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I give him a look that warns him to shut the hell up, but he doesn’t let up.
“You want pussy that bad, there’s plenty down at the club, and you don’t have to fucking work for it.” He shakes his head at me as he hops up into the ring.
“Does it ever occur to you that I just might want to help those people out? They ain’t so different to us, Aut. They breathe the same air as us, they eat, sleep and shit.”
“But they ain’t our problem, and that’s where you’ve been letting yourself down your whole life, Troj, always too busy giving a shit about everyone else around you. Being the nice guy.” He rolls his eyes before turning his back on me and starting to loosen his limbs, and when he turns back around to face me I throw a right hook at him that he wasn’t expecting.
He stumbles backward and stares back at me, shocked.
“What the fuck was that for?”
“Where the fuck were you when I was busy giving a shit about our mom, Aut?” I ask the question I’ve been holding on to for over ten years, and he looks back at me with venom as he spits the blood from his mouth onto the white canvas. We never talk about Mom. Not ever. His choice, not mine.
“She wasn’t being much of a mom when she was shooting all that shit up her arm,” he throws back at me with spite.
“Why are you really here, Autumn?” I ask bitterly, we both know it ain’t because he gives a shit about this club, or me for that matter.
“Because, like always, my jackass kid brother has to be a hero, and this time he’s way over his fucking head.”
“Quit pretending you give a shit about me, Autumn. You didn’t give a shit about me when I was sixteen and struggling to keep Mom alive on my own, and you sure as shit weren’t giving a fuck when you abandoned me.” I step closer to him, my finger pointing into his face.
“You fuckin’ left me when I needed you. I slept on the streets for a year trying to dodge the system, and I had to learn pretty fuckin’ fast how to take care of myself.” Yeah, I know Aut had it rough too, but the fact is we should have been roughing that shit together.
“Don’t blame me for that, she was the one that left you,” he bites back, and I grab him by his scruff and lay another punch on him.
“Us, Aut. She left us… And I’m sick of you pretending that doesn’t hurt you.”
He comes back at me with a quick, sharp jab that hits right under my rib cage.
“Yeah, well I’m sick of you pretending that crank whore was worth any of our fucks,” he snaps cruelly, stepping past me to the other side of the ring.
“It wasn’t her fault. You know how fucked up she got when Wes left her. She needed help, and you were my big brother, you were supposed to step up. She had nothing, Aut,” I yell at him, and yeah, truth pie tastes like shit, but I’m serving it. Autumn stops walking away and turns around.
“She had you,” he narrows his eyes at me. “You believed in her, stuck by her even after all the selfish shit she did. She should have wanted to get clean for you, she should have wanted to live for you. Because you loved her unconditionally, even when she treated you like you weren’t fucking there. Even when she fucked men on our couch to scrape enough money together for her next fix before she worried about feeding you.” His words hurt way worse than the hit he just got on me. “And the difference between us, Troj, is that you always had an excuse for her. Excuses that you had to believe yourself because you couldn't face the fact that she just didn’t give a fuck. You gave that selfish bitch more than enough reasons to clean up her act and I hate her, not for what she did to me, but for what she did to you.”
I’m shocked into silence as all the rage inside my brother rises to the surface, swirling in his eyes like a storm.
“I’m done for today.” He rips up his cut from on the corner of the ring and steps down. “You should get Skid in here, him and Kullolli are about the same size, you need to familiarize your combos to that body shape,” he tells me, marching out of the gym and leaving me stunned.
Nerves and excitement battle it out inside me as I sit on the edge of my bed and try to breathe myself calm.
“You’re going to get caught if you carry on like this.” Dyanni shakes her head disapprovingly at me. “You think I was the only person who noticed that you came back to the village wearing his shirt? You’re sneaking out at night. Almost all the families have moved back home, you have no excuse to be on their compound.”
“I know,” I sigh. “But it’s only for one more week. Then when Troj wins the fight, he’ll convince my uncle to let us get married,” I assure her, trying to convince myself at the same time.
“I don’t understand how you can consider marrying someone you’ve only known a few weeks, over a man you’ve grown up with.” Dyanni lies back on her bed and stares up at the ceiling.
“Troj is the other part of me, Dan, he’s like everything I ever read about,” I try explaining, I feel sorry for her in a way, she’s my best friend but she’s allowed her mind to be closed off from what's out there.
“This isn’t a story, Shaniya. Have you thought about who he is, and what he’ll want from you?”
Her eyes widen when she rolls over to look at me, and I can’t help wondering what she’s imagining in that skeptical head of hers.
“It would have been so much easier with Tawk,” she sighs.
“You should marry Tawk,” I suggest, knowing that Dyanni has always admired him.
“I would if he wasn’t so madly in love with you.” She rolls her eyes and flips onto her back again. “Troj has some attractive friends that aren’t taken,” I try making a joke and she hits me with a judgmental scowl.
