Broken #3 (The Broken Series - Book #3) (2 page)

When I walked into the training
center I was about 15 minutes early for my training session. Coach had messaged
me and cancelled my regular training session, so I had call my brother down to
kill an arm and shoulder day with me. I didn't see him there yet so I put my
bag down and did some stretching before he arrived.

I did three minutes of shadow
boxing in front of the mirror, working my techniques. I wanted to make sure of
what I was throwing and how often my hands dropped, and it was rare.

“Hey, man, your technique looks
good.
Ready to smash some weights?”

“You got it.”

“No fights coming up anytime
soon?”

“Don't joke around man, you know
I have no conference fights, I'm on the bench.”

I laughed. “Yeah, yeah, won't be
for long, I'm sure.”

We headed to the weight area and
I planned for us to do bicep curls and
tricep
extensions. I could do 120 each arm, and I loved seeing my veins pop. It was
important to combine strength with MMA training so that your punches and kicks
had power behind them.

We did three sets of each one,
grunting through our progression. I did drop sets next for bicep curls. I
started at 100, doing a set of 12, and I then went to 80, and finished with 12.
I went from 60 to 40, and ended with 20, which at that point felt like it
weighed 100 all over again.

“Those look sick, man. Set me up
for those as well.” Craig said.

“Yeah, I got you. What's your max
weight?”

“More than yours.”

I laughed, and set him up with
110. “Don't get too carried away.”

He jacked up his arms, and as he
did his sets of 10, I lowered the weight for him. I kept pushing him to work
harder when he was close to giving up. “Come on man, one more set, let’s go.” I
set the last one to 20 and he killed it.

We continued on with biceps and
triceps and then moved on to shoulders. We did shoulder presses, chin-ups and
push-ups. I was exhausted by the time we were done, and we went to the water
cooler to grab some Gatorade. Craig and I sat on the bench, lost in our own
thoughts as we chugged out drinks.

“So, Jet, why didn't you come to
that dinner with Dad? I invited you and your little girlfriend and you didn't
show up. We were expecting you.”

“She's not my girlfriend. And
maybe all of you guys should just stop expecting me.”

“Oh believe me; no one's
expecting anything, Jet.”

“Craig, just drop it, okay?”

“I have been inviting you to
dinner for months now, Jet. When are you going to show up to one? Don't you
think this is upsetting for everyone? What about Mom, don't you even care?”

“Oh come on, man. You know exactly
why I don't come. If he wanted me there bad enough he would call me. Stop being
his errand boy.”

“I'm not his errand boy, Jet. I
just think you should be at dinner just like the rest of us.”

“It's not the rest of us. You
don't get hounded the way I do.”

“He just wants the best for you,
Jet. Taking over the company isn't such a terrible thing.”

“Then you do it.”

“Seriously, don't be an asshole.”

“I don't want that life. I am
building the life I want, or don't you see that?”

“What are you going to do when
you retire from MMA? Don't you want something to fall back on?”

“I don't need anything to fall
back on. I'm making it to the big leagues, man. I am going all the way. I will
have all the money I need.”

“I'm going to see Dad in a few
days. Why don't you come along?”

I laughed. “You don't stop, do
you?”

“No, and I'm not going to.”

I looked around the gym. In
mid-afternoon the place was really busy, and I felt weird about having that
conversation with Craig there.

“When are you going to forgive
him?”

I groaned. “Craig, do we have to
do this right now?”

“Yeah, man, I think we do,
because you won't deal with it any other time.”

I sighed. “I don't want to
forgive him.”

“I have.”

“Yeah, I'm aware of that.”

“Shit happens, man.”

“He cheated on our mother with his
secretary. He wasn't even original about it. If that wasn't bad enough, he left
that great woman we call Mom, and shacked up with that girl. He broke your
mother’s heart, and you want to forgive? You want me to have dinner with him
and his new girlfriend? You must be kidding me.”

“He's my father too, and I don't
agree with what he did. But I love him, too, and what happened is between Mom
and him. I don't like being angry all the time, and you shouldn't be either
Jet. At least talk to him about it.”

“I don't know.”

“Just come with me this time,
please. Just come. Do it for me.”

“Okay, I promise I will go this
time. Just get off my back.”

Craig laughed. “Thank God. I have
to get out of here, but I will message you the details later. Don't blow me
off.”

I waved him off and got the hell
out of the gym.

Chapter Three

Natalie

Halloween was right around the
corner, and festivities were being held all over campus. Decorations were up
and people were out looking for costumes. Guys always bought the ridiculous
ones, and of course, girls found a reason to dress completely slutty for one
day of the year. I had never been one for dress-up, so I wasn't sure what I was
going to do. Julie and Brenda had been talking about finding a party or going
to the club, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to partake. I had done so much
drinking over the past few months that I felt I was accruing brain damage. Look
at the decisions I had been making lately―all bad news. Jet alone was the
result of all my drinking, I didn't think I would have done half those things
with him had I not been half out of my mind.

Searching for costumes wasn't the
only thing students were doing these days. For the whole month of October, the
haunted house was set up as well. It was a scare house set up for kids to go in
and have the wits scared out of them for fun. For as many years as it had been
in town, I had only ever gone once. That was enough for me. I had been scared
so badly I had no desire to ever return. Call me a scaredy-cat or not, I wasn't
going back.

