Page 44 of Keeping My Girl

I stop and turn to her. I can see the fear in her eyes, and I hate that someone put that there. “Do you trust me?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. Fuck, what if she says no? But I feel extremely relieved when she nods her head yes. “Okay. Then, follow me.” I leave the room first, and I’m pleased when I hear her right behind me on my heels. I lead her through the compound to where the gym is housed.

Thankfully, no one is in here at this time of the day, so we have the place to ourselves. When the door shuts behind us, I explain, “I didn’t tell you the first time we were in here, but this room is soundproof. So if you need to yell, kick and scream, you can do all of that in here.”

She arches a blonde brow at me.

“You can’t just keep your emotions locked up inside, Lina. Eventually, the pressure becomes too much. Luckily, I know just the right outlet for you. I’m going to let you channel your anger on something positive.” I lead her to the side of the gym where I proceed to grab a roll of sports tape. “Give me your hand,” I tell her.

She hesitates but only for a second before reaching out towards me. I take her hand in mine and begin to wrap her hand and wrist with some sports tape. When I’m done, I do the other until she’s all nicely wrapped up and ready to go. Then, I stick two punching gloves on her hands over the tape. “All set,” I tell her.

Leading her to a long, heavy punching bag hanging in the corner of the room, I stand behind it and tell her, “Okay, start punching.”

Lina throws a right hook and then a left. I can see the tension in her muscles and know she’s not letting go. Not yet anyway.

“You can imagine this bag is anyone you want to take your anger out on,” I remind her.

Then, instead of the dainty punches she was landing before, her fists become weapons, her strikes hitting harder and harder until all you can hear in the entire gym is her punching the fuck out of the bag. That’s my girl.

She cries out, lashing out on the bag, and I just know she’s picturing Constantine. She never got a chance to take her anger out on him before, and the release she’s feeling is probably cathartic.

She lands several more direct, harder punches until she stumbles back, panting.

“How does that feel?” I ask her.

“Good. It feels good,” she says with a shaky sigh. “I want to keep going.”

I step back and let her do her thing, taking her anger out on the inanimate object until she’s too tired to keep going. When she’s finally done, I take her to sit down on a bench while I take off the gloves and unwrap the tape around her hands. I inspect them for any damage, but I don’t see a mark on them.

“You can come in here and do this anytime you want,” I tell her, meeting her gaze. “But make sure you wrap your hands and put on gloves. Otherwise, you could really injure yourself.”

She gives me a nod but doesn’t say a word.

“Do you want to talk about what happened earlier with the teacher?” I ask softly.

Lina worries her bottom lip between her teeth. “I was taking a placement test to see how much work I need to do before trying to get my GED.” She frowns as she tells me, “I could barely get through ten questions before they got too difficult to answer.”

I want to tell her that I’ll help her study, that we’ll get through this, but I keep my mouth shut. She doesn’t need my reassurances right now. Right now she needs to vent, get all of her feelings out.

“I guess I just realized how much of my life Constantine and my mother stole from me. I never had an ordinary childhood. I never experienced the usual stuff teenagers do.” She looks up at me, her blue and green eyes meeting mine. “The only time I ever felt normal and safe was when I lived here with you and your family. But that was so brief…” Her voice trails off as her eyes grow sad.

“Fuck the placement test,” I tell her, which earns me a small smile. Fuck, that little grin can light up my entire world in an instant. “We can start to study every night if you want. We’ll study anything and everything. And after you feel more comfortable, then you can take the test again. Okay?”

“Okay,” she says, her smile growing. “Could you…could you help me with math?” she asks, and I can tell she’s embarrassed by asking.

“Of course! I got straight A’s in math in school. Math is easy if you have me as your teacher,” I tell her with a wink.

She lets out a soft giggle, and I can’t believe I got a smile and a laugh out of her today.

Progress.

Baby steps, just like Benito told me the other day.

Slow and steady.

This isn’t a race when it comes to Selina. This is a fucking marathon. And I’m in it for the long haul. I’m here for her whenever she needs me and for whatever the reason.

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