Shipwrecked

7-Brooklyn

There are so many things I could tell Ryann, so many things that I could change my nightmare the other night into and not be lying to my friend.
So many options to choose from...
But I know she is talking about the delusion I had the other night. The one that made me toss and turn even though I wasn't sleeping.
"You go first," I tell her.
She takes a deep breath and contorts her face as if she's thinking about not telling me. Or maybe the pain it brought back for her is just too tough to endure.
"We were in the training room," she begins.
Memories flood into my brain, memories that are surprisingly hard for me to stomach.
I see my bloody image in the mirrored wall they placed there in front of the fighting ring solely so that I would force myself to look at my beat up reflection.
I remember the rusted metal that left stains on my hands when Shane and the other trainers made me bench press more than half my body weight.
Across the huge room, there was the target range used for shooting guns and bows. And then the fighting range, where Shane once told me how terrible I was at fighting, then helped me, his hand resting on the small of my back as he showed me how to stand correctly and throw all kinds of punches.
I think of the climbing area where Shane and I kissed in the safety of an oak tree, and the haunting maze that he locked me in until I could figure my way out. All the terrible things he made me do, just to turn around and tell me he loved me.
It was all a bunch of bullshit.
I know her memories are different than mine, but not much altered. They couldn't be. Every inch of that place was horrifying.
"He put me in the ring with Maxim, the really powerful Maxim, Maxim the biggest boy in our class, Maxim."
I nod letting her know she doesn't have to go on, I know who she is talking about.
I gulp, I remember this day like it was yesterday. Ry wasn't doing too well in training. She was tired, for she hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night due to a wound she was nurturing from midnight to three in the morning.
She lost to everyone she fought. And she kept getting worse as Shane kept throwing people at her like knives.
"Fight this one Rivera, fight this one. Don't be a coward. Fight this one." he had said.
Ryann was exhausted. She couldn't do it anymore. She couldn't fight Maxim.
I knew the feeling, an emotion that made me feel broken, permanently. It was a terrible feeling that made my head throb nonstop, made my vision blurry and my lip swollen to the point that I couldn't talk without sounding like a blubbering baby. It was that kind of feeling. A feeling I had grown used to from losing all the time, to both the boys and the girls.
Until Shane taught me to be stealthy, until he taught me to use my weaknesses as strengths...
"I-I can't." Ry had stammered, averting her eyes from Shane.
"You can't?" he questioned, calm at first. But Shane wasn't a peaceful person. He wasn't known for keeping himself composed when he was irritated. "What do you mean you can't Rivera?"
I wasn't used to him being like this. His nature around me was not like this at all. His personality was completely altered. Maybe he was trying to shelter me, I don't know, but the tone in his voice, it terrified me.
"The tone in his voice, it terrified me," says Ry, leaning her head against the tree. She closes her eyes as if it will relieve the agony she must be going through to relive this moment for the second time tonight.
"Do you remember that day?" she asks after a while.
"Of course," I croak. I know what she's getting at here. I know it.
"Then what happened next?" she asks hastily.
I shake my head vigorously, flattening my lips against each other and bringing them into my mouth, holding them in with my teeth.
I learned this from my mother. She used to purse her lips all the time. It was a habit for her. A habit she'd use when she didn't want to talk. When she couldn't talk. When she wouldn't talk.
"Spit it out!" she yells, anger rising in her tone.
"No," I squeak.
"You said you know what happened...then tell me what fucking happened!"
We are both to our feet now.
"I-I can't..." I begin.
"Why, is it too painful for you?" She pins me against the ground.
I try to wiggle free, but I wasn't expecting that, she caught me off guard. I am trapped.
But I'm not really trapped. Shane taught me how to get out of situations like this. But I couldn't. I couldn't use him against her at a moment like this, a moment that we are taking to recall the kind of dreadful person that he was.
"Is it painful to remember your asshole of a boyfriend Brooklyn? Brooklyn Grace," She snaps the last part so fast it's like ripping off a bandage. The pain is over within seconds like it came, but it still hurts...
"Don't you dare use that name against me!" I shout.
"Or what?" she asks.
I stare at her, the tears forming in my eyes. I see them threatening to pour out of her too, out of her dark brown eyes, so dark they are almost black.
She is trying desperately to be tough. But after a while she lets out a sob and her tears fall onto my face.
