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Miguel shook his head. “If you come it'll be a lot of waiting around. You should stay here and keep working.”
“Are you sure? Because I don't mind waiting around.”
“I'm sure,” he told me. “I’ll call you as soon as I’ve been checked over, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll see you later.”
As the medics took Miguel away, Freya put her arm around me, “Are you okay?”
No words came at first. The past few minutes had rushed by in a blur. One minute I’d been supervising Rivera’s exercises, the next I’d seen Radleigh kicking the crap out of my boyfriend.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What happened?”
“McCoy flipped out when Miguel saved his goal. He looked furious. I’ve never seen him do anything like that before.”
I knew he was angry about Taylor telling Richard what he’d done, but it never occurred to me that he would be irate enough to lash out that way. The image of his foot thudding into Miguel’s stomach kept playing over and over in my head.
My eyes flicked around the field but Radleigh was nowhere in sight. Without thinking, I ran off the pitch and straight to the locker room, barging in without knocking. McCoy was rifling through his sports bag, but looked up as I entered. His blue eyes had never looked icier. Did he even care that he’d just put Miguel in hospital? I wanted to scream at him, but the fury burning through me made it impossible to speak. After glaring at each other for what seemed like an eternity, Radleigh said, “Get out of here, Leah. I have nothing to say to you.”
And release.
“How about an apology?” I snapped. “You took out your own aggression on an innocent person and that is not on!”
“You're right. It's not right to take out your aggression on an innocent person but that's what Taylor's doing to me!”
“So you thought beating the crap out of Miguel would make you feel better?”
“Yes. And it did.”
Shaking my head in disgust I said, “You weren't beating up Miguel, you were using him to attack me. What you did was personal. You may as well have kicked me because I felt every single bit of pain you inflicted on him! What kind of person would take such pleasure in hurting someone else?”
“Maybe someone who was falsely accused of harassment! Someone who couldn't make anyone hear what they're trying to say! Someone who is so damn angry that they had to get rid of the frustration somewhere!”
“You can protest your innocence all you want, but you're not fooling me. And if you wanted to get rid of your anger, you could have gone to the gym and beaten the hell out of a punch bag, but instead you used Miguel because you knew it would hurt me!”
“And you say I'm arrogant,” he muttered sarcastically.
“So tell me,” I challenged. “Tell me that what you did to Miguel had nothing to do with me?”
“It had everything to do with you! You -”
“Stop right there!” Richard’s voice bellowed, looking furious.
McCoy was standing over me, yelling, and while I hadn't been in the least bit afraid, I understood why Richard would think I might be. McCoy took a step away from me as Richard advanced on him.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. “First you’re accused of harassment, which I would have thought would be enough to make you lay low for a while, but instead you took your anger out on Vega! Now you're yelling at Leah as if it's her fault you're in this mess! With the accusation Taylor made against you and what you just did, you’re being issued with a four week suspension, effective immediately.”
I had never seen Richard so wound up. His entire body was tense, and his face red with rage.
Radleigh stared first at Richard then at me before growling, “That's not fair.”
“Well get used to it,” Richard told him. “Because it's happening.”
Miguel came out of the hospital a few hours later, and thankfully, the only damage McCoy had done to him was severe bruising. Just because his ribs weren’t broken, it didn’t make me any less angry. After my confrontation with Radleigh, it had taken me hours to calm down. I’d stopped vibrating with rage but a steady stream of vexation still flowed through me. I wasn’t just angry though. Every clash I’d ever had with Radleigh had prompted his attack.
I felt guilty.
Freya drove me to Miguel’s apartment after work, and as I climbed the steps to his Spanish style home, I stopped to glance around at the neighbourhood. The beauty of it always knocked me out. The terracotta roofs and the perfectly manicured lawns were so different to my beachfront flat. It was peaceful and private, and although curtains probably twitched when someone unknown walked by, it felt like the neighbours were more likely to fling open their doors and say hello instead of calling the people next door to ask why there was a stranger in their midst.
