Chapter 78

Simon Anderson had never intended to have a workout routine and didn’t entirely realize he’d acquired one until he found himself breaking it.

He’d started taking ballroom dance classes when it became clear that his friends were not only taking them, but taking them seriously. Once he realized they really intended to learn how to dance, he joined in. He had no particular desire to learn how to dance for his own sake, but found there was a multipart reason for doing so. If he didn’t learn, Nick and Max would periodically cajole him in an attempt to get him to join in while fully expecting him to refuse. Even so, they would feel guilty about making events they were all expected to attend dance-centric, but would do it anyway. Also, it had turned out that Shelby really liked dance classes. To put a cherry on top of the whole thing, no one expected him to come to dance classes of his own free will and Simon delighted in doing things nobody expected from him every so often.

So, he’d been learning to dance. Once he’d gotten into a routine of going to dance classes, he’d come to realize that, while he was in reasonably good shape for a man his age, height, and frame, he was struggling to master certain moves because of relative deficiencies in his arms, legs, and core. He’d done some research and started working out each of those areas in turn for a little bit each week. He hadn’t explicitly thought of himself as having an arm day, a leg day, and a core day until Max had pointed it out and offered to coordinate. Simon had scoffed at the idea at first, then decided it might be nice to have some company during the boring exercises where he couldn’t do much else, then scoffed again when Max revealed how early in the morning he was going to the gym. Simon might have an exercise routine, but he wasn’t about to let it turn him into a morning person.

Simon had surprised even himself when he agreed to join a boxing class. Not once in his life had he thought of himself as a pugilist. He’d gotten in the ring because Arwen asked him to. Actually, what she’d said was, “Simon, I need some motivation to improve my boxing skill. Come over here so I can punch you.” Once she’d promised that there would be no retributions for him punching her back, he’d been intrigued enough to put on the gloves and get in the ring.

So it was that the first punch Simon ever threw had been a jab at Arwen Dickinson’s face. Considering how many times she’d punched him in the past and the multitude of times she’d threatened to punch him, it was oddly satisfying to finally be allowed and even encouraged to punch her back.

It wasn’t until his second lesson that Simon threw his first real punch. He hadn’t realized that he was pulling his punches until Chesa Nel, unable to convince him to punch at full strength of his own volition, had walloped him in the ribs. He’d punched back without even thinking and they’d exchanged a short flurry of blows before she broke off. Simon now knew she could have dodged most of the punches he landed, but wanted to make a point.

So, with ballroom and boxing and arm, leg, and core days, Simon was in the gym a little bit most days. What he’d never done before was come to the gym at night when practically no one was there. It was the first time he’d been in the room without Chesa Nel. Luba and Svetlana were pacing each other on the stationary bikes, but the only other person in the gym was the woman who’d summoned him.

Arwen was sitting on the apron of the boxing ring dressed in a white sports bra and gray sweatpants. She had two sets of headgear and two pair of gloves next to her. “You made it, good. Help me lace up?”

Simon did as he was asked before bothering to complain. “You’re going to make me wear the velcro ones?”

“You’ve got a longer reach and about forty pounds on me. Give me some advantage,” said Arwen.

“Fine.” Simon pulled the laces on one glove tight and tied them off neatly. “Why did you want to spar in the middle of the night?”

“Ten pm is hardly the middle of the night,” Arwen protested.

“If the night starts at eight and ends at midnight, that’s precisely what it is, but my question was more about why you couldn’t wait until our regularly scheduled class to punch me again. Did I do something or am I just your whipping boy tonight?” Simon asked.

Arwen slid her hand into the other glove. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something that, if you answer me honestly, I’ll probably want to punch you. I figured it would only be fair if you could punch me back.”

Simon focused on lacing up her glove for her and didn’t say anything. When Arwen got into moods like this, the best course of action was to humor her and wait for it to blow over. Simon debated sending a quick message to Lev, Nick, or Max to be on hand for the eventual denouement because these episodes usually ended with some form of emotional release that he felt uniquely unqualified to handle. While Arwen was usually better than Simon at appearing normally, he was pretty sure she’d taken more psychological damage from her childhood than Simon or any of her other close friends had from theirs.

In the end, he left his phone in his bag, helped Arwen strap on her headgear, and tried to mentally prepare himself to be supportive enough to get her back to her room and her boyfriend. He did this not out of any desire for a real emotional connection, but rather out of the same perverse desire to throw the world off his scent that had made him voluntarily start taking ballroom classes.

