Not the usual Connor in public quiet where he let me take the lead and communicated with me through looks and smiles and opened back up when we were alone again. No, he was being quietwith me. Withdrawing into himself and holding back words he was just on the brink of saying. He was looking at me with this new regretful expression that I couldn’t read. And on top of pulling away from me, he was being overly formal and treating me as if I was some acquaintance he had to be overly polite with to avoid offending.
And worst of all, he refused to touch me.
In my entire fucking time of knowing this man, he had never had an aversion to touching me. The first time he held my hand was only a couple months into us knowing each other. I had talked him into going to a music festival and he was convinced I would get lost or worse run off into the crowd and he’d never be able to find me. He held my hand whenever we were in dense groups no matter how sweaty or gross it got being palm to palm like that in the heat. The first time he picked me up was at that same festival. He let me get on his shoulders even though he told me people would yell at us for blocking their view, and they did. The first time his lips touched me was in the hospital waiting for news on his sister’s condition. He hadn’t kissed me, just pressed his face into my neck as he shook, me holding onto him. I had kissed him, though. On the top of his shaven head, on his cheeks, on his hands and fingertips because they were shaking. And there were probably a million other times after that, none of which he ever pulled away.Ever!
Now, I would be lucky if he didn’t jolt his hand back if it accidentally touched mine. Gone were the sweet touches he had been showering me with just weeks ago. Gone were his long hugs or the strong arms I had grown accustomed to wrapping around me in my sleep. Just gone.
And it wasn’t like I was begging for it or anything. I don't think I was ever overly touchy either… Was I? I just, I guess I just never realized how much physical reassurance I was used to in our relationship until it was taken away. And now all I wanted to do was scream at him. Yell at him and let him know that all I meant by telling him to stop was for him to stop trying to fuck me, not stop touching me…loving me.
I frowned.
No, that wasn’t the right word. But for the life of me I couldn’t find another one to fit. It felt like Connor had stopped loving me. As a friend, of course, and wasn’t that what I had been trying to avoid by telling him to stop anyway?
“You know,” Jenny said, jolting me out of my self-pitying trance. She had materialized in front of me and by the looks of the way her hands were moving, she was taking my hand wraps off for me. Probably because I had zoned out and completely stopped doing it myself. “If you would pull the stick out of your ass, replace it in your wrist, and hold it firm when you punch; you probably wouldn’t even need to go to PT anymore.”
This time it was her I frowned at. “What the hell are you talking about, Jen?”
