Page 10 of Beach B!tch
5
Brinley
I threw on my Lululemon gear and headed out to Strike Ready, my day job. I was an instructor there, after having completed several years of training under Shasta, the owner. She was the only adult in my life that saw what was happening to me when I was a child. She approached me my junior year of high school after a volleyball tournament and asked me to stop by her gym. I eventually did, curious what this beautiful woman could want from me. Turns out, she didn't want anything from me. She just wanted to give me tools to survive my situation and get the hell out. Along with volleyball, her lessons were the only thing that got me through. Now I got to pay the favor back and train other young girls and women, helping to keep them safe and giving them the confidence to demand respect.
I was still keeping my brain from thinking about what happened at the party last night. I was sure Esa would bring it up, but until then, I would pretend like it was behind me. My traitorous heart may still feel let down, but I was determined to move on. I was good at ploughing through the tough stuff in life, to keep going. And I could do it again.
"Yo, Brin!" Shasta greeted me with a shout as I entered the gym. I nodded my hello in response, but kept going through my normal workday routine. Shasta kept throwing me questioning glances over the heads of the kids she was training, but I ignored her and acted like it was all good. She knew me better than most, so I knew I wasn't fooling her. I was sure I'd be the subject of her drilling later on when the gym cleared out.
I was getting ready to warm up on the mat when Esa and Bailey entered the gym with a loud, "Brinley!! We're ready to kick some ass!" Those girls were bigger than life, unafraid to be seen, unafraid of criticism. And not in some rough "I-don't-care-what-you-think attitude". They were rays of sunshine who lived their lives and didn't spend too much time worrying if you liked them or not. They reminded me of Shasta. It was a thing of beauty to watch.
I spun around, a smile on my face, latching onto their happiness like a lifeline. "Not if I kick yours first!" I walked across the mat as they toed off their shoes and got ready to warm-up. "Let's start with some jogging and then push-ups, huh?"
We got moving, and I joined in with them, eager to sweat out the irritating thoughts and feelings that kept pushing their way into my head. After warm-ups, I showed them a new headlock escape we hadn't covered yet. Then the three of us sparred, going over various scenarios, and how to subdue the assailant. We were all breathing hard when I called the session. Flopping down on the mat to stretch, I felt Esa and Bailey's gaze burrowing into my head. I had a feeling the conversation was going in a direction I wouldn't like.
"So, Brinley. Why'd you leave the party in such a hurry last night?" Bailey asked me. Her face was wiped of all emotion, which made me more nervous. She was like a beat cop questioning down a delinquent. One bad move and she'd pin me. Maybe I should have pushed her harder in the workout to wear her out. Damn, hindsight.
"I didn't leave in a hurry. I said goodbye to Esa and then took off when it got a little rowdy," I answered, voice steady.
"Hmmm...I was in the living room when it 'got rowdy' and I could have sworn you ran when Dean tried to talk to you. In fact, he even called your name, but you'd already slammed the door shut. What was going on there?" Bailey narrowed her eyes, pinning me with her gaze.
Was the freaking heater on in here? "Nothing was going on. I didn't hear him call me."
"All right, Brinley, cut the shit. What's going on with you and Dean? We know something's going on, so why don't you spill it?" Esa interrupted.
My jaw dropped. Usually Esa was the nice one. This good cop-bad cop reversal was unexpected. My face felt like it was on fire and I couldn't seem to catch my breath. This was exactly what I wanted to avoid and the fact they were cornering me in my own place of employment was pissing me off. "Maybe Dean wants there to be something going on, but there isn't, okay? I'm not interested!"
"Hey, hold on," Esa said, moving next to me and putting her hand on my arm. "I may have approached this the wrong way. First, we're your friends. We're on your side, okay? We didn't mean to make you upset, we're just trying to be there for you. If you'd like to talk about it, and it seems like you need to, we're here for you. Okay? That's all."
I blew out a big breath. I wasn't good at this friend thing, and they were right. It probably was a good idea to talk about it, so I could let it go even faster and just move on. Plus, I wanted to see what it was like to have girlfriends to lean on. I'd never had that, but something about the whole spill your guts ritual seemed exactly the right thing for me to get it out of my system.
I nodded my head and gave Esa & Bailey a sheepish smile. "I'd like that, actually. Got time for a hot chocolate today?"
We all shared a smile and the heavy tension cleared, knowing the bitchiness from yours truly was over and we were still friends. We got our things together and walked over to Esa's shop, Chocolate Dreams, so we could sit down and talk this thing through. Bailey was kind enough to keep a running dialogue of her most recent pain-in-the-ass customer while we walked, allowing me to cool down and collect my thoughts.
Once we were seated and sipping our own unique flavors of hot chocolate, Bailey started. "Why don't you start from the beginning and tell us how you and Dean met."
I ducked my head as I recalled our first time seeing each other at the beach. Did that count as our 'first meeting'? I told them about seeing him, but left out my crazy thoughts about how hot I thought he was. They didn't need that information cluttering their opinion of the situation.
Then I launched into his comments to me by the volleyball courts about being lonely. He was presumptuous and an ass, short and simple. Esa and Bailey kept exchanging glances but didn't offer up any opinions yet. So then I talked about seeing what went down at the party and how angry Dean looked and the fact that he'd been drinking. Getting out of there had been the right decision.
I wound down my explanation and dropped my gaze to the table as the silence drew out.
Esa broke the stillness first. "So, let's go over this piece by piece because there's a lot there. Side note: I'm a little pissed you didn't tell us about any of this earlier, but we'll talk about that later. First, I'm a little unclear why you're giving him such a hard time. Do you not like him?"
"I don't know much about him, other than he drinks, he gets in fights, and he wants to get to know me. And I want nothing to do with that," I responded.
"Well, wait a second. I don't know Dean all that well either, but I have hung out with him and his lifeguard buddies several times now and Dean is definitely not a bad guy," Bailey interjected. "He's never been drunk around us, he's never gotten in a fight before, and quite frankly, that guy was asking for it. He should never have said what he did to Dean. Nobody blames Dean for punching that guy last night."
I sat and absorbed that information. Maybe my opinion of Dean was wrong? Hope flared in my chest and I tried to stamp it out while I collected more details. "What did the guy say to him?"
"He made fun of Dean's disabled brother. Dean tried to get him to leave, but he wouldn't get out of this face, so Dean punched him," Esa explained. "Listen, I think there's a lot to Dean you're unaware of because you don't know him that well. But Ivan knows him and considers him a brother. There's no way he'd tell me Dean's a good guy if he wasn't. I think maybe you got the wrong impression."
I sipped my hot chocolate and thought about what they were saying. I trusted Ivan, seeing how great he'd been for Esa, so I agreed his opinion of Dean held weight. I still didn't believe Dean was a good guy, but even if he was, I didn't have the time to focus on that right now with two tournaments between me and my goal. I had to put all my time and attention on volleyball.
"I'm willing to admit that might be the case, but I can't do this now. Maybe I'm wrong about him, but there are too many warning signs and I just don't have the time to worry about it." I saw that they were confused, but it was because they didn't understand how important my goal was to me.
See, this was exactly why I didn't do this sort of crap with girlfriends. Well, mostly because I didn't have any, but also because of this awkward moment when you know they will point out how wrong you are, not knowing my history and my hard line about drinking and fistfights and my obsession with becoming a pro volleyball player.
