BLACK EYE - 3

Blue's heart was dying.

Slowly, but surely, she felt it burning up. It had always resided in her chest, slumbering, waiting for a day to be awakened from the deep sleep she forced it to be in. It did nothing more than keep her alive, and yet, these days, she doubted its capacity to do even that.

At a younger age, when she had just begun fighting, her anger at the world would be so overwhelming that her heart would stop. Not completely, of course, but enough for her to question her liveliness. She would be at the gym at three am, drenched in sweat from head to toe, hand on her neck. Finger behind her ear, making sure that her heart was doing its job. And, mostly, it did.

Live, live, live, she willed herself.

Johnny's note glared at her from the table until her mind lost the staring contest. She had slept a full five hours before waking up. Brown eyes and the scribbled phone number taunted her.

Five hours was enough to help her function. Today, more than anything, she needed to get to the gym. The punching bag would have to be someone other than her dad, today.

Japan. Japan. Japan.

Blue punched and punched and punched, until her coach pulled the bag away from her. He held it tightly, staring at her as if she had gone insane. With his overpowering muscles and a buzzed head, Joe Quinn looked absolutely done with her for the day.

He raised an eyebrow. "Why you so pissed off, today? Huh? What happened?"

"Nothing. Let go of the punching bag."

"Fuck no," Quinn laughed. "Not happening, Blue. What's going on with you?"

"I said: nothing. Quinn, I don't have the patience for your shit today."

Her coach threw the bag at her with immense force, if she didn't have the reflexes of a cat and had caught it, it would've knocked her off her feet. She drew in a breath, cautious of him. If there was one thing that he hated, it was disrespect.

On the first day he met her at the gym, he told her: "Take a shit on the world, but never on me. I'm your coach, your partner in everything you do. Don't cross the line with me."

And she just did, at least a little.

Blue decided that between not apologizing and apologizing, she was better off avoiding his anger. Especially with the best coach in the city standing in front of her and the national competition starting soon, the last thing she wanted to do was lose her pillar.

"My bad. Someone from my past showed up last night," she said, slowly jabbing the bag again. Quinn settled down and backed away, listening intently. Like a hawk, ready to pounce if his feathers were ever ruffled.

"Who?"

"No one important," Blue huffed. "No one."

"It's a he? A she? An ex? A brother? A sister?"

She rolled her eyes. "No one important. He just wasted his time and mine."

"It's a he," Quinn's gaze hardened. "Blue, we don't need distractions. You can't have your eyes off the prize and on some boy."

Blue threw the punching bag his way again, which he caught with ease. "Shut up."

"You forgetting what your goals are? You're not a loser, are you?"

Her ego got punched in the gut, right there and then. Instead of aiming straight ahead, she instinctively jabbed her coach's ribcage, immediately knocking his breath away. Her mind stopped spinning, and she could feel her toes settle down again.

"I'm not that person," she said, as he coughed. "I don't get distracted, Quinn. I thought you knew that. I'm not a girl who gets distracted by guys, alright?"

His green eyes narrowed at her, and he clenched his fists. "I should hope not. I don't train quitters, you know that, Blue."

In less than ten seconds, Quinn tried to sweep the back of her legs and make her fall. Blue, however, having learnt from the best, stepped away and did the same to him. He fell on his back, mumbling a satisfying "fuck."

Blue smiled over him and offered her hand. "I know, coach. We've got training to do."

"That's my girl," he took her hand. She twisted his wrist and let go, laughing soundly.

Ignoring his curses, Blue went back to what she was best at: fighting all of her worries away.

-

There was a time when Blue found Sebastian Mills to be the most attractive person among her friends.

When she first met him, accompanying Jada to a college party, she admired the way he composed himself. He had control of his actions, aware of the effect he had on others. He knew what a wink, a smile, a laugh in the right time would do. Humbly arrogant, he noticed Blue's eyes on him from the first day they met. He was subtle and a chase, but Blue had never lost a race.

Then, his smile told her that he would never fall for her; he wasn't a romantic. Today, he looked at her as if she had eaten his heart for dinner and called it mediocre. Would he dare do anything about it? Tell her of his budding feelings for her? Confess that even with random hookups, no one is better than her?

Absolutely not.

As he sat in front of her today, Blue valued Sebastian Mills' presence in her life. So did he. Their relationship would never be one more than touch, but he wouldn't like a life without her. For Blue, Sebastian was one of the rare people able to make her heart lighter.

"Look, this one is Bad Bella," he switched the page on his laptop to one of a woman with long red hair and piercingly grey eyes. She held a biology degree closely to her chest, smiling among her family. "She's California. And wow, biology. How does she have time for this? I'm comp sci and I don't sleep."

"When you need to earn money, Seb, you make the time."

Seb shifted his look to her, his dark brown eyes warm and inviting,"you do this for the money only, B?"

"Nah," she smiled, pushing away the flashes of that night. "I do this because I'm damn good at it."

"True," Seb rolled his eyes, oblivious to the white lie. "I still find it insane that I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to help you with this."

"You forget what we do is illegal?"

He raised a brow. "It's only legal to the gangs, mafia and businessmen. Still not the law. A'ight then. Let's look at Texas. I hear she's one of the best." At Blue's glare, he rephrased. "I hear she's mediocre, compared to you."

"Better. But Seb, this isn't helpful. You're showing them to me like this makes a difference. Knowing their uni majors and their hair color doesn't help me win."

"It's the best I could do," Sebastian shrugged, slamming his laptop shut. "What more do you want?"

"I need to know their weaknesses, their strengths, what scares them."

"Unless you want me to sleep with every single one of them, I'm afraid I can't be more help."

A wry smile crept on her face. Seb shook his head, laughed. "No way in hell, B. I'm not going to be your fighting hoe."

