I looked around me, wondering if i really felt like putting my body under the stress of a grueling run. But honestly, I needed it, I needed the adrenaline so bad. I had shown up for fight practice early, it was the second time I had come since James had introduced me to it. He wasn’t going to be here today and I was a little nervous. A lot of the people who trained in the class kind of freaked me out. I decided against my complaining body that I was going to go for a run anyway, at least once around the three-mile loop.
I took off at a run, my mind screaming at me to go fast and my body saying don’t. I listened to my mind. I needed to feel, I needed to feel so I could know that I was alive. The heat was killer, but I actually enjoyed the kiss of the summer sun. it’d been a while since I’d been able to get off work and actually see the daylight. Working from 7 in the morning until well past midnight was starting to kill me. But I had to, if I didn’t, all the memories came back, all the failures. I kicked the last part of the run hard, pulling up at the back side of the gym. I saw one of the guys back there doing stretches and shadow boxing a little. He was one of the ‘weird’ ones that I had instantly taken aversion to. Wearing a pink bandana and a pink shirt with white shorts, his visage today did little to change my first impression of him. “Hi.” He said as I pulled up, panting slightly and covered in a sheet of sweat. I had taken my t-shirt off a while back, wanting to let my poor sun-starved skin get a bit of the warmness that it craved. It was obvious he was staring a little, but I was used to it. “Hi” I replied, not really committing to a conversation but he kept going anyway. “You just come back from a run?” He asked.
“Yeah.” I said with a slight grunt, wondering if he was really that dense or if he was faltering in his attempt at small talk. Still catching my breath and kind of finding issue with the fact I was no longer alone with my racing thoughts, I didn’t say anything else.
“Alone?” He asked, again I found it a rather pointless question, being it had an obvious answer.
“No one to run with.” I said.
He nodded. “I would have run with you if you had asked.”
I gave him an appraising look, something that had become second nature to me and though off-handedly that he probably couldn’t keep up. “Didn’t really have any way of asking you.” I said with as little sass as I could muster. I really had to work on that, my attitude has ways of getting me in trouble. But he seemed not to notice.
“Give me your number before you leave, that way you can call me next time you need someone to run with.” He said, apparently thinking I needed to run with someone, or that I wanted to. I just nodded and walked toward the side of the building, hoping that Mike was there so class would start soon. I was getting a little creeped out, but again, I was used to weird people taking interest in me. Especially odd young men with mohawks. I seemed to attract the ones that existed in droves.
He followed me around the side of the building, and I ironically thought that he was extremely annoying. For a long time, that was exactly what I thought of him. Still, he had his own charm, quite like that of a mushroom found under a pile of leaves in the forest, and I had a feeling that spending too much time around him wouldn’t bode well.
Practice went as well as it could have. I learned more about fighting that proved to me just how little I knew. It turns out that fighting street and fighting for sport are two different things. My form had been all wrong. And learning Jiu Jitsu was, in itself, rather difficult. Still, I was a fast learner and I think that I impressed Mike slightly, if not with my progress at least with my endurance and stamina. At least, I hoped I was impressing him. The only girl there that had been there every time I had been was Kayla, but I honestly liked grappling with the guys better. Not because of anything more than the fact they were who I wanted to know how to fight, not Kayla. But I kept my eyes on Corey and David. They couldn’t be trusted. Not to me anyway. Not after what had happened a few weeks before. Hell…I probably should have never started coming to the gym, but it gave me a much needed outlet for my frustration and anger. Short of lashing out at everyone around me, or drowning myself in alcohol, there wasn’t much other way to vent. I felt dark, I felt violent, and I wanted to hurt someone like I’d been hurt. I didn’t know that along the way, I was hurting myself more than anyone else.
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