Page 62 of Embrace
“TheArthur Valentine? The one who’s serving time for raping and sexually exploiting little girls for over three decades?”
I was shocked that he knew about the notorious Arthur Valentine and when I hadn’t until a few days ago. I’d been spending far too much time in a hospital, detached from anything outside the world of medicine. But finally, I was no longer a resident. Soon, and as early as the next day, I would be joining the real world again. I would make it a point to learn all there was to know about society.
“Yes,” I said with a sigh. “That guy.”
“Wow,” he said, rubbing his chin. “That’s heavy.”
“Tell me about it.” I let my head fall back as I groaned. “But let’s stop talking about the past and discuss the future.”
He smirked. “Our future?”
I sniffed, rolling my eyes. “Sort of. Monday morning, I’ll call the Voyagers’ front office and ask—”
His hands shot up. “Hold up there. You’re talking about me. I’m talking about you. What are you going to do when you see your mother?”
Suddenly, I felt numb inside. “Nothing. I’m just going to look at her and leave.” The hardness of my heart made my ears burn.
“Just a look? You’re not even going to say, ‘Fuck you’?”
I set my jaw. “Don’t need to. But I want to see it all—the house, the kids, the husband, the minivan, all of it.”
Greg snorted. “You’re envisioning a utopia, huh?”
The answer was yes, but I didn’t want to admit it, because I was sure he wouldn’t understand why I knew that to be true, so I shrugged.
Greg readjusted in his seat and stretched his massive neck from left to right. “The first time I was hit hard, playing football, I was eleven. A big kid named Webber Smith nailed me good. My helmet flew off, and when my head slammed into the ground, I saw a white light and felt nothing. I thought I was dead, but then everything came into focus. Pain was pounding in my head, blood gushing from my nose.
“My dad was one of the assistant coaches. He asked, ‘You okay?’ That look in his eyes—” Greg gazed at me, but his eyes were unfocused. “I knew what to say to make him proud of me. And I wasn’t going to have him ashamed of me. I nodded. He slapped me on the back and told them to clean me up, and somehow, I fucking finished that game.”
Riveted by his account, I gulped.
Greg cleared his throat. “That night, I felt death trying to take me. But I’d take a hit from Hercules to get an ‘atta boy’ from my father.
“In high school, the hits got harder. College, they got worse. And now, each one feels possibly life ending. I hated the shit then and even more now. Training starts the end of next month, and I’m dreading it. My dad is going to be calling the front office, asking for favors and shit. Asking about my training plan. You know who he is, don’t you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know who anyone is. I spend too much time in a hospital.” I smiled tightly, thinking of how pathetic that sounded.
“Randy Carroll, head coach of the Miami Sun Lords.”
He paused to see if that name rang a bell. I shook my head again because it didn’t.
“You know who I’d be if I wasn’t trying to make Randy happy? A fucking farmer. I like making shit grow. They call me the wall of steel. But this body”—he slapped himself on one shoulder and the other, and the sound of muscle being smacked filled the air—“it’s not mine. It’s fucking heavy, and I fucking can’t stand it. That’s why I take whatever the fuck they give me. Those supplements that messed with my brain, they bulk me up. I’m telling you this, Penina, because if you think being raised by two parents is the litmus test for having a happy, normal life, then you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”
I could tell Greg was rattled by what he had shared with me in the same way I had been after recounting my childhood.
I swallowed to moisten my tight throat. “I know that,” I whispered. “Sometimes when I’m wallowing in self-pity, I forget it.”
We smiled gently at each other as the pilot announced that we should prepare for landing in ten minutes. I almost felt like a fool for being in Madison, Wisconsin, stalking Lizzie Thompson, who used to be Mary Ross.
“It’s not self-pity,” Greg said. “It’s just how it is. See, they want to make us feel ashamed of feeling the bad shit. But you went through it. I went through it. And that’s it.”
I nodded. “You’re really a smart guy. You know that?”
He winked. “That’s why I like smart girls.”
I sniffed, shaking my head. The guy was relentless.
“Think about it,” he continued. “You and me in bed on a Sunday afternoon, having long conversations about deep shit, fucking like rabbits.” All his teeth showed when he smiled. They were all white and pristine. He took very good care of them.