Once they were in the ring and had touched gloves, Simon started circling with Arwen. “What’s on your mind, Red?”

Arwen threw an experimental jab. “How do you deal with being a terrible person?”

Simon juked to one side, pushed Arwen’s punch away, and jabbed back. “To whom?”

Arwen swatted his punch aside and danced out of range. “Does it matter?”

Simon feinted with a punch that couldn’t reach Arwen with any real strength to see what she would do. She stepped past it, closed in, and threw a quick jab that he only half dodged as it grazed his ribs. Every time he sparred with Arwen, she was a better boxer. He said, “Of course it matters. There are some people who deserve a lot worse than what I’ve done to them.”

As they circled, looking for an opening, Arwen asked, “All right, but what about in general? How do you deal with knowing you’re a terrible person?”

“What makes you think I’d know?” Simon asked, then immediately moved in for a one-two punch, hoping the question would throw Arwen off-balance, but she dodged one punch, blocked the other, and jumped back before Simon could throw another punch.

Circling again, she gave him a look. “I think you would know because you’ve said on more than one occasion that you are a terrible person. Half the time I ask why you did something, that’s your go-to answer. You seem rather proud of it.”

“Usually, that’s just a conversational shortcut. A lot of the time, when you’re asking me why I did something or, more usually, why I said something, what you’re really trying to do is to make me feel bad about what I did or said. Saying that I did it because I’m a terrible person is my way of telling you that I’m not going to feel bad about it, no matter what you say.” Simon answered, his words cutting off and resuming based on the punches they tested each other with.

“But, you are a terrible person, aren’t you?” Arwen asked and took a shot at his ribs.

Simon was easily able to dodge and swat the punch aside because Arwen telegraphed it by putting hard emphasis on her last word. They’d never sparred and talked at the same time. He decided to watch and see if she noticed what she was doing. “I am sometimes a terrible person to some people, yes - probably moreso than most.”

“So, how do you deal with knowing that about yourself?” Arwen asked.

Simon frowned and focused on dodging the punch Arwen threw, again telegraphed by a hard final syllable. Once he was out of range again, he said, “Maybe you’d better just tell me what you did and I can tell you what I would do under the circumstances. If I have to guess, this is going to take a while and you’ll get tired before I do.”

“The hell I will.” Arwen threw a left hook.

Simon stepped into the arc of her punch, blunting the blow by letting it glance off his bicep and throwing a couple of quick jabs at her midsection. Arwen jumped back before the second one could land, but the first got her pretty solidly in the ribs. He tapped his gloves together. “You definitely will if you keep letting me get inside your reach like that.”

Arwen glared at him, her guard up now. “Won’t happen again.”

Simon nodded to her, staying light on his feet. “So, what did you do?”

Arwen tried a couple of experimental jabs before answering. “Maybe you could just give me some general advice. When you feel like a terrible person, how do you deal with it?”

“I find a close friend with whom I have a complicated history and let him beat the hell out of me until I feel better.” Simon deliberately telegraphed his attack by emphasizing the last syllable and found Arwen ready for him. They exchanged a half dozen jabs before breaking off.

“Nice try. If I ever feel bad enough to let somebody beat me up, I’ll ask Max,” said Arwen.

Simon smirked, stepped forward, and tested her guard with a quick series of punches. “Good luck with that. Give it a try. Once you get bored of him giving you wimpy little love taps and crying because he thinks he did it wrong, give me a call. I have at least some experience with consensual punishment.”

Arwen shoved him with both gloves to get some space. “I’m not Shelby.”

Simon briefly considered the jokes he could make, but ultimately put most of them aside. Already, his adrenaline was flowing and he had no doubt Arwen’s was, too. Even if it wasn’t, more comparisons to Shelby were unlikely to do anything but piss Arwen off. He settled on. “No, you’re not. For all your talk about maiming me over the years, you never even managed to give me a black eye.”

“The night’s still young.” Arwen feinted at Simon’s head. When he pulled back, she added, “If you wanted me to, you should have made it clearer. You didn’t have to go to Titstick for it.”

Simon smirked. “I didn’t particularly want her to do it.”

Arwen frowned. “I ... you didn’t make a big deal out of it when it happened, but I was afraid something weird was going on.”

“Lots of weird was going on - more weird than normal, but I’m a big boy, Ari. I don’t need you or Nick or anyone else policing my relationships.” Simon moved in and used his longer arms to harry Arwen into a corner then peppered her raised arms with jabs until she told him to break off.

