I’m about to bail, figuring I’ll let them do their thing and I can go do mine when Greyson says, ‘Callie, you should show Violet some of your kickboxing moves. I think it’d be good for her to let a little steam out.’ It seems funny to me, Callie teaching me to kickbox. She’s about four or five inches shorter than me, brown hair, blue eyes, thin – basically a little tiny thing. Yeah, I’m thin myself, but I look rough around the edges. But looks can be deceiving and I’m guessing from the way everyone is acting, she’s got some hidden badass kicking skills.
‘Why does everyone think I have anger issues?’ I ask, fixing my hair tie, wondering if they all know about my twisted past and the issues going on between Luke and I. Just the news alone will give them details about the case so I’m guessing they at least know my history. Maybe that’s why they think I have anger issues. Either that or Luke told them something, but I doubt he’d do that to me, especially when he has his own secrets I’m pretty sure he doesn’t share with them.
‘Um, because you do,’ Seth says with an eye roll.
Callie shoots him a warning look. ‘Don’t be rude,’ she says like I’m something precious and can’t handle a little bluntness.
I almost laugh at the idea, but restrain it, thinking about how I couldn’t handle it at therapy the other day. ‘Yeah, well do you too,’ I tell Seth in a lame attempt to get the attention off of me. Besides, I’ve seen Seth angry before, many, many times.’
Seth rolls his eyes again. ‘Honey, I have the exact opposite of anger issues.’
I cross my arms and give him a conniving look. ‘Oh yeah, tell that to the Silver Linings Playbook DVD.’
Greyson looks at him aghast then points a finger at him. ‘That was you.’
Seth aims me a dirty look and I smile innocently back at him. ‘Hey, it was a total accident.’ But he sighs as soon as he says it. ‘Okay, that’s a lie. But the damn thing wouldn’t play.’
‘That was one of my favorites.’ Greyson shakes his head. ‘And you broke it in half.’
‘I’ll buy you a new one today. I promise,’ Seth says and Greyson nods and lets it go. Then Seth turns to me. ‘You are paying for half of that for ratting me out,’ he hisses, not really mad, just being a drama mama as he put it early.
‘No freaking way,’ I retort. ‘I didn’t break the DVD. You did.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Seth replies. ‘If you kick the bag a few times, I’ll let it go. But they have to be bad ass ninja kicks.’
‘Why does everyone keep pushing me to do this?’ I ask. ‘Yeah, I have anger issues. So what? Kicking some damn bag is not going to do anything for me.’
‘Oh, but it will,’ Seth assures me while Greyson wanders back to this large boxing bag dangling from the ceiling over the center of the mat. ‘I know these things. I took a psych class.’
‘I’ve taken three different ones,’ I tell him. ‘And that wasn’t mentioned in any of them.’
‘Three different classes?’ Seth gapes at me. ‘Really.’
I shrug as Greyson calls out, ‘Violet’s a badass when it comes to classes. Don’t let her looks and attitude fool you, she’s a smart girl.’
Wanting to get off that subject of me, I sidestep around Seth and walk up to the bag. ‘Fine, I will kick this damn thing a few times, but only if we can stop talking about me, my brain, and my anger issues.’
‘Deal.’ Greyson moves behind the bag and puts his hand on it to hold it in place. I don’t know why. Damn bag is big as hell. I’m sure I’m not going to be able make it budge.
‘So what do I do exactly?’ I ask. ‘Just kick it?’
‘Yeah, but kind of turn to the side to begin with.’ Callie comes up to me and surprises me by putting her hands on hips and forcing me to shift to the side. Then she gives my hip a pat. ‘Pivot your hip and bring your leg up. You can also use these.’ She grabs my arms and positions them in front of me. ‘You can even punch the bag, but probably not with this hand.’ She taps my cast then steps back, giving me space. ‘Go ahead. Trust me, you’re going to feel a whole lot better.’ She has this look on her face like she understands her words very well. Hell, maybe she does. Maybe hidden in that tiny body is a person who is raging with anger. Perhaps she has a messed up past too. God, maybe everyone does in their own way.
Giving them what they want, I do exactly what Callie said, pivot my hip and bring my leg up, slamming my foot against the bag. It doesn’t move, but I also barely kicked it.
‘Oh, come on,’ Greyson says disappointedly. ‘Show us that tough girl kick.’
I tolerate them, giving it a good hard kick. For the briefest moment, when my shoe collides with the bag, I do feel a twinge of relief from the emotional overload I was experiencing. I decide to kick it a couple of times more and the feeling gets more intense.
I finally stop, breathing pretty hard. I don’t say anything, wiping the sweat from my brow, but Greyson gives me this I told you so look.
‘You should do it with the other leg now,’ Callie encourages. ‘And this time, try to think about something that will give you fuel.’
I arch my brows at her. ‘Fuel?’
‘Yeah, you know, for the kicking,’ she says simply, leaning down to grab her bottle of water beside her feet.
Figuring it won’t hurt anything, I turn to the other side and try to figure out what the hell she meant by fuel. Then something snaps inside me and I start kicking the crap out of that goddamn bag. Last night, two weeks ago, fifteen years ago, none of it feels so heavy inside me. Control. That’s what it is. I feel like I have more control over myself. Right now, in this moment, there is only me and this bag and this bag is everything – all my foster parents, Mira, Preston, all the guys who’ve copped a feel, everyone who’s taken something from me.
When I finally stop, I’m gasping for air, my skin is drenched with sweat, and my heart is hammering inside my chest.
‘I’m so tired,’ I say, hunching over as I catch my breath.
‘It’s called exercise,’ Greyson teases me with a grin.
I’m too tired to retort with a good comeback, so I turn and smile tiredly. But it’s a real one, not my shiny, fake one I used on him the first few conversations we had. The same smile I used when I went to parties and dealt. The smile I used on everyone almost my entire life.