Page 40 of The Mogul: Leonard

She grins. “I’m joking, but it’s funny to see the outrage on your face.”

“Brat,” I murmur, standing up, and she sticks out her tongue.

I turn around to hide my smile and start putting on my clothes. When I face her again, she starts to laugh like I’ve never seen her do before. She is even more beautiful when she laughs, and I almost feel the urge to make her laugh more. The mere idea is terrifying.

We finally face the room full of plates, an old computer, an even older TV, crates of all sizes, and other unidentified objects that have already been violently affected by the baseball bats we hold.

“So, what are we doing? Smashing things?” she asks.

She doesn’t seem eager to break what is inside this room. I get it. The first time I came here, I spent the whole time feeling guilty about destroying perfectly intact objects. When you grow up paying attention to care for the things your parents give you, there is something unholy in taking out your rage in this way. But when you go home after doing it, you feel so relieved you can’t wait to come back a second time and a third after that.

I approach the old TV and smash the front glass in one go.

“Okay. That’s an answer.” She chuckles, and I watch her choose what to start with first.

She hesitantly hits the computer.

“Come on. Put some of the anger you had in my office into this crap,” I egg her on, and instantly see her mood change.

She grabs her bat with both hands and swings at a pile of plates stacked on a crate. The white porcelain flies all over the wall at the back of the room, breaking into dozens of pieces. A satisfied smile appears on her face.

She focuses her anger on a wooden crate used to carry fruits and vegetables. It takes more swings to smash it, but when she does, she looks at me panting and grinning like crazy.

“Well, I have to admit this is fun,” she says.

I nod. “It’s somehow therapeutic.”

I hit the bat over the TV again, smashing the back part. It’s one of those old pieces with a cathode ray tube that they removed for safety reasons. I hit the external shell until it’s hanging on one side. My arms burn from the effort, but I’m smiling like I always do in this room.

All the stress, anger, and frustration fly away with every swing I take. It doesn’t matter if I’m sweating in my thousand-dollar suit. The energy burning inside me is taking away all the bad thoughts, problems, and worries I carry on my shoulders every day.

I turn toward Roxanne, and I watch her laughing like crazy while she hits the computer again and again. She is beautiful and carefree. I envy her pink hair and printed T-shirt, her idealist heart and her noble purposes. There is something still pure in her, untouched by the ugliness of this industry, something I have learned to admire since I started working with her.

I watch her laugh and witness the switch in her mood. Her smiles fade as if an undesired thought has snuck into her mind. In the beginning, she is startled, almost physically unbalanced by the sudden image appearing in her head. Then the rage takes over, and the anger distorting her beautiful smile is something that tears my chest open. The sorrow, mixed with fury, fear, and something like shame, is branded in my brain. She hits that computer again and again; she doesn’t stop when the object is completely destroyed. She doesn’t stop when tears stream down her face and hiccups shake her chest.

I didn’t mean for her to have such a bad experience. I wanted to help release some stress, but this is deeper and more complex than frustration. I grab her elbow, and she drops the bat. She loses her balance and falls into my arms when I pull her against my chest.

I hold her tight while her tears keep coming, and her arms envelop my waist like I’m her lifeline. She sobs uncontrollably, and I feel responsible for her meltdown. But I don’t know how to fix my mistake.

“It’s okay,” are the only words I can think of, and also the most stupid.

Nothing is okay. She is upset and crying in my arms; nothing is even close to being okay.

“You’ll be fine,” I whisper, kissing the top of her head.

This, too, is a stupid thing to say. How can I know? I don’t even know the reason for this change in her mood.

“Are you going to keep rattling off the worst rom-com clichés you know?” she asks between hiccups.

I stifle a chuckle. “I hope not.”

She rests her forehead on my chest and breathes in deeply. It takes her a few minutes to regain composures.

“Sorry about that,” she murmurs, drying her tears with the back of her hand.

I want to reach out and clean her streaked face with my thumb, but I refrain from doing such a stupid thing. Too intimate. Too close to care for her.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I offer to listen to her story.

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