She lets go of me, and her weight off of my chest feels relieving, but I can't say I feel too much better. There is still a block in my chest; it feels like I was hit with a slab of metal, right in the heart.
I watch as Ryann, on her knees, sinks down to the ground her head in the palms of her hands.
She sobs, louder than I have ever, ever heard her cry. It's like she has been holding it all in. Holding back against the dam she built up between herself and the rest of the world. But now, the dam is breaking, the walls are cracking, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, she can do about it.
I want to put my hand on her back to comfort her, but I am no good at making others feel better. What human is?
Instead I just sit there and wait until she has calmed a bit. She looks back up at me, staring into my blinking eyes, I into her swollen ones, and I see her strength coming back to her.
"He pulled me into the circle....and gave me no choice but to fight Maxim." she says repulsed by even the thought of this.
"Then Maxim crushed me....and beat me....while Shane, that pitiful excuse for a man, yelled at me, telling me I was a worthless piece of shit....since I couldn't fight back." she has to force these words out of her mouth, and this isn't even the worst part.
"Do you remember what he said to me?" she asks.
I wish I did so I could save you right now. I think.
"No, not exactly," I say.
"He said, 'Get the hell off your ass Rivera. Fight back! You're no use! If this was a real war you would be dead! Why don't you just kill her now Maxim? She's worthless to us if she's gonna fight like this!'"
There is a long pause. "Those were his exact words."
I remember the next part. Shane handed Maxim a gun and told him to shoot Ry. Maxim stood there, looking like he was going to kill her, but she begged and pleaded for her life. He couldn't do it.
He turned toward Shane his arms still locked in front of him, so the gun was pointed right at our instructor.
I know he wasn't going to shoot Shane either, and Shane must have known that too because he had a wide grin on his face.
Maxim dropped the gun to his feet and Shane scurried to pick it up, pointing it at Maxim who was on the ground, trembling.
"So you couldn't do it," Shane said in his taunting voice. "You mother fucking coward!" Shane pulled the trigger and the sound made Maxim flinch, another sign of weakness in Shane's eyes.
I too flinched, from my position slightly to the left of Shane.
The bullet ricocheted off the wall and I saw it coming right at me. My instinct was to duck but I couldn't move a muscle in my body.
I stood there like a deer caught in headlights. I was sure as dead.
At the last minute Shane reached out and caught the bullet in midair. He didn't even cringe as it grazed his skin.
I did.
Everyone else gasped. He looked smug as he threw the bullet to the floor.
It landed with a clanging noise that made me jump a little. I watched him as he wiped his hand on his black jeans the blood streaking his fingers.
My heart was beating a mile a minute.
He saved my life.
No, he just prolonged it.
"Don't look so happy to die Princess." he said, his face a little too close to mine. "You'll have your chance. Besides, some people aren't as lucky."
I knew what he was going to do. He knew what he was going to do.
"Shane. Stop it." I said shakily, just above a whisper.
I don't think anyone heard me over their loud mutters.
"No," he whispered back.
Shane turned back to Ry; her normally olive toned skin was as pale as a ghost's.
As if she is reading my thoughts, Ry skips that part of the story.
"He turned to me, pointed the gun at my head and smirked." she said. The look on her face tells me she is picturing his face in her mind. "I didn't even bother begging for mercy, because I knew he didn't have any."
I nod.
"And then instead of shooting me. He took his foot and slammed it into me, time after time. He started in the gut, then the chest, the neck, the head. Each time the number of kicks increased. I counted. Anything to keep me awake, right?" she asks miserably. She is crying again.
I don't say anything. I can't. There is a lump in my throat so big I wonder if I'll ever be able to talk again.
"I counted fifteen blows to the head. Fifteen...Fifteen kicks of his dirty work boot to the back of my head. I swear I had imprints of the grooves in my skull. Or at least it felt like it," Her voice is raising now. "My vision was slowly deteriorating. I thought I was dying Brooklyn."
The tears fall from my eyes.
"And what did you do?" she pushes the words out. "Nothing. Nobody did...;"
She sits there glaring at me for the longest time before I push past that lump in my throat. "I'm sorry." I croak. "I'm sorry Ryann. I didn't know what to do. He would have killed you if I had said anything. He would've killed you." I'm sobbing now. "Ryann I-I'm sorry."
She nods. She believes me.
Shane was the worst. He wasn't human. I swear. Why I chose to love him, I don't know.
Now, he haunts my best friend. Now, he haunts me.