× Mercury
I liked to hit things, just as much as I liked to run. I would choose the physical pain of my knuckles every time they came in contact with the leather of the punching bag than to sit and feel the raw mental emotions that would rip me apart.
So maybe that was why I rushed to my dorm room, ridden with rage and heartache, and stuffed the folded up paper into a drawer in my desk.
The paper was from the floor of Niall's car. The guy smoking in the parking lot didn't mean shit to me; he was just a distraction so I could grab the essay off the floor mat. I wouldn't have noticed it - wouldn't even had paid any attention to it - if the words Pandora and my last name weren't visible from the outside of one of the folds.
It was like someone cut a wire inside me because I had stopped functioning; unable to control my body as I stared at the paper that held the truth about my parents.
Just as I was changing into leggings and a shirt two sizes too big, a thought occurred to me.
I opened up my jewelry box and dug around the contents until I found what I was looking for. I slowly pulled out a silver chain, attached to the bottom was a titanium ring.
At one point in my life, this was the only necklace I would wear. It didn't matter the occasion, a child's birthday party, Halloween, grocery shopping, I would be wearing the necklace around my neck like a prized possession. The only time I had taken it off was when I was going to the gym, not wanting to risk the idea that it might fall off and get lost forever. Ever since then, I had forgotten it in my jewelry box.
The ring was simple titanium with embedded tree branches along the outside. It was a men's wedding band, my fathers to be exact. I remember when I was younger, sitting in the emergency wing of the hospital waiting for my brother to come out with a cast on his arm when my dad told me the meaning behind the ring.
"The tree branches are symbolic," he had said. "Your mother and I's first kiss was under a tree at our college campus, and it was the same tree where I proposed to her."
I held the ring up, the light of the moon reflecting off the metal. It looked exactly the same as it did in the emergency wing, no wear or age, which was surprising after the hell it's been through.
"This was found in the debris," a police officer had told me when I was sitting in a doctor's office after my checkup. She held the band between her forefinger and thumb. "I figured it might be something you wanted to keep."
I remember reaching for the ring with a shaking hand, knowing my father never took the band off his finger.
Unclamping the necklace, I wrapped it around my neck and closed it again. The ring dangled just below the hollow of my neck, cold against my skin.
I had gotten a call in the middle of the night that had erupted my life into fire and ash. I had never felt so hopeless before. Everything I knew was gone and I was left with burned memories and charred family traditions.
That was one of the phrases I had written, and it branded a hole in my core, leaving me feeling nauseous.
Niall thought my stiffness in the car was because he brought up the kiss, but that was irrelevant to the situation. During that second of panic, I had a fleeting thought wondering if I was just imagining the paper on the floor - Niall wouldn't do that, would he? But then I remembered my English professor saying how he didn't have my assignment. That was when I knew the little folded up paper on the floor of Niall's car was my essay.
My chest ached; I could physically feel the blood in my heart squeezing around the betrayal Niall had created. I finally understood why people associate heartbreaks with heart attacks, because I was feeling that then. My heart felt like it was going into cardiac arrest.
And that was when I knew I needed to run.
Once outside, I started to sprint. I hadn't a clue what time it was, and frankly, I didn't care much. I let my feet do the running and I erased everything from my mind - my parents, the essay... Niall.
I could feel myself going numb - mentally and physically. That was good, because that meant I was becoming disconnected from the situation; a feeling I was all too familiar with.
I ran right to the fitness center and pushed open the doors to the gym. To my surprise, it was still open. All the lights were on, glowing down at all the workout equipment. Everything from treadmills, to elliptical machines, to yoga mats, to weight benches, and finally to the one thing I went there for: the punching bag.
Grabbing some tape, I started wrapping my hands.
My fists took over my will to move and I started punching. The white X on the bag never left my sight as I punched, kicked, and used any force I had to make that bag move. I knew professionally you weren't supposed to stare at one spot like it was your prey, and instead look your opponent in the eyes so they didn't see where you were going to hit next. But this wasn't professional, and that X was getting the shit kicked out of.
Punching was a way for me to escape from the pain.
I did it when I was eleven when I missed the winning shot at a soccer game. I did it when I was told that Grandpa had lung cancer when I was fourteen. I did it when my brother went off to the air force. And I did it when my parents died three years ago.
Running was a way for me to escape from the hard times.
I did it when I missed the winning shot. I did it when Grandpa had lung cancer. I did it when Anders left for the air force. And I did it when my parents died.
Punching and running went hand in hand with me, because they both did something nothing else could. They could make all the bad things go away. Or, at least, temporarily. And most of the time, that was all I needed.
A shot rang out as I hit mesh, sparking a buzz in my hand and along my arm. That was the best thing about hitting the bag - about hitting anything, really. It hurt. It hurt in the best way possible.
So I did it again. And again.
I lost track of how many times I hit that bag. I lost track of myself. I couldn't tell you how loud I got or how long my shoulder burned for. In that moment, all I knew for certain was that I was finally hitting something - one strike after another, over and over, reminding me that I was supposed to feel pain. That I was human. That I was alive.
That was when the door to the gym opened and someone stepped inside, but I didn't bother to see who it was, too concentrated to look away from my target.
"Why am I not surprised you're here?" someone asked.