Blue got up, grabbed her bag and went behind a seated Sebastian. "I have a class to teach, but," she leaned in, "you already are, Seb."

His breath disappeared for a second, as if it had been sucked in by every cell in his body. Trying to remain calm. Trying to ignore how beautiful she is. Trying to focus on the friendship.

She swiftly pushed his head downwards, "find me a better plan. Or I'll have to do this myself."

-

same day, 3 am.

Sometimes, Blue didn't understand how she'd let herself become so alone.

She tucked herself into bed and checked her phone once, twice just in case Sebastian or Jada texted. They didn't, but that was normal. Sebastian had a paper to write, and Jada was being coddled by her parents at home. The girl did not eat enough to feed her small body and got most of her nutrition from her grandmother overcooking and stuffing her. "Ma petite-fille doit etre nourrie, tu es si mince, ma cherie," Jada would imitate her voice with enough drama to make the Grinch smile.

The room felt so small.

Its walls were cramped together, as if they were held together by the hope of not crumbling. No pictures, no reminders of a heart that resided and beat in this apartment for a year. The walls were almost as blank as Blue's stare on them, as she clenched her sheets tightly.

Her leg hung loose from the bed, dangling slightly. Blue wanted to kick a chair, a wall, a boy who knew her secret. The latter, mainly. Her fingers twitched. A light burn in her eyes reminded her to blink, because as she laid in this bed all alone, she was haunted by memories and thoughts that clawed onto her skin.

"Damn it," she cursed softly. "Damn you, Johnny."

It was not often that her heart ached, but when it did— it was as if a caged fire burned through her ribcage and the pain numbed every other part of her body. It drained her from the energy she needed to train, rinsed her from all emotions and left her dry, empty-handed and more than ever, lately, alone.

Alone had more than meaning for her, she had the time to craft more than one definition.

Alone could be a seven year old Liezel crouched near the door of her bedroom, crying silently as she heard her parents fight for the second time that day. Her heart kept her a lonely company, and she grew accustomed to that kind of alone: the one that stands tall in the face of pain.

Alone was a twelve year old Blue, watching her hauntingly beautiful mother throw a chair at her gruesome, cruel father. Hanami Diaz was a woman with more ghosts than lovers. She loved her daughters and hated her husband fervently, so much that she once tried to drown that love with sleeping pills. Alone was Blue finding her mother half-dead on the floor, holding a picture in one hand and the bottle in another. Alone was Blue putting her fingers on her mother's neck, as instructed by the police officer on the line, breathing "live, live, live".

On other days, alone was watching every girl in her class get a valentine's day card— from each other and from boys, it did not matter— and her desk being empty. She had just punched a boy on her street, because he liked her and would not stop following her home. Blue ripped a rose from the neighbour's garden and put it in her hair.

Loneliness came in waves to Blue, sometimes engulfing and overcoming— others soft and powerful. She knew how to swim now, letting go of her floaties the first time her mother put her arms around Blue and almost choked the air out of her.

Still, the worst kind was the one taunting her tonight.

It was doubtful, unsure but ever so strong. Her grandmother was too far away to keep her sage with excessive amounts of hot chocolate and Spanish telenovelas, her friends' hearts were too warm for hers and her mind refused to do so. Her skin tingled for a touch, a whisper to remind her that she was not alone: anything to make her feel alive. The family that she dedicated every fight to, the family that was in his hands.

His number was on the floor beside her phone, and she wondered why the paper was not in the trash by now. She still picked up her phone and tried to sober out of the drunkennes that stretched into her thoughts. The empty bottle next to her fell on the carpet, shattering ever so slightly.

"Hello?" His voice was raspy and confused, reminded her of rain falling on rocks.

She just held the phone close to her ear and breathed slowly, trying to remember how to speak. "Hi. It's Blue."

"Hi," he was kinder now, knowing her. "It's 3 a.m. Liezel, are you okay?"

"Not really. I shouldn't have called."

"It's okay. Do you need anything?"

"An apology," she whispered, but he heard.

"For what?"

"Everything."

"Me at the prom? Me leaving you even if I had no control over it?" At the lack of answer, he reiterates. "Everything what?"

"No. It's not enough." And oh, if Blue wasn't so sad, she might have cried. Liezel would have. She cleared her throat. "It's not enough."

He breathed out a heavy sigh. "What can be?"

"Nothing. I shouldn't have called."

"Wait, Liezel. Blue. I'm a few blocks away."

"..."

"Do you want me to come by? To talk?"

Blue blinked, thought of the championship coming ahead, the heartache, the knots in her head that could not be massaged. She thought of Liezel, not shedding a single tear when the doctors spoke about her mother. The Liezel who left that hospital as Blue.

She thought of Ren.

"Did you mean it? About Japan?"

"I don't lie."

"I don't trust you."

Johnny laughed, deeply and it shook her. "You've always been so stubborn. Omisepray. I'm not lying."

Omisepray. The word that had become their own in sixth grade, when Johnny tried to convince Blue that he'd stay her friend even with new people in their lives as they went into middle school. Piglatin was one of the ways they could speak quickly and secretly in public; they got away with a lot.

"Okay," she did not let her voice falter. "Tomorrow. Six o'clock, your place. Don't tell anyone."

"You're so forward," sleep peaked in his voice. "My place, already?"

"Shut up. I need to know you're legit."

"I'll text you the address. Thank you, sweetheart."

She ended the phone call, shut off her phone and went to sleep, dreaming, again, of a small boy rescuing her from the fire that is her home.

-

hi!! hope u liked this one! i love writing Blue, she's so different from all of my other characters and her story is so special.

thoughts about the story so far?

thank u for reading!

til next time, yas