When Simon complied by bouncing back and letting her come out of the corner, Arwen was flushed and a little sweaty. She advanced cautiously. “It’s not about policing, but can you honestly tell me that you would ask for help if you were being abused?”

Simon deliberately backed off far enough for Arwen to come to the center of the ring. “If I were genuinely being abused and didn’t deserve it, yeah. I would look for help to get out of the situation.”

“Nobody deserves to be abused, Simon.” Arwen gave him a warning look.

“That depends on how you define your terms. I deserved that black eye and probably worse.” Simon closed with Arwen as she came to the center of the ring, but broke off when she was more than ready for him.

“No one deserves a black eye,” Arwen argued.

“Not even me?” Simon tapped the side of his head near his eye socket and through his headgear.

“Not even you.” Arwen closed with him, swinging low and fast. After an inconclusive exchange, she added, “Unless you get it in the ring or something.”

“So, what about those kids Lev beat up?” Simon asked.

Arwen froze, leaving Simon only a fraction of a second to break off the attack he’d planned and turn a direct strike into a grazing one. He’d wanted to shock Arwen a little and maybe give himself an opening, but he didn’t particularly want to sucker punch her. When she brought her guard up, he backed off.

If she noticed he’d deliberately backed off and given her time to recover, Arwen gave no sign. She advanced, throwing a few hard jabs that Simon blocked as best he could. “That’s different. Obviously, if someone is trying to fight you, you can defend yourself. Plus, they were Nazis. Is Shelby a Nazi? I would love to find out Shelby’s secretly a Nazi.”

Simon stepped back far enough that Arwen overbalanced trying to punch him. He threw a hook into her ribs then a second one before she recovered enough to back off. As she backpedaled, he followed, harrying her back into the corner until she again called on him to break off. When he did, he said, “Shelby’s not a Nazi. But neither were those kids, really. They were, at best, overly enthusiastic LARPers playing dress up. Calling them Nazis makes it too easy to not think about what happened that night.”

Arwen came out of the corner swinging. Simon blocked and dodged and gave ground even as it became clear that he’d hit a nerve. He pushed back, trying to use his counterattack to wear her down and let her regain her head, but she seemed determined to actually hurt him and, after she’d landed a few solid punches, Simon realized his choice was to fight back or let her beat him up. And while Arwen was one of his closest friends and he would probably do a lot more for her than she realized, taking the role of one of her inner demons and letting her whale on him without fighting back wasn’t one of those things.

He changed his stance and became more aggressive. With the headgear and gloves on, they couldn’t do that much damage to each other. Neither had trained to be much of a boxer yet. Still, once it became clear that Simon meant to fight back, he realized that Arwen had still been holding something back. The worried look on her face was replaced by one of almost manic joy as she did her best to pummel him.

Compared to Simon, she was small and fast. After a minute of chasing her around the ring, he realized he could wait for her to come to him and conserved his strength.

They closed and struck, broke, closed again, struck again. The third time they closed, Simon didn’t wait for Arwen to come all the way to him, but stepped in at the last minute, took the jabs she threw at his chest, and threw a hard hook into her midsection.

Arwen tried to pull back, but fell instead. Simon bounced back on his heels and waited for her to rise and come at him again. When Arwen was slow to get up, he started to worry. He didn’t think he’d really injured her, but if he had, it wouldn’t go over very well with any of their friends. Hell, Simon himself wouldn’t feel good about it. He’d been ready to spar and enjoyed it in the moment. But, he hadn’t planned on giving or receiving any real injury.

He was also aware that Arwen might be playing possum. With the adrenaline and whatever was going on inside her head, that might seem like a good idea. So, he kept his distance and said, “Ari, are you okay?”

Arwen held one arm over her belly and nodded. “Yeah ... just ... we should stop.” She leaned back on both hands. “Knocked the wind out of me.”

“Yeah, all right.” Simon bit the velcro tab on one of his gloves to loosen it enough to pull his hand out, then used his freed hand to peel off the other glove. Seeing that Arwen was still sitting on the canvas, he asked. “Can I help you up?”

“Think I’ll sit here for a minute. Down here is good.” Arwen held out one hand. “Help me out of the gloves?”

Realizing that, if he tried to help her take the gloves off while standing, she could theoretically sucker punch him in the nuts, Simon knelt next to Arwen and unlaced one of her gloves. When he gestured for the other one, she held up one finger and scooted herself back into the corner so she could lean against the ropes, then offered him the remaining glove.

