Page 55 of I Love to Hate You
With the two men unconscious on the ground, I make my way over to Maya, who still hasn’t moved. I place a hand on her shoulder and roll her over, and I’m pleasantly surprised to find that she’s awake. Her eyes are barely open, but they find mine and lock on.
“Kendrick,” she mumbles.
“I’m here, Maya,” I tell her. “I got you.”
She smirks and closes her eyes as I scoop her up in my arms and carry her through the parking lot, leaving the two men in our wake as I make my way to my car. I struggle to get my keys out of my pocket, but manage to get the door open and place Maya in the backseat, before walking across the lot to her car. I open her door and reach in, grabbing the phone she came for, before shutting the door and picking up her keys off the ground to lock the doors.
Both men are still asleep on the pavement as I walk past them, and while the thought does cross my mind, I decide not to hurt them any further, because while my name might not be Solomon King, I know the two of them will never forget me and the night they put their hands on the wrong woman.
Thirty-Five
~ KENDRICK~
When I make it back to Strawberry Mansion, I carry Maya inside my house and place her down on the couch in the living room. She’s still a bit out of it, but her breathing and moaning tells me she’s not dead. Her face is certainly damaged, but none of the wounds are so deep that I feel like a trip to the ER is a requirement, at least not from my untrained perspective. However, I make a mental note to really pay attention to her speech and mannerisms and watch for any signs of a concussion or traumatic brain injury. I wasn’t there when it all went down—a fact that makes me sick to my stomach—so I don’t know what all they did to her, but I can at least take care of the wounds I see and be ready to drive her to the hospital if need be.
Now that the adrenaline is wearing off, the pain of my own injuries is starting to flare up as I walk into my bathroom and search for alcohol, bandages, and gauze. I step in front of my sink to pop open the medicine cabinet but pause when I see myself in the mirror. Blood has dried in one of my nostrils and there’s a tiny gash just above my left eyebrow. My shirt is torn on the chest with blood making the fabric stick to my skin, and my pants are ripped on both knees. It looks like I’ll be throwing the entire outfit in the trash, but it’s a cheap price to pay for protecting Maya from whatever those two pieces of shit were planning on doing to her. If I hadn’t shown up, who knows what would’ve happened? My clothes would be perfectly fine, but I would never be.
As Maya shifts on the couch, I take off my shirt and use alcohol on a cotton ball to clean the wound, before doing the same with both my nose and the cut on my forehead. I pour peroxide on both lacerations and take off my pants so I can see how bad the damage is on my knees. Luckily, there are only superficial scrapes that barely damage the skin. I dab some peroxide there and slip into black basketball shorts and a matching tank top, before carrying all of my supplies into the living room and setting them down on the floor in front of the couch, where Maya lies with her eyes open and her arm covering half her face.
“Hey, you’re awake,” I say as I sit down on the floor and rest a forearm on the cushion beside her.
“Yeah, and I just saw your cock in the reflection of that big mirror you have in your bedroom,” she answers, which immediately puts a smile on my face.
“Oh, so you’rereallyawake,” I reply, chuckling.
Maya giggles, but it must hurt because she cuts it off. “Yeah, but I have a feeling I won’t be able to act on anything I felt when I saw it,” she says. “My damn head is killing me, and don't even get me started on my face. I’ll be taking pain meds every day for a month.”
“Maybe so. I’m just glad you’re awake and able to speak. Move your arm and let me see your face.”
“There you go telling me what to do again.”
I grin. “Maya, we don’t have time for this. Come on. I just want to make sure you’re good.”
She slowly pulls her arm away, revealing the beginnings of deep bruising on her forehead and dried blood on her nose, mouth, and eye. They certainly did a number on her, and just seeing her this way makes me want to sprint to my car and speed back to that parking lot to finish them off. Now that I can assess the damage, I know that breaking his fingers wasn’t enough. I should have broken his fucking neck.
“Those motherfuckers,” I whisper to myself, but Maya hears. Our eyes meet and my heart flutters. “Why’d you have to go alone? I told you to wait for me.”
I pick up a wet towel from the floor and begin removing the dried blood from Maya’s face.
She winces before saying, “Yeah, and since when do I ever listen to anybody? I guess maybe I should’ve this time.”
“You guess? Sorta seemed like they were trying to kill you. Tell me what happened.”
“Well, it all started with me doing what I usually do—ignoring anyone who tells me anything,” she says, but her words are devoid of their usual playfulness. Her face suddenly turns serious as I wipe away blood from her nose. “When I got outside, it took me a while to find my car, which is what probably gave those assholes plenty of time to catch up to me. It never even occurred to me that they might follow me outside, so when I found my car and got the doors unlocked, I was startled when I heard footsteps approaching. I swung around to see what was up, and that’s when I got hit. I fell down and they started hitting me, open handed slaps mostly, but I also got one or two punches to the face and a foot to the ribs. They were mostly just toying with me, enjoying exercising their power over a woman like most pricks do, calling me a whore and threatening to force themselves on me if I didn’t beg for my life.
“They were just drunk pigs trying their best to fit into every horrible stereotype that women believe about men. Guys like them are the reason we all have to carry fucking pepper spray and knives everywhere we go. They’re the ones who tell us that we are to blame for our own sexual assaults because we dressed too provocatively or spoke too friendly to a stranger and gave them the wrong impression. It’s assholes like them that make it to where we don’t trust anybody, including the guys who are actually good. When people like them exist in society, no one gets a pass, and we don’t give a fuck if we hurt the good guys’ feelings, because they’re not doing anything to stop their goddamn friends from hurting us anyway. So, fuck them all.”
Maya finishes talking just as a tear falls from each of her eyes, sliding backward down her face and melting into the couch cushion. She quickly and angrily wipes them away, but more grow in her eyes and spill out. Before she can stop herself, she’s sobbing.
I drop the towel and lean over her, wrapping my arms around her body as she slides off the couch and into my arms, where she weeps for the next few minutes. Her body rocks with heavy sobs, and I’m filled with sympathy for her and rage for the men who did this to her. However, I know that what she’s feeling is deeper than what happened tonight.
“My dad,” she says through the sobs. “My fucking dad is going to make such a big deal out of this. He gave me so much shit about wearing this dress. I should’ve listened, but I never do.
There it is. I knew there was more to this than what meets the eye. Maya is one of the strongest women I know, and while being beaten up will certainly damage anyone’s ego, I know it’s not enough to have her broken down like this. As it turns out, there’s another man dragging her down. Her own father.
Instinctively, I start thinking of the words to say that could make her feel better. I guess it’s my own manly bullshit that tells me I’m supposed to be her savior when she’s feeling low. I’m supposed to speak the words that cheer her up and turn her frown into a smile. But that’s crap. Sometimes, all a woman wants from a man is for him to listen—don’t speak at all, just listen. So, I loosen my grip on her so she can sit up straight with her back against the couch, and I sit next to her without saying a word. A moment of silence passes while she composes herself, then she exhales, and I know she’s ready.
“I know you and I have had this thing going on for a while,” she says. “We’ve been back and forth with our hatred and lust since we first met, and as much as I love the idea of being with you, Kendrick, you don’t want to mess with me. I’m such a fucking wreck. I have issues on top of issues, and I barely know which way is up sometimes. My father has me twisted in knots nine days out of ten. Sometimes I lash out, sometimes I break down, but I’m fucked up in the head at all times. I’m sick of it, and I’m sure you are, too. I’m sure everybody is.”
