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He laughed. “Oh, so you want me to drown you?”
Chirping. Our comfort zone. “If you think you can win that easily? You might accidentally workout all day, every day, but I have to be nice to people all day. It makes me fucking feral and I’m ready to take it out on you.”
We walked down the path behind our lot. The forest was calm; the river moved leisurely, and the birds sang nicely. Our pent-up energy would churn it all up.
The main beach of the trailer park was a ways away and around a bend, so when we got to the section behind our lot, we were alone, secluded, and hidden from the main area. Maddox stripped right down to his boxers and kept his eyes on me while I did the same.
“Rules?” I asked, tossing my shirt with my pants.
“Like you’d play by them anyway,” he bitched.
“You just can’t let it go that I win with sheer skill and strength, can you?” I shoved him in the chest, feeling my blood come alive.
“More like dirty moves and sexy distractions,” he countered, pushing me back.
“Maybe we should fight with clothes on then, eh? Since you can’t control your dick if I’m half naked.”
He mumbled something under his breath about it not mattering if I was naked or not. My face got hot at that. Blushing could come later. First, I had confessions to make.
“I neglected and ignored you,” I started this thing off with the truth.
“I’m not a fucking princess, Devon,” he snapped. “I don’t need you around all the time.”
“Yeah, but I left you alone to wait for me every night. Tell me how that made you feel.” Feelings, his favourite. It was a trigger word.
“Feel?” he scoffed predictably. “This isn’t about feelings. It’s about facts!” He pushed me, and when I grinned, he swung at me. Already worked up.That’s my boy.
I caught his wrist and kicked him in the thigh. “Yeah, the fact that you felt ignored, right?”
Maddox swept my legs out and came down on me as I fell. “I didn’t feel anything. It just fucking sucks to… I never knew if you were coming home or not!” he shouted, hitting me in the ribs.
I rolled out from under him, getting a mouthful of sand in the process. “You think I take you for granted?” I totally did, but he needed to express it.
“I thought you were trying to stay away from me,” he seethed, swinging his fist at my face. “I thought you were over me, that you wanted out of this relationship, and you stayed at the shop to avoid me!” He landed a hard punch to my jaw.
“Maddox!” I shouted, trying to calm him down.
“If you want out of this, just fucking tell me and get it over with!”
I lunged for him. He threw out a knee, but I blocked it and tackled him to the sand. Straddling his hips, I pinned his arms on either side of his head. “I don’t want out of this. Ever. I wasn’t avoiding you. I was trying to be worthy of you, and I fucked it all up. I just didn’t want to end up like our parents, but I know that’s a mistake now.” I looked into his green and angry eyes. “I fucking love you, Madd. I never want out of this.”
“I have a job, too! Stop trying to take it all on yourself,” he snarled at me, struggling to get free.
“I know that!” I pinned him down harder. “And I didn’t realize that by trying to make our lives better, I was making them worse. I took you for granted, thinking you’d always fucking be there, but when you left…” I swallowed tears. “I’ll never make that mistake again.”
Maddox paused for only a second. He studied the sincerity in my eyes, and then he kneed me in the side so hard I groaned and fell off him. He flipped me onto my stomach, pulled my arm behind my back, and twisted until I cried out in pain.
“We aren’t them,” he seethed in my ear. “But if you keep acting like this, doing everything in your power to prevent being like your dad, you’re going to end up like him anyway because you’ll be alone, miserable, and pathetic.”
He released my arm and fought to get me on my back again. His words hurt, but I knew they were true. I neglected Maddox just like my dad neglected my mom. For different reasons, but still, neglect was neglect.
“Look at me,” Maddox demanded. I met his eyes. “I’m proud of you,” he said rather reluctantly, but with all his honesty. “And I never want you to give up on the shit you give a fuck about, okay? But stop doing it for us, for me. I honestly don’t give a damn if we lose everything. The trailer, the bikes, the trucks, and our phones. I don’t need all that. I just want you to come home. And if you’re never there and we never talk or see each other, what’s the point of being in this thing?”
The fight left my body and I stopped struggling. That’s how he felt? He never saw me, so what was the point? “You don’t want to be in this anymore?”
“What? Have you not listened to a thing I said?” He let me go, and we both sat on our sorry asses facing the water, simmering in a fruit punch of feelings that were still too uncertain to mix.
“Yeah, I heard you say what’s the point.” I rubbed sand out of my hair.
