The Rampage MC #3: Atlas and Joy

Chapter 21 (Joy): They Both Froze

"Look at me, I'm my own worst enemy, beat myself up now, every chance I see. Nice to everyone, when it comes to me, cut myself up with brutal honesty." ~ If You Don't Love Yourself, The Script

I knew I should have fought harder to get away from Kit as he held me in front of the mirror in the women's restroom, but the minute he started talking about my hair and body, I was held in place by the admiration in his deep voice. This wasn't bullshit he was spouting. This was genuine. He believed every word he was saying about me.

"So, I understand your anger," he was saying and there was some pissed in his tone, "I deserve it, but don't tell me how I see you or feel about you because your version of reality isn't even close to mine."

He put his hands lightly on my upper arms and turned me to him, our eyes meeting and holding. "I'll do everything I can to make you believe me because I love you, Joy. No one else has ever heard those words from me. Not my parents, not my brother, no one. Until you. And I get it if you can't believe me, if you don't believe me, but I know how I feel."

He loved me?

"You sure have a funny way of showing it."

"I know I failed, and I did everything wrong, Joy. I'm not denying anything I did that was wrong and hurtful to you. And even though I don't know the first thing about love, I do know I want to start getting it right. I've been trying to get it right for months because all I want to do is spend the rest of my life by your side."

"Atlas, I was falling in love with you."

"And then I ruined it." Regret made him sound sad, defeated.

Had he? Had he completely ruined it?  I didn't know how to answer that, so I said nothing.

"Joy," he said, the regret morphing into determination, "I'm going to bring back your feelings for me. I'm going to show you that I love you and you're safe with me."

You can try, I thought. But I didn't say it because at that point, I just didn't know.

The next week, the new semester started at my community college. Saturday after breakfast, I went out to sit by the pond near the back of the MC compound to start my first assignment.

After an hour, Atlas found me. "Are you OK, Joy? You disappeared pretty quickly after breakfast."

I looked up from the blanket I was sitting on, laptop in front of me. "Just working on writing some poetry. My professor thinks we should write a poem in whatever style that we studied during the week."

"What are you working on?" he asked me.

I smiled. "We studied Lord Byron this week."

"'She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.'" 

Kit quoted the first stanza of the exact poem we'd studied earlier in the week, She Walks in Beauty, looking right at me while he recited those beautiful words. His eyes were warm and serious, and I don't know if he'd ever looked more gorgeous to me.

I smiled. "How'd you know it was that one?"

He grinned. "It's one of Byron's more famous ones and it's always taught in beginning poetry classes."

"But you know the poem. You quoted it from memory. I can't even recite nursery rhymes."

Many times, I was embarrassed by my lack of education, and it was  yet another way I felt inferior to most people. But that shame was pushing me to better myself and I was determined to learn about a wide variety of things so I never again had to pretend I understood conversations or references to things I had no idea about.

"Yeah, well, my mother...she's an English professor. She loves poetry and made sure my brother and I knew poetry and English Lit like my dad made sure we knew math."

"You're lucky you had parents who cared about your education," I blurted out, surprising Kit.

He stared out at the pond. "I never thought about it like that before," he said. "It seemed like all they cared about was making sure we were well educated and nothing else. I always swore I'd never raise my children like that, where I didn't value them as actual people, even when they were little. My parents forgot about us until their colleagues were around, and then we were trotted out to perform and display our knowledge. We were their little show ponies."

"Oh." I blinked at that, this glimpse into Kit's growing up years. It was nothing like my childhood, and it hadn't really dawned on me until that moment that there were other ways to be neglected and to feel unloved.

"This is a great place to get poetry inspiration," Kit said, changing the uncomfortable subject. 

"It is. I'm going to do all my homework out here for my poetry class," I said. "It's pretty and peaceful."

"I'll leave you to it, then," he said and walked away.

The next weekend when I came out to the pond for my next attempt at poetry -- the dreaded sonnet -- I immediately noticed the changes to the area. There was a shade canopy hooked up between four trees, and underneath it, a small, wooden picnic table. Closer to the water was another picnic table that sat in the shade of a tall oak tree. Farther down was a three-person swing hanging from a freestanding steel frame. And there were different flowers planted all around the area to make it even more welcoming.

Kit.

Kit had done this for me, so I'd have some comfortable places to write and complete my homework assignments. Places that made it easier for me to write as I struggled with rhymes and meter and all of those things that were pretty much new to me.

From my experience with all of the men that had been in my life -- the ones who didn't end up in jail, anyway -- they never went to any trouble for me. They never made thoughtful gestures. They never tried to make up for the many ways they hurt me. They never did something for me without the promise of getting something in return. They never apologized for their shitty behavior, and they definitely never  told me they loved me.

If Kit had me in his phone as No One for the reasons he'd explained to me, I could easily enter him into my phone as Never for the same type of reasons. As I stared at the little homework oasis he'd created, I began to wonder if I could believe his remorse was real. If I could trust that he regretted what he'd done, if I could trust he'd never hurt me like that again.

I think you're the most beautiful woman, inside and out, that I've ever known. The way you notice people and help them amazes me, Joy. You raised your little brother, you work hard as hell at your job, you're working to improve your life and I respect every fucking thing about you.

I worked out there for a couple of hours, and, after finishing my assignment, headed back to the clubhouse to start dinner. Kit and I were working silently for a while before I stopped slicing the meat for fajitas and turned to look at that broad back.

"Thank you," I said. "For the area by the pond."

"I hope it was helpful," was all he said.

When we were cleaning up after dinner, I was trying to hurry because my brother and I were getting together for the first time in months for drinks. Kilian was meeting me here and I was running behind.

How far behind I didn't realize until I heard my baby brother's voice call out as he walked into the kitchen.

"Hey, Joy. Hey, Atlas."

"Hey, Kil --" I said as I spun around to greet him.

Wait a minute. My brother had never met Kit, and I'd definitely never shown him a picture of the man. In fact, they were supposed to meet for the first time the night Kit should have been helping us move my brother into his new apartment.

"How do you know Atlas?" I asked my brother. Demanded might have been more accurate.

At that, Kilian shot a look at Atlas and they both froze.