Page 75 of Hate It with You

“Since I closed a new business deal, I thought I’d treat myself. We’ll have to test it against your Mustang on the track soon,” Graham replies.

“No way it holds up to my Mustang. I’ll smoke you on the track for sure…” Their conversation continues, but as the door closes behind them, the air around me falls silent.

The pain in my hands grows louder, my hands throbbing so viciously I’m afraid to move my fingers.

Leo sets his jacket on top of Graham's next to me on the counter. He begins rolling up his sleeves, mirroring Graham’s actions before he places a hand on my shoulder, leaning over to put himself in my eyeline. I drop my hands, my fingers wiggling at the same time, calming my rising nerves at the confirmation that they aren’t broken.

“Let’s get this cleaned up, yeah?” Leo says, voice ever calm. Theo is already at work behind him, making piles of the books that have fallen to the floor and assessing which ones are damaged.

“Okay.” That’s all I can say before I work on helping my brothers clean the mess that is Beth’s bookstore.

33

BETH

When Sienna walked through the front door of my apartment, I broke down again. The way she held me took me back to that night, all those years ago, when I showed up at her house, much in the same state as I am now. Though now, I have fewer bruises to recover from.

As my tears faded, we moved to my bed, sitting in silence while the guys cleaned up downstairs. I don’t have the energy to talk, and Sienna only spoke once to ask if I wanted more tea when she got up to grab herself a mug. The light is dim, lit only by a small lamp on my dresser, the sun long set behind the horizon of the surrounding buildings. The night falls eerily still for some time until a knock on the door disrupts it.

Sienna pats my hand. “I’ll go see who it is.”

I can only make out a hushed conversation before Sienna strolls back into my bedroom. She stands at the doorway when she says, “It’s Alex. He wants to know if he can come in.”

I nod, sitting up taller on my bed and wiping away any lingering tears. She takes one step out of the bedroom door, and Alex is quick to follow, already having let himself into the apartment. He’s by my side in an instant, holding out a hand to the spot on the bed next to me where Sienna was.

“Can I?” His tone is soft. The blood previously splattered across his face has been wiped clean, and a new shirt covers his torso. His knuckles are wrapped with gauze, the cuts and bruises hidden from view.

I nod again, still unsure where to find the words to respond to anyone.

The bed dips as Alex crawls onto the mattress next to me. He interlaces his fingers with mine, and I let out a breath at our connection.

“Sienna.” The voice belongs to Theo, quietly sounding from the living room. Sienna looks behind her before rounding the bed to my side.

She kneels, grabbing my other hand. “Do you want me to stay?” she asks gently.

I shake my head. “No, it’s late. Go get some rest. But thank you for being here.” I unlace my fingers from Alex’s so I can reach over and pull Sienna into a hug, tears pricking my eyes as she grips onto me as tight as I grip her.

When we let go of each other, she waves her goodbyes to Alex, as he gets up to follow her out to the living room. Another hushed conversation, and I hear the door click, the deadbolt lock falling into place before Alex is by my side again. He intertwines his fingers with mine, brushing his thumb across the back of my hand.

My free hand reaches over, lightly grazing the gauze covering his knuckles. Holding back a sob, I say, “I’m so sorry, Alex.”

His head whips to me, his other hand coming to rest gently on my cheek as he brings my face toward his. “You have nothing to be sorry about. None of this is your fault. Do you understand?” His eyes search mine for all the answers I’ve refused to give him over the past year.

When I say nothing, he drops his hand from my cheek, both of us turning our gazes back toward the dresser on the opposite wall of my bed.

“You asked me before why I fight. If it was the same reasoning I have for racing.” He glances my direction briefly before continuing. I can’t bear to look at him without crying, so I squeeze his hand lightly, urging him to continue.

“As a child, recess was my favorite part of the day. Not for the same reason that most other kids enjoyed it. You know, playing tag, or jumping rope, throwing a ball around. It was my favorite because it was one of the only times I had to read.”

“I’d spend recess with my nose buried deep within whatever book I had picked up from the library that morning, tucked away in some corner of the playground, finding whatever cover I could to protect the pages from the rain.” The corners of my lips turn slightly at the thought of little Alex spending his free time deep within a book the same way I used to do anytime I had a spare moment to myself.

He continues his story, speaking with his free hand as he recalls the events of his childhood. “I never had too many friends. I know I’m a few years older than you, but you know how it was back then: a small kid with glasses, always spending his time with his nose tucked away in a book. A lot of kids couldn’t connect with that.”

“When my parents died, it was, reasonably, hard on all of us.” I squeeze his hand lightly, giving him reassurance to continue, wondering where he could possibly be taking this story. “They passed toward the end of fourth grade. When I started school back up in fifth, I became even more of an outcast. Kids said things here and there before, sure. But it was like it suddenly became a bonding activity for them to pick on me. I was the easiest target to make them feel better about themselves, or look cooler, or whatever the reason is that ten-year-olds are so mean to one another.” His grip on my hand tightens, no doubt the words of his childhood bullies plaguing his mind.

“One day, it was pouring rain outside, and I didn’t feel like getting called ‘four eyes’ or ‘orphan’ repeatedly as kids passed by my usual undercover spot. So I found a nook behind a small shed under an overhang where they kept the gardening tools.”

“I was so deep in my book that I hadn’t heard the group of boys approaching. They took me by surprise by yanking the book out of my hands. There were four of them, and I watched as they threw the book in a nearby puddle, one of them jumping on it, laughing. When I tried to stand up to get it back, one of the kids pushed me against the side of the shed…That’s all it took for the others to have permission to join in.”