"Leah!" Chris shouts after her. He hurriedly follows her through the park.
"You're lucky I have to drive you home!" she shouts back. "Otherwise, I would've left your ass here!" She storms through the playground, pulling down and fixing her shirt. The cold has no effect on her at the moment; she is boiling too hot with anger to even acknowledge it.
"At least let me have a second to apologize."
"Apologize?!" She turns around to give him the most soul-piercing, pissed-off glare. "You want to apologize?! Please don't even tell me you think that'll fix everything. Because let me break it to you right now: it won't."
"I know it won't, but I at least deserve that."
That single seven-letter word only enrages her: deserve. She licks her lips and looks around at the nearly pitch-black location, not sure whether to slap him or knock him out. But, knowing his strength, she cancels out both and takes a different approach. "Fuck you, Chris. Now I am seriously considering strapping you to the hood of my car!" She ends up screaming that last part at him, making her throat a little sore. Her arms begin to tremble, so she continues walking in the other direction before Chris can see how badly she's losing it.
She can hear Chris jogging over the half-frozen grass. "Leah, please wait."
"No. Stay away from me, please."
"It was an accident! I didn't mean to say--"
"Shut the fuck up, Chris! Just shut the fuck up. You are a heartless bastard. I fell for you! I lost sanity for a while because of you! I was willing to end my relationship for you! Now I find out it's just a fucking competition to you? Are you fucking kidding me?"
"I wasn't thinking when I said that! It just...came out."
"So you're telling me you didn't mean to say that, but you were thinking it? That's really nice, Chris. Real fucking sweet of you." She starts pacing away from and toward Chris in frustration. She's not quite sure what to do now. She can't even think straight. Her anger is fogging up everything. She digs her fingers into her hair, about ready to rip chunks of it out. She repeatedly takes deep, even breaths.
"Will you calm down and talk about this? Why are you reading so much into what I said?"
"You were thinking it! It was in your fucking head!" She stops right in her tracks and turns around to glare at him again, this time right dead in his eyes. "How the hell do I know that hasn't been your purpose of being in this relationship since your first met Robert? I know you guys didn't like each other. Hell, you were about to kill each other in my father's kitchen. Then you guys tried to play it off. How ridiculous can you get?" Her neck is starting to feel tense. She's about to cry, or scream. She doesn't know which will come out first. "I gave you everything. My love, my trust...I made love to you even though I swore to myself that I wouldn't. Not yet. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what I deserve. Karma just bitch-slapped me for making such a stupid decision!" Afraid of what she's craving to do next, she grits her teeth and turns away. Her angry tears sting the backs and rims of her eyes.
"So, because of one dumb-ass sentence, you're just gonna yell and walk away like a little bitch. That's really pathetic."
In the fastest split-second of her life, she spins around and back-hands him right across his face, knuckles hitting cheekbone.
"Leah?"
Chris covers his cheek with his hand, officially furious. He glares back at Leah, doing all he can to keep from hitting her back.
"I should've known something was going to go wrong. What else can you expect from a deadbeat criminal?"
Right when she finishes her sentence, Chris sends his hand flying and strikes her with his rough palm. The impact knocks her to the ground, her hand clutching the entire right side of her face. The tears are definitely flowing now, and it makes her skin sting and burn even more.
"Hey!"
She keeps her eyes on the ground, not daring to look at him. She's not angry about it; she sees no reason to be. She saw exactly what was coming for her, and she decided to risk hitting him, anyway. That doesn't mean she's going to look up. She doesn't even want to know whether he's finished or not.
Within the long moment of silence, someone appears on their knees and in front of her. Their hands are on her arms, but it's not a hostile action despite the fact that she violently flinches. The man tugs lightly at her arms to help her up. "Are you alright?" he asks her quietly. The voice is very familiar, and she might have an idea of who it is.
Leah resists politely, nodding her head yes. "I'm fine. Thank you..." She slowly looks up to see who's speaking to her.
Robert watches her with worried eyes.
Even after getting hit by Chris painfully hard, his face was not exactly something she wanted to see right now.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" he yells at Chris.
"Leah, I'm sorry. I was trying not to--"
"Who the fuck do you think you are, going around and slapping women?!"
