Broken Walls

16. Illusion of Control

I had to find you
Tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart
Tell me your secrets
And ask me your questions
Oh, let's go back to the start.

- Coldplay.  

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Left, left, right. Left, left, right. Shawn bounced on his toes and stretched his neck from side to side as he kept up the rhythm with the punching bag. Left, left, right. Jab, jab, undercut.

The tape over his knuckles had begun to split and his hands ached, but he wasn't through yet. His body felt wound as tight as a wire about to snap and he needed a way to expel the aggression building to a crescendo inside him. He tried working out with the gloves on first, but found that he needed the pain, the distraction, to make the workout worthwhile.

Jab, jab, undercut. Left, left, right. Undercut, undercut, jab. Each hit, each punch, sent a shock of pain up his arm, but damn if it didn't feel good.

"Lord. What the hell has you so worked up?" Jack asked as he stumbled back from the force of Shawn's hit. He positioned his hands higher on the bag and moved to steady himself better.

"I didn't ask you here to talk." Shawn thrust his fist forward again, the bag holding steadier with Jack's new position. "I needed someone to punch, and I figured you'd work."

"Touchy," Jack said. "Is it a chick? It must be a chick—then again, I've never seen you give a flying rat's ass about a girl before, so ..."

"I said I don't want to talk and I meant it. What is it with you and Bohnes and all your touchy feely girly talk?"

Sweat rolled off Shawn's brow and down his temple, dripping from his chin to the floor below. His breath came in heavy pants and his muscles burned with exertion, his skin slick and wet. The exercise felt good. He needed some kind of release after the night he'd had.

Watching Camila break down, and knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it, had sucked worse than anything he could remember. Hours passed as her tiny body trembled in his arms. No amount of words or caresses calmed her. Only the tears she shed onto his shirt seemed to help at all. Holding a girl while she cried was a new experience for Shawn—and he decided he did not like it at all. Not because he felt he was above being there for her, but because it made him feel useless and helpless. He couldn't make her better.

Shawn continued to hit harder and harder until the tape had completely snapped and he could feel the rough surface of the bag scrape against his skin. After the last hit, an uppercut with his dominant left hand, a red smear streaked across the surface.

"Damn it," he said to himself, shaking his hand and wiping the blood from his split knuckle onto the front of his black wife beater. Jack let go of the bag and stepped up to Shawn, taking his hand to study the cut. Shawn wrenched it away and scowled.