Page 22 of Double Trouble
A meek smile amidst a ginger nod was the best I could manage. Although once my fingers closed on the cool plastic of the chair, something changed. A tension I hadn’t noticed before in my limbs lifted, then settled in.
‘Smash it’, a small daring voice in my head said.
And, wondering at its seeming lightness, I lifted the chair up and, with all the force I had, slammed it down into the ground.
I jolted back as the sound of plastic giving way careened through the room. Owen’s hand on my shoulder surprised me, although something about the hot stroke of his breath on my ear was reassuring. “Satisfying, right?”
And just like that, he gave voice to the jumble of feelings materializing in me. Infinitesimally and yet unmistakably, something in me had shifted and lightened.
Owen nudged me toward a small desk in the corner. “That one’s all yours.”
My feet started walking me there before I even thought to. Already, my brain was working in overdrive to dissuade me. The desk was old, even a little ornate in the folds and frills of its top edges. This old beech wood desk had belonged to someone, maybe even a child. This desk had had a life, been loved, and now I was going to destroy it, for what?
It went against everything that I believed in as a nurse. Mending, making good again, saving. To destroy, to throw my weight against something and watch it dissolve into ruin seemed wrong. Immoral. And just what I needed right now.
I lifted my foot up over the top of the squat desk and slammed it down.
The splinter of wood from wood was music. My next kick was the lifting of the conductor’s baton.
Good thing I was wearing my ankle boots for what happened next. A pure symphony of strikes. My foot jabbed out over and over. into the collapsed, half-legged wooden remnant. Kicking and breaking and shredding, and not just wood. Worry and guilt and regret were snapping out there too. Pain and hope, while pure animal impulse took over. My feet, one and then the other, jumping out and on the wooden heap, still not done, kicking and stomping and stamping.
Owen’s shoulder squeeze came as a surprise. I whirled around, eyes wild.
“You ok?” he asked.
I took a breath, realizing it as I exhaled. “Yeah, actually. Better than ok.”
It was true. Something that had been coiled and hardened and horrible inside of me had been dislodged. Not thrown free but shifted.
“Better enough to tackle the TV?”
At Owen’s words, both our gazes went to the flat-screen monolith. At the back of the room it stood, waiting. as if the final challenge in some sort of video game, impassive, unhurried.
When Owen’s hand took mine, I knew the answer. Together, we approached it, regarded it. And then, together, we destroyed the shit out of it.
First, though, Owen handed me gloves that Battle Sports had provided. Then, we exchanged a grin. It was time.
Owen was first. With no warning, he let out a sort of grunt, then his foot shot out. Now, I was more than ready with my own kick. The liquid crackle as foot met screen was more than worth it. Beside me, Owen was hunkered over, his eyes alive as his gloved fist slashed into the TV’s innards. That was the last I saw of him. From then on out, I was lost to everything except the pure hedonistic pleasure of destruction. Foot, fist, I lost track of what was connecting, crumpling into what, until the TV was a flattened wreckage before us.
Owen and I exchanged a glance.
“We are insane,” I said.
“Certifiable,” he agreed. “But isn’t it fun?”
—
After, true to his word, Owen drove us to the beach. We didn’t talk much, still processing everything that had happened in that small, over-white room. Only once we were comfily positioned on a blanket on the sand, did Owen broach the subject.
“I was a bit worried I’d be the only one going ape there.”
“Nope, looks like we both have our own demons,” I said. I’d meant it as a joke, but my laugh came out feeble and unconvincing.
Owen’s sidelong study of a look didn’t make things any easier. Was I never going to tell him and Jake?
“Was yours about your hand?” I asked, to avoid remaining on the subject at hand.
“Sure, yeah,” he admitted without elaborating.
I guess if I was keeping my secrets, he could be allowed his.
When his hand dipped into his messenger bag and came back with a bottle of what looked to be red wine, I couldn’t have been happier.
“Picked this up on the way to your place,” Owen said, extending it out to me partway before pausing. “If you want.”
I grabbed it, pleased to see it was a twistable cap. I took a swig, then, wiping my lips, shook my head. “Nah, don’t think I’ll have any.”
