Page 15 of If You Fight

Chapter Five

Ryder

The darkness of my apartment swallowed me up, just as I’d hoped it would when I began drinking an hour earlier after it became obvious tonight would be another night without Serena. After spending an entire week driving her to and from the soup kitchen on Federal Street and enjoying those hours more than any others in my days, I craved her touch so much I was afraid I might do something stupid like go to her apartment.

So I drank. And when thoughts of her popped into my mind, I drank more. I didn’t know how much it would take to forget her, at least for one night, but I had to try.

If I didn’t, I’d go out of my mind wishing she was in my arms.

I wanted to believe what she said in the car that first day we were together after she came home from the hospital. I wanted to be strong for her after all she’d gone through. I did, but every day the chances of us ever being together felt like they shrank smaller and smaller while my need to have her at my side grew until she was all I could think about.

Lifting the whisky bottle to my lips, I let the alcohol sit in my mouth for a moment before it slid down my throat. It had been too long since Serena was in my arms. My body ached for her.

I needed to drink more. Whatever it took to stop thinking. I closed my eyes and tried to remember a time before I came to this place, but all I was then was a fighter who lived day to day to inflict pain on others.

Some would have said my life at the estate amounted to the same thing. I couldn’t count how many people I’d punished for Robert in the time since he made me one of his guards. Some weeks it was the only thing I did, and then sometimes I didn’t lay a hand on anyone for a month at a time.

But no matter if he called us guards, and no matter if my job only occasionally required me to rough someone up, I was who I’d always been. I knew that should make me feel something, but it didn’t.

I only felt for Serena.

When I wasn’t with her, I became more machine than anything else. Robert dictated what I did and to whom, and I did his bidding. No more, no less. None of it required feelings one way or the other.

I’d always been that way. When my uncle forced me into fighting, I didn’t cry or complain. What would have been the point? Then instead of me beating others he would have beaten me. I may not have been good in school, but I could figure out that equation pretty quickly.

So I did what he made me do, and when I got old enough and could make my own decisions, I continued fighting. And when I made some bad mistakes with money and got into Floyd for more than I could afford, I accepted he’d basically own me until I could pay him off.

I was the king of accepting the shit the world handed me and smiling as I said thank you for it. It’s all I’d ever been since I was old enough to know what life was about.

Then I met Serena and for the first time in my life, I let myself dare to dream. To really dream, not just look forward to a day when things would be better but to think that life had something better in store for me than the constant helpings of shit it dumped on me.

I didn’t understand how she had the strength to dream after everything her life had been. She’d had the best of everything money could buy, but when it came to things money couldn’t buy, she was piss poor.

A mother gone in the middle of the night and no hope ever given that she’d be back. A father who saw her in terms of what use she could be to him. A sister who’d stab her in the back for a kind word from him and had more than once.

And out of all of that, Serena still refused to believe things wouldn’t get better.

My phone vibrated against my leg, and I looked down to see a text from Jesse about getting together for a night out at some local bar. Shaking my head, I tossed the phone aside and mumbled, “Too late, pal. I’m half a bottle ahead of you.”

A few minutes later, I heard a knock at my door and even though I knew Jesse would be standing there with a million reasons why I should go out trolling women at some hole in the wall bar, I figured I’d answer it anyway. Maybe he could take my mind off my problems for at least a little while.

I threw open the door and saw Serena standing there barefoot in jeans and a black sweater with sleeves that hung down over the middle of her hands and made her look even smaller than she was. The look on her face told me something had happened, so I quickly pulled her into my apartment and closed the door.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as adrenaline pumped through my veins, instantly killing my buzz.

“I needed to see you. I can’t stay in that apartment any more. I’m going crazy and I started to think about doing something,” she said, wincing like she was in pain.

I held her by the shoulders and searched her eyes for what that meant. “What do you mean doing something? Doing what?”

Serena looked down toward her bare feet. “Don’t make me say it, Ryder. I’m ashamed that I’m so fucking weak that I’d even think about doing that again.”

A sick feeling settled into my gut. I knew what she meant. The memory of finding her naked in that bathtub bleeding to death right in front of my eyes raced through my mind, and I shook my head violently to push the thought away.

I couldn’t think of her doing that again.

“Don’t ever say that, Serena. Do you hear me? Never,” I said, my emotions spilling out in my words.

She winced again and turned her head, as if she expected at any moment to be hit. “Don’t yell at me. I didn’t want to do it. I just said I thought about it.”

---