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Under Her Heel 6
Brax
Shit! I follow Jace out of Keava’s room, knowing that we have messed up. Six years ago and then again today.
“How did she find us?” Jace growls.
“Not like we have kept a low profile since mom dragged us back to Grandma’s. ‘Twin soccer players who are stars on and off the field.’ Wasn’t that the headline for that article in the paper? Then, since coming to Colchester, we have continued in the same vein. She could easily have googled us.” I push past him, needing to get down the basement stairs and to the small gym that we have set up down there.
Jace hates the internet. His online presence would be limited to public information if it wasn’t for me pestering him to at least make a Smilebook account, though he only gets on it every couple weeks when I push him to. Little-known fact about Jace, he prefers pen and paper, typewriters, anything pre-1980 to do his work with. The fit he threw when his second-year Biology class had an online lab that required you to use the online textbook as well was epic.
“But why now? Why here?” Jace follows me down the steps into the now finished basement. We grew up living paycheck to paycheck with both parents working. Mom said we were mature for our ages and could handle being alone in the afternoons. The teachers and Mrs. Nowak always shook their heads and lamented the fate of “latchkey” kids.
Then the accident happened and Mom was gone. Dad tried his best, but we were quickly sinking and no matter how he tried to hide it, we knew not to ask for extras anymore. The night before that fateful day when we vowed to make Keava hate us, to make leaving her easier, Dad had sat us down and told us the truth. The house was gone, our savings were gone.
“She doesn’t know why we left, why we humiliated her.” Jace’s voice interrupts my walk down memory lane.
“We were stupid shits. Leaving her wasn’t any easier after that. Just made us feel like shits and her not try to stop us.” I grab one of the dumbbells and sit in front of the mirror watching my form. I hate lifting these weights, would rather be hitting a bag or doing leg lifts, even a rowing machine would be better. But Coach wants us to work on all muscle groups so we can train for various positions.
“We could have told her. She would have understood.” He wraps his fists with a skill that bespokes a history with the bag. Knowing him, he was up at five working out. Sickening how some people get up with the sun. I shudder at the thought.
“No. Dad insisted that no one was to know where we went. He never did tell us what had him running scared and Grandmother refused to speak about any of it, including Mom.” It was more than that, though. The three-hour drive to Grandmother’s was filled with silence as Dad sat silently, tapping his finger on his leg. He refused to tell us anything about Grandmother or why this was the first time we would be meeting her. Once we arrived, our old life was never spoken of again. Grandmother said we started over when we moved in with her, nothing from our past belonged in our future. Thank God, she couldn’t take our memories, since that was all we had left.
“We never did find out why Grandmother hated Mom so much.” Jace throws a controlled hit at the bag causing a thwap sound to reverberate around the room as the bag swings back and forth.
Deciding I’m in the mood to talk more than work out, I put the weight back in place and move to hold the bag for him.
“Nothing we can do about the past. But we have to figure out how to fix the mess we are in with Keava. I can’t take a year of her hating us.” If we are honest with ourselves, we never found another girl like her, one that got us so well. She has and will be the standard for me.
Jace just grunts as he switches it up and starts kicking the bag. Letting him at it, I go back to the weights and my thoughts.