Simon knelt again at her side and unlaced that glove. “You okay, Ari?”

She nodded again. “Just winded.”

“I don’t just mean physically. It seems like you’ve got something to work out of your system here.” Simon kept his eyes on the glove.

“Not your problem,” Arwen said quietly.

“No, but I’m guessing it’s not something you’re comfortable talking to Lev or Nick about. They’d both be available if you were.” Simon wiggled the glove off her hand.

“You really want to know?” Arwen asked.

At a very fundamental level, Simon did not want to know. His friendship with Arwen was complicated, but the way they dealt with it was straightforward and well-established. Knowing what was bothering her would probably upend all of that. All he had to do in order to keep both of their lives simpler was share that truth. Instead, he said, “Yeah, what’s on your mind?”

Arwen shook her hand, leaned back into the ropes, and said, “The night Lev nearly got killed fighting for what he believed in, I was out with the girls making fun of him and calling the whole project stupid.”

“Ah.” Simon said. His first instinct was to point out that the whole project was stupid. His second was to suggest that Lev hadn’t really come that close to being killed. Neither sentiment felt right to say right now. Instead, he went with a question. “And now you feel like a terrible person?”

Arwen nodded. “I am, right? I’m a terrible girlfriend and a terrible person. How else could I do that?”

Having taken off his own headgear, Simon reached past Arwen to where the duffel bag she’d brought lay. He’d spotted a water bottle in there, grabbed it now, and offered it to her. As she sipped, he said, “Everybody’s a terrible person sometimes, Ari. Have you talked to Lev about this?”

Arwen scowled. “I can’t. He has no idea and the girls are sworn to secrecy. Telling him about it can’t possibly help, can it?”

Simon shook his head. “Redemption isn’t really my brand. All I meant by asking was that, if you’re looking for forgiveness or permission to forgive yourself, I can’t give you that. Maybe Lev can or maybe you don’t need it, but I can’t.”

Arwen’s scowl deepened. “No shit. I wasn’t asking you for any of that. I just want you to tell me how you deal with carrying that sort of thing around. When you’ve wronged somebody, how do you compartmentalize that or whatever you do to let you keep interacting with them and not think about it all the time?”

Simon sighed and rubbed his temples. “Well, if I was terrible to someone and they didn’t deserve it, I’ve split evenly on avoiding one of them and letting the other one reset our relationship by giving me a black eye.”

Arwen sat a little more upright. “Wait, are you seriously trying to tell me that you think the only people you’ve ever wronged are Shelby and Alexis?”

Simon shook his head. “I’m sure I’ve wronged other people and, if I reflected on it enough, I’d probably feel bad about those things too. But the first time it ever really stuck with me was Shelby and Alexis ... mostly Alexis. Shelby’s damage and mine line up closely enough that she could handle me. Alexis didn’t deserve to get dragged into my weird little revenge fantasy and she wasn’t really equipped to deal with it.”

Arwen gave him a long, hard look. “Why did those two bother you and not somebody like Ryan Vikander?”

“The kid who the Cordwainers killed? What did I ever do to him? He was one of the jocks, wasn’t he?” Simon asked.

“He wanted to be one of the jocks. He was like a hanger-on, always trying to hang out with them, but he was more of a nerd really,” said Arwen.

Simon sat back and leaned into the ropes perpendicular to her. “My understanding of the inner working of the jock tribe was never that fine-grained. If he was trying to curry favor with the jocks, I can’t imagine he was doing it by being nice to me. I’m pretty sure Ryan once told me he was going to kill Dennis when he and his friends caught him, but that might have been someone else. They were all kind of a collective entity to me.”

“But Shelby and Alexis are real people now. Why? Because you had sex with them?” Arwen demanded.

Simon nodded. “They were before that because I wanted to have sex with them. Shelby and Alexis and Hannah and Kayla and Jordan, Taylor, Grace, and Alma off the top of my head. The jocks were just all one guy named Chad or Dutch or something and all I wanted was to not deal with them. They had to get full-on psycho like the Cordwainers before I bothered to remember their names.”

“Seriously?” Arwen sounded skeptical.

Simon looked at her for a few seconds before telling her something he’d never admitted to anyone but his twin. “When our parents started having play dates for us, it took me months to be able to tell Max and Nick apart without Dennis feeding me their names all the time. You I knew because of your red hair, but not those two.”

“My hair? You didn’t notice I was the only girl in our group?” Arwen laughed.