When I punched the bag without an answer, they must have seen that something was wrong because they walked the length of the room and stood on the other side of the bag.
"Are you okay, Lynn?"
That time I did stop, not because of what they said, or because they put their hands out to stop the bag from swinging, but because of what I saw.
Splatters of red marked the large X, slightly dripping down the bag. I looked down at my knuckles and saw them busted and bleeding through the tape.
"Lynn?" they asked again.
I finally looked up and saw Jillian standing there, concern on her face. She was wearing black workout attire and her light brown hair was pulled back in a bun, face clear of any makeup. Hazel eyes were boring into mine, filled with nothing but worry.
Despite the obvious, I told the oldest lie in the book. "I'm fine."
I had only talked to Jillian one other time from that day at The Courtyard Bar, but I didn't need to know her for her to see right through me. She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked a hip in a way my mother used to do when I was in trouble.
"You may be a good football player, but you're poker face needs a little work," she teased.
"It's..." I trailed off, debating if it was a good idea to tell Jillian what had happened. Instead of telling her, I decided to clump everything up in one word. "Niall."
Jillian nodded like that told her everything, and not for the first time, I wondered who Niall Horan really was.
"What's going on with you two, anyways?" she finally asked.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "At first we hated each other. And then the night of my first game, I had to bring Niall home and he insisted I stay the night because it was late and storming and then-"
Jillian's jaw fell open, making me stop mid-sentence. She was looking at me like she didn't believe what just came out of my mouth. "You slept with Niall!?"
"What? No!" I said defensively. "He offered me a bed and fresh clothes." I failed to mention my nightmare and what happened after that, for good reason. No one needed to know about that little... make out session. So I lied for the second time that night and hoped my poker face wasn't as bad as Jillian said it was. "Nothing else. That's it."
She shook her head, still looking at me like I just made up the most ridiculous story in the world. Suddenly, I was angry. I barely knew this girl. Who did she think she was to accuse me of something as absurd as sleeping with Niall?
Jillian must have seen how offended I was because her face softened. "I just assumed... He has a reputation of bringing girls to his place to have sex. He isn't- he's not the type of lad to just invite someone to have a sleepover and not get anything in return. You know what I'm saying?"
I did know what she was saying, and suddenly I wanted to take a shower for the second time that day to get his touch off my skin. I wanted to erase that moment in the hallway of the arena, my back pressed up against the wall and my fingers through his blonde locks. I wanted to remove the memory of the taste of his mouth he had left last weekend. I wanted to forget the time we spent at that pizza place only a few hours ago and how well we had gotten along. Because none of that mattered.
All of that was in the past. My heart was burning with revenge to get back at Niall for what he had done - for how much he knows.
Niall didn't deserve to know what happened to my parents. He didn't deserve to know anything about me.
He wasn't any better than Bradley was, I realized. I didn't know the reason why Niall slept around, but I didn't need one to know that I wasn't someone he thought differently of. I was just some girl that he could take advantage of.
"He gets around. A lot," Jillian continued, almost like she was listening into my thoughts. "I think it's because of his ego, hearing the girl's whispered when he walks by. The girls love it, you know, having sex with the star football player is a big deal here."
"Have you slept with him?" I found myself asking.
"No."
From over her shoulder, I saw my reflection in the wall length mirror by the yoga mats. My hair was a mess. I had removed the baggy white shirt and had on a black sports bra underneath, my black leggings low on my hips. My knuckles were still taped and soaked in drying blood. The fancy makeup Chloe put on me for the night was smeared under my eyes.
Jillian didn't have to see me punching the bag vigorously or see the look in my eyes to know that something was wrong; my appearance was enough to send out red flags to the whole campus.
It was a look I had seen before, around three years ago. I was standing in my grandmother's bathroom brushing my teeth when I first saw the girl in the mirror. Broken, angry, and tired. But mostly numb.
I knew then that I had come full circle. Because the same girl I was looking at was the same one I had seen when my parents died. Niall taking my essay had triggered something, bringing out that girl in me that I never wanted to see again.
Because the girl I was looking at wasn't the victim in her parent's death. She was the offender.
The blood on my hands was poetically perfect in the cruelest way.
I remembered that night perfectly. The flame burned with colors I had never seen before. With each flare I knew another of my possessions were alight. Even from all the way across the street I could feel the warmth, like standing near a bonfire. It was the burning of all my celluloid memories, souvenirs of a life well spent, and trinkets my father gave me from his long ago youth. I remember thinking how it went up so fast without an accelerant. The wood was fast becoming ash and the vinyl siding was sliding down like ice cream on a hot day. The smoke was being carried to the left by the wind, over the housing estate, raining down dirty ash like anti-snow. I watch like it was on TV, not my house - not my home.
I ran a hand down my face as I stared at the girl in the mirror. My heart was beating fast and I felt like I was going to be sick.
If what I was truly feeling was heartache, then I hope I never fall in love because I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to bare it if something were to happen.
"If I were you, I'd be careful," Jillian said into the silence. "I don't know Niall personally, of course, but having you stay the night like that doesn't seem like him at all. Just watch out for him. He's bad news."
I laughed bitterly under my breath. I had no doubt in my mind that Niall Horan was bad news - that was clear as the folded up paper in my desk drawer back in the dorm.