"Listen, man. I lost it," Chris replies. It would've sounded like a very heartless statement if Leah hadn't heard the almost-microscopic hint of sincerity in his voice. "I didn't mean to hit her."
"You lost it." Robert doesn't believe him, and it pisses him off. He stays kneeling next to Leah for a few more seconds before his hands ball up into fists, and he stands up. He walks over to Chris.
"Robert," she begs softly, quietly.
"Why are you even getting involved? It's not like you knew what was going on before you got here."
"I don't give a damn about what was going on. There is never a reason to hit a woman, especially one like Leah."
"You're talking to me like I don't know that."
"You obviously don't, considering you just slapped her across the fucking face!"
Robert's raising his voice too much for comfort; Leah looks up to see the two men standing toe-to-toe with each other. They're both raging mad, and she chews on her lower lip nervously. Please don't do this, she thinks. Please. Not here. Please don't fight.
"First, you go and cheat on her, and you shatter her heart. Then you come along and defend her? And you're standing here, telling me what's wrong. Maybe you should go back and check yourself before you decide to open your mouth and be a little shit."
"I know what I did was wrong. But at least I didn't hit her, you fucking asshole."
Chris grabs a fistful of his shirt and pulls him forward, piercing Robert with his sharp, fiery glare. His jaw clenches and flexes. He then releases Robert and backs away. "No. I'm not even gonna start with you."
Leah exhales with relief. She hadn't even realized she was holding her breath.
"Allow me," Robert swings his fist and knocks Chris right in the jaw.
"Robert, no!" Leah shouts her warning.
Chris touches his lip. When he looks at his finger, there is a drop of crimson-red blood. He looks at Robert's hand and sees a ring on one of his fingers. That metal, dull ring around his middle finger cut Chris' lip deeper than any of them would've thought it could.
"Chris, please! Don't--"
Chris, ignoring Leah, throws the next punch and catches Robert's nose in the blow. There are several cracking sounds under his knuckles, and he knows he had to have broken Robert's nose. But he doesn't even give Robert a second to straighten up before he gives him another full-on blow to the cheekbone. More disturbing and disgusting cracks sound.
Before Chris can get another shot in, Robert moves to the side and dodges Chris' oncoming fist. He kicks Chris in the ribs as hard as he possibly can. Crack! and his rib is done for. When Chris reaches down with a pained grunt, Robert springs forward and punches him in his left eye.
Leah's eyes are waterfalls at this point, horrified by the scene. While they're fighting it out, she's doing nothing but blaming herself. I overreacted. I blew this way out of proportions. Look what I did, now. I'm such a fucking idiot. I can't even call 9-1-1 because that'll put Chris right back in jail. I'm such a bitch. She's constantly changing her focus from Chris, to Robert, to Chris, to Robert, and so on., trying to determine who she should jump in front of to stop this. She's never been in a situation like this before.
It isn't until a couple of punches later that she sees the amount of blood being drawn from their fighting. Her mind switches into a panic, and she pulls out her cell phone to call Riley. Riley's stronger than the police. I'm better off calling her for help. She glances up at them, then freezes as she is.
Chris has Robert by his shirt collar, holding his upper body a few inches from the ground. He punches Robert in the mouth repeatedly even though the man already has a stream of blood running out the corner of his mouth.
Leah drops her phone on the spot and runs toward Chris and Robert, who somehow managed to move a little farther away from where they originally were. "Chris!" she screams.
He looks up and sees Leah running toward him, tears all over her face. That image alone brings him right back to reality. He suddenly remembers where he is and what he's doing.
As Chris begins to lower his fist slowly, Robert sees that as the perfect time to act. He swipes his legs through Chris' ankles and, just before Leah gets there, knocks him off his feet.
Chris crashes to the ground, hitting the back of his head harshly.
"Robert, stop it!" She grips Robert's arm as he hurries to his feet and yanks him back before he can get to Chris. She steps in front of him as he fights her grasp on his bicep. "Stop," she demands.
He glances at her, then continues glaring at Chris. He jerks his arm away from her. "Don't you ever fucking hurt her again. Ever." He readjusts his shirt, and he walks away with his fists clenched in anger.