Simon shook his head. “The differences between boys and girls didn’t really register for me until I started getting yelled at in school for using the wrong pronouns. My parents took me for all kinds of tests about it, but never found anything they could point to and say that was causing the problem. If it’s neurological, nobody’s ever been able to name it and I was able to unlearn it, but it’s an effort.”

“Does everybody know this but me?” Arwen asked.

“Nobody knows this but you, Dennis, and our parents. Now that I know how to cope with it and I’m not stuck in school, it doesn’t really need to be a secret anymore, but I don’t see any reason to announce it,” said Simon.

“And Dennis doesn’t have the same issue?” Arwen asked.

“Nope, so probably not genetic either. I may have just decided very early on that people weren’t worth the effort,” said Simon.

“Shit, so you even have a better excuse than me.” Arwen ran a hand through her sweaty hair. “God, I might be a worse person than you.”

“I think you’re getting a little bit ahead of yourself, Red. But if you really want the job of being the heel of the group, I’m not going to fight you for it. I’ve got my hands full being useful these days,” said Simon.

“It would be nice to have a role again.” Arwen chuckled to herself, then turned to look more fully at Simon. “I suppose it was too much to hope that you would tell me I’m not a terrible person, huh?”

“You are ... probably less terrible than the average person ... in my experience, anyway,” said Simon.

Arwen grinned. “Maybe my Simon-to-English translator is a little bit rusty, but that almost sounded like a compliment.”

“I withdraw it, then,” Simon answered dryly.

“Words can’t be unsaid, Simon,” Arwen said in a voice that was part prim and part arch.

Simon laughed in spite of himself. Their first-grade teacher Mrs. Woodson had said that to him at least once and Arwen had been repeating it ever since. He protested, “Nobody ever told me that applied to good words!”

“You don’t say enough good words for it to have come up,” Arwen pointed out.

Simon sighed dramatically. “Fine, I just figure that, if you came to me about this, it wasn’t to get glad-handed and told that you’re a good person. You really want my practical advice?”

“That’s why I let you sucker punch me, wasn’t it?” Arwen asked.

“That wasn’t a sucker punch and you didn’t let me do anything. I’m just better at punchball than you are,” said Simon.

Arwen laughed, then winced. “Shit, I’m going to have a bruise on my ribs for sure.”

“You and Warborn will match, then. You can be bruise buddies,” said Simon.

Arwen sipped her water and looked pensive for a moment before saying, “I really do need to tell Lev about this, don’t I?”

“No, that would be stupid,” said Simon.

Arwen gave him a dirty look. “Did you save that one for when you knew we were done with punchball?”

“No, I saved it for the actual advice portion of our discussion. Even if Lev weren’t Lev, that kind of confession is usually meant to make the speaker feel better, not because it’s going to do any good. What do you think Lev would do if you told him what you told me?” Simon asked.

“I really have no idea,” Arwen sighed.

“Ah, maybe you know him too well to be certain, but I’d lay money on him either telling you it wasn’t a big deal or asking a couple of questions and then forgiving you. Can you imagine him deciding this was genuinely unforgivable?” Simon asked.

Arwen rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and considered the question for a long time before saying, “No, I suppose not.”

“Right, he’d either laugh it off or he’d ultimately forgive you. But, I don’t think he would actually get it. Lev doesn’t really like shades of gray. He would just nudge you a little bit closer to the dividing line between being a good person and a bad person and there would be no reversion to the mean. You’d have to rescue a bag full of drowning kittens or something to get back to your current status,” Simon told her.

“I would totally rescue those kittens. Maybe I should confess and dedicate my life to kitten rescue,” said Arwen.

“Maybe - or maybe you could just not tell him and instead recognize that you will occasionally do terrible things to him because you’re his fiancee and will eventually be his wife. My limited observation of the category suggests that married people are occasionally terrible to each other.”

“Do you think Lev will ever be terrible to me?” Arwen sounded alarmed at the prospect.

Simon sighed. “Probably not. Lev’s never been terrible to me and I’m way closer to that good person, bad person line in his head than you are. Can you accept the idea of sharing your life with someone who’s just nicer than you are?”

“I think I might have to. If I only date guys who are worse than me, you and I would probably wind up together eventually,” said Arwen.

“Not really my type, Red,” Simon said automatically. He knew she was joking and wasn’t about to make things even weirder between them, but he did have a very vivid image of the two of them for a moment and it gave him an idea. “Do you think Lev would ever spank you?”

Arwen laughed and winced again. “Christ, don’t do that. My ribs are