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CHAPTER TWELVE
Nearing midnight, Sienasat on the sofa, alone. The only light in the room came from the laptop on her lap and the television on the wall. One of Hulu’s countless true-crime documentary series played, muted, on the TV. She’d seen it twice through already. True crime was her favorite genre; books, movies, TV series, podcasts, it didn’t matter, she swallowed them all up like brain candy. For some reason that probably would require therapy to identify, these stories of serial killers and wife murderers calmed her.
Tonight, though, she was distracted. On her laptop was about the fifteenth video of Brazilian jiu-jitsu takedowns she’d watched in a row. YouTube kept recommending more, and now, both fascinated and horrified, she was caught in the undertow of YouTube recommended videos.
Trying to get in control of her life, looking for a way to feel capable of getting in control of her life, Siena had hit on the idea of taking a self-defense course. She’d bought her guns and paid money she hadn’t really been able to spare on training for the same reason, but she couldn’t go around brandishing a pistol every time she felt like she needed to defend herself.
For one thing, it had occurred to her that shefeltthreatened more often than shewasthreatened. A life of being beset from every direction had maybe made her a little ... jumpy. Maybe if she felt more like she could handle danger when it actually happened, she wouldn’t feel so wary every time a stranger got too close.
For another thing, since the shooting at the Cadence last year, she’d felt a kind of guilt whenever she had a gun in her hand. Like she needed to announce she wasn’t like that guy, she wasn’t looking to shoot anyone, she didn’t want to hurt or kill anybody, she just didn’t want to get hurt or killed and leave Geneva with no one.
Also, the shooting itself had maybe made her a little extra jumpy. For sure, things had started to feel like they were spiraling out of control since then.
And finally, sometimes a gun just wasn’t good protection. When Geneva’s science teacher had come up behind her, he’d gotten close enough to put his hand on her shoulder, and she hadn’t heard him coming at all. If he’d meant her harm, her gun would have been no help because she wouldn’t have been able to get it out of her bag in time.
At work tonight, she’d asked Parker to recommend a good place for self-defense training, and he’d said Tri-State Martial Arts Academy was the best place in the area, and that Dave Collins, the owner, was a good guy.
Maybe Dave Collins was a good guy to Parker, but he’d been a condescending prick to her. Also, his fancy brochure, with its slick paper and color photos, listed prices for his classes way out of her range. Paying for two therapists for Geneva was killing her bank account. Even taking as many extra shifts as she could manage and still be a nominally present guardian, by next month she’d be eating ramen for every meal she didn’t share with her sister.
Cooper had been at Tri-State, too. Laughlin was a small town, so it wasn’t unusual to see people you knew from one place—work, school, neighborhood, whatever—somewhere else. But discovering that he’d been watching that scene, her begging Dave Collins for help and Dave Collins totally stonewalling her, finally just outright insulting her, had tripled her mortification.
It hadn’t helped her mental state that he’d been standing there in absolutely nothing but a pair of baggy black pajama pants. The dude was totally gorgeous. His body! Her mother would have said he was ‘built like a brick shithouse.’ Considering his arms, hands, and neck, she hadn’t been surprised to see his chest and back were heavily inked as well. He wasn’t completely covered, like an ink bodysuit; plenty of plain skin highlighted the contours of what had to be an eight pack. But a good fifty percent of the skin she’d seen was a canvas for a whole lot of body art.
Tall, shredded, bearded, and inked. Back in her before time, she’d have been totally into him. Hell, she’d have been running after the guy like a starved puppy.
In her before time.Right. She was into him now. His looks, at least. His personality left a lot to be desired.
Or did it? Twice tonight, he’d insisted that he was a much better person than she thought—and he’d said it in the context of offering to help her. He said he was a black belt in this Brazilian jiu-jitsu stuff. She’d want proof of that if she took him up on his offer to train her.
She was considering it. In the parking lot, his offer had been a kindness so big in that moment it had nearly broken her, but on the drive home, she’d mostly talked herself out of it. After watching all these videos, however, she was considering it seriously—but she was conflicted.
On the one hand, BJJ did seem to be a kind of close-combat style that would be really helpful if—when—some drunk grabbed her, or worse, and it looked like something she could learn to do well. Not black-belt well, but put-an-asshole-on-the-ground well.
On the other hand, that close-combat style meant that, in order to train her, Cooper would be very close, holding her in ways that seemed practically sexual, and there’d be no hiding the reality of her chest. After that awful question he’d asked, she didn’t know if she could abide him getting that close to her in any case, but if he said something else shitty when he had his arm across her chest, her last shreds of dignity would crumble away.
She didn’t know what to do.
But it was midnight, and she was exhausted. Tomorrow, she could think on it some more. Maybe she’d go over in the morning and talk to Cooper about how it would work, or maybe she’d go over and tell him thanks but no thanks. Assuming he was home; she hadn’t heard his motorcycle pull in yet tonight.
She closed her laptop, turned off the television, checked the locks, and headed down the hall to her bedroom.
A line of light showed under Geneva’s door. Thinking she’d fallen asleep reading, Siena opened the door and went in.
Geneva was awake but not reading. She lay on her back, her hands linked over her belly, and stared up at the ceiling. The door opening hadn’t pulled her out of her thoughts, but that was typical; one of the reasons Siena found it so hard to accept that Geneva had ADD was how completely her focus locked in sometimes. It wasn’t always easy to get her attention, precisely because she focused so hard.
Now, Siena—and Geneva—were learning what it was to ‘hyperfocus’ and why that was considered an ‘attention deficit.’
“Geneva,” Siena said, using the ‘mom’ tone that tended to break through. After a second, Geneva blinked and turned her head. She didn’t speak or change her expression, so Siena said, “You okay, sis?”
“No, but you don’t care.”
Siena had heard statements like that too often since the middle of January, and every one was a knife to the chest. She was breaking her back trying to do and be everything Geneva needed, her entire purpose in life was to raise and protect her baby sister, to love her in every way she could, but Geneva couldn’t see it right now. All she could see was her own misery.
Siena understood, but it still hurt like a mortal wound.
She came fully into the room and pulled the desk chair out to sit down. Probably most parent-type people would go and sit on the bed, to be as close as possible, but Geneva didn’t like people to be on her bed. “OfcourseI care. You know I do, sis. You know how I love you. You’re mad, but you know. So talk to me.”