That night I had agreed to go to
the school for an extracurricular activity for my art class. We had been asked
to decorate pumpkins and put them all over the campus for Halloween. I had gone
to class, and the professor asked me to be in charge of determining how the
pumpkins should be decorated. So I walked up to the front of the class, feeling
nerves tittering in my stomach. I was honored that my professor thought I was
talented enough to do this; I wanted to make her proud.

I faced my classmates. “Hey,
guys, I was thinking about what we could all do with the pumpkins, and I don't
want there to be any carving tonight. Let's use the skills that we have learned
so far this semester and create pumpkin art. We can use any type of medium that
we like, such as, let's see, how about ink?
Paint?
We
have lots of oils and acrylics that we can use up. Let's have abstract
pumpkins, floral design, moody ink work, whatever we want to create, and we'll
have the most unique pumpkins on campus this year.”

The class clapped in excitement
and students got up right away to choose what medium they were going to use. I
helped the professor pass out pumpkins. We had enough for each student to do
three of them, and I was so excited to see what they were going to come up
with. Once the pumpkins were passed out, and students found their way back to their
seats, I started walking around to see what I could find.

I went up to Crystal, who was an
art student often inspired by other artists, and mimicked them in her art. I
watched as she poured out various colors of paint and tested them. She was what
one would call a free artist, in that when she painted, she never needed to
draw pictures first; she painted by freehand. I wished that I had that sort of
talent, but art itself never came easily to me. I always had to pencil in items
first, and then paint in the colors. I watched as she started in on her
pumpkin; I was interested to see who she would emulate this time.

As the paint stroke molded in
droopy lines, I realized she was painting the eyes of the pumpkin, using
drooping clocks for the eyes.
The same sort of clocks that
were often depicted in Salvador Dali's famous paintings.

“Wow, Crystal. I love it; great
idea.”

She turned to face me. “Thanks.”

“It's a unique idea. I love
Dali,
he's one of my favorite artists, as well.
Very tortured.”

“Aren't we all?”

I laughed. “True enough.”

I left Crystal and continued
walking around the room. I saw pumpkins that looked like water lilies, and one
that had so many floral designs it appeared to be a pumpkin garden. I couldn't
for the life of me understand why anyone wouldn't want to be an artist, or at
least take an art class for fun. The individual ideas that sprung up from
nothing were incredible, and often awe-inspiring.

I approached a guy who was
painting The Scream on the side of a pumpkin, and I laughed.

“Hey, great idea.
Fits in with a
Halloween theme for sure.
I like your lines; everything flows into the
colors perfectly.”

“Thanks, Natalie.” He looked up
at me adoringly and his look gave me a cause for concern.

“No problem.”

“Hey, would you like to grab a coffee
with me sometime?”

I smiled and laughed a bit
nervously. “I’m not dating these days, sorry. Maybe you should focus on your
work.”

He looked away sheepishly, and I
made note not to step over to his desk again for the rest of the night. I had
no idea that anyone in the class had been crushing on me; maybe I was in my own
world all the time. I would need to start branching out and talking to people
more. And of course, I would need to start considering dating again. Tom had
thrown me for quite some loop and before I even had time to heal, there was
Jet. What a handle that boy was. I hadn't heard from him since the night of
wine and seduction, and I was pretty comfortable with that. I genuinely felt
that I just wasn't ready to be with anyone, not even Jet. I was a mess. I kept
running out on him, and I knew that it was fear driven, for the most part.
Definitely not fair to anyone. What surprised me more was that he kept coming
back.
He hadn't given up on me yet; why, I couldn't imagine.
There were far prettier and saner girls out there than I. I still didn't know
what he saw in me, but I believed truly that he wasn't right for me, and I
hoped that we could maintain some level of friendship, and just leave it at
that. Maybe in the future when my wounds weren't so raw―maybe then we
could have something meaningful, but right now all I could see was some guy who
liked to chase tail. I felt that the only reason he kept chasing me was because
I was a challenge to him. Had I bowed at his feet a long time ago he probably
would have left me the moment we slept together. No, the only reason why he was
still around was because I made his life more difficult, and he wanted to break
me of that habit.

I found a girl named Jessie doing
The Starry Night on a pumpkin, and her friend beside her was managing quite
well depicting irises.

“I love these; it's so nice to
see beautiful color on the pumpkins. The Dean is going to be thrilled with
these.”

“Thanks, Natalie.”

I went around the room and saw a
Twilight themed pumpkin, as well as a sunset on a beach. What a great idea this
had been; every pumpkin was more unique than the last one. I sat down at a desk
and did a quick sketch of an MMA fighter silhouetted with his hands up in the
air in victory. When I finished drawing it, I took a bottle of ink and dipped a
brush into it. I slid the brush over the lines until the picture came to life
in black. It was a powerful pose, and I smiled when it was completed. I signed
the bottom of it and picked the pumpkin up. I left my seat and put it on the
desk of the professor for all to see. Clapping rang out all over the room, and
I smiled. Everyone had done such a great job. As pumpkins were finished, they
were put on carts so that students could distribute them all over campus. I
couldn't wait to hear feedback from the public, as well as the Dean, on the
impact they had on students.

I helped the professor clean up
the room, and started packing my own bag. I was tired from class and looked
forward to going home to relax.

I was heading across campus when
I saw Jet coming out of one of the buildings. He saw me right away, and I
sighed as I watched him walk up to me.

“Hey, what are you doing here so
late?”

“I was helping the art students
create pumpkins for Halloween. You will see them all over campus.”