More, smaller tears spill down over her cheeks. How can I stay mad at him, now? she thinks. He just tried to defend me.
"Leah--"
She raises her hand to stop his sentence. She doesn't even bother to look at Chris. She's mixed with anger, confusion, sadness, fear, too much to deal with him rationally. "I just can't with you right now," she tries to say clearly, but her voice cracked into a quiet and shaky whisper by the third word. Her hand is trembling, and she's not sure what from.
"I see them."
She knits her eyebrows in confusion. "What did you say?" She looks back, over her shoulder, at him.
"That wasn't me." He didn't say it as if he were calling her crazy. In fact, he knew exactly who she heard.
"Alright. Move in."
Leah turns and faces Chris completely.
Men are jogging in from all angles to where she and Chris are standing. There's the clinking sound of cold metal and a loud, prolonged groan from deep within Chris' throat. And Leah's still not too sure about what's going on.
One of the men approach Chris from behind and pull his arms back.
"What's going on?" Leah says, clueless.
"Take a guess," Chris says, annoyed. He flinches when something clicks closed behind him.
The man pulls him close, probably making sure he doesn't try to escape. "We're taking him back to the facility, Miss Price. Clearly, he can't handle maintaining a regular, violence-free lifestyle."
"No. That's not necessary, sir. Release him and let me take him home. I assure you there was and is nothing wrong here."
"I'm afraid we can't do that." Another man in a black hoodie and black jeans jogs up to the spot next to Chris. "We witnessed Mr. Hemsworth harm you and participate in a fight that left the victim bloody and badly injured."
"That was my ex-boyfriend, and he was the one to throw the first punch. Not Chris. Chris was just defending himself."
"He could've, and should've, walked away from the fight before things got out of hand. But he chose to continue it, instead. Please stop arguing, Miss Price. He violated many of the rules of the program, most importantly the rule that he shall not harm his care-taker." As he's explaining all this to Leah, five other men have already escorted Chris halfway out of the park. Leah is so busy trying to get him out of it that she hasn't even noticed his absence.
"This isn't fair!" Leah accidentally ends up sounding immature, so she takes a second to pull herself together. "He's been doing so well since he came to live with me. By the way, how did you and your people know we would even be here?"
"We've had undercover eyes on him the moment he stepped out of the facility. Not to mention we acquired useful information from the tracker."
Leah's eyes narrow as she thinks about what he mentioned. "Tracker..." she whispers. Finally, the memory comes back to her. "The tracker in his arm," she sighs with disappointment. She had forgotten all about the device. "Please, just...don't do this. Can't you just let this slide? Or, or--"
"I'm sorry, Miss Price. I'm just doing my job." The look in his eyes is as apologetic as his tone of voice, which is not apologetic at all. He moves past Leah and jogs his way out of the park, following behind his five other men and Chris, their criminal.
Leah looks around her. Chris? she thinks. Quickly, she spots him being pushed into a police car down the road. She can feel her tears coming back already. Now she really doesn't know what to feel. If she could faint, she would. But she's never been one to faint so easily, so that's not happening. She wants to scream. She wants to run and snatch Chris back. But she can't. She knows that'll only make the situation worse for both of them.
Not knowing what to do has her resembling a statue, just standing still and almost lifeless with exhaustion in the middle of the park. She wants to go help Chris right now, she wants to go straight to the Bridgeport Correctional Facility, she wants to go and resolve some issues with Robert. She's so confused, she's afraid she'll split in just enough parts that she'll be able to do everything she wants to get done in that moment. But all that does is make her giggle, softly, until it turns to a quiet fit of laughter. In all my years, in all my damn years, not once did I hope this would come with adulthood.
Her smiling mood fades into a far-from-amused, blank stare. She closes her tired eyes and wipes away any remaining tears as her skin becomes slightly sticky. She inhales deeply, filling her lungs until they can't expand any more, and releases it all in a loud, rushed, cold exhale. "This is the life I chose," she reminds herself. She sniffles her stuffy nose. "Amazing." She nods her head, disapproving of herself, then takes her sweet time walking out of the park to her car.