Out of Bounds (The Summer Games #2) - R.S. Grey Page 0,107
than this damn earth and the greedy people inhabiting it.
For two days, I stewed in that room, waiting for a call from my mom. I alternated between sweating in bed with brain-crushing nausea and vomiting incessantly from withdrawals. When the cold flashes would hit, I’d fill up the tiny tub with warm water and collapse onto the chipped enamel surface, using all my strength to stay above the surface of the water. I didn’t sleep for almost 60 hours, and when I finally closed my eyes on the third day, my shrill cellphone began to ring.
My mother was crying hysterically on the other line. I could only hear every other word, but I heard the tail end of her message loud and clear.
“Come home and gather your things.”
I was getting kicked out.
Summoning energy from the deepest parts of my being, I grabbed my keys from the nightstand and drove to my house. I knew my detox would never finish until I’d confronted the source of the suffering.
The sun had set a few hours earlier, but the porch light was on, illuminating the pile of clothes and crap sitting outside on the grass. Everything that had once been inside my room was now sitting outside, thanks to my father. My gymnastics trophies were stuffed into a box and medals were spilling out onto the sidewalk. Half my clothes had ended up in the ditch, soaked through. I was bent down rifling through them, trying to find anything of value when the front door opened.
My father stormed out of the house like a bat out of hell.
“You ungrateful piece of shit,” he shouted, running to me like he was ready to tackle me to the ground. He’d never put a hand on me, so I didn’t try to block his assault; I should have. When his head connected with my stomach, I went flying back hard enough that my head split open on the concrete. The acute sensory pain came as a relief after enduring days of widespread dull ache. He pushed himself up with fury in his eyes.
“You think you can quit now? You think you know sacrifice, pain?”
His fist connected with my jaw and I nearly blacked out.
“I’ve worked my ass off to train you and if you’ve wasted my time, then get the fuck out of my house.”
His boot hit the side of my back, right above my kidney, and I squeezed my eyes closed.
“You can’t even fight back. Can you?” he yelled, rearing back to land another punch.
I shoved my arm in front of my head, blocking his shots as he kept pounding his bloodied fists into me, over and over again.
Something inside me cracked that day. Maybe it was the loss of my father or the feeling of lying on that grass with blood running down my face, but after he wore himself out and turned his back to walk away, I felt stronger that I’d been even before taking the pills, even before the injury. I rose up looking like hell, but used the adrenaline coursing through my veins as the last well I could draw from.
Even in my weakness, I towered over him when I stood to my full height. He’d built me into this monster. I reached forward and gripped his neck, feeling the swollen veins in my forearm bulge and strain with the effort.
I could have killed him. I wanted to kill him. He was fighting me, trying to land a solid punch to my ribs so I’d back off, but I didn’t feel a thing. He’d made me numb long ago.
“I’m leaving this sport and I’m leaving you,” I spat. “And if I hear that you’re drugging other gymnasts, I will come back here and kill you,” I said, shaking him back and forth. “Do you hear me? This won’t be handled by the police. I’ll do what I should do right now.”
I could feel him starting to struggle to breathe, and it wasn’t until my mom ran out of the house, screaming for us to stop that I finally let him go and shoved him back into the grass.
“Erik!” she cried, hysterical. “Your head…”
I reached up and felt the blood seeping from my skull. My fingers came away dripping with redness, but I shook away the pain, gathered the shit I cared about, and left my father in the front yard cowering like the pussy he was.
The world never heard about my drug addiction or my father’s transgressions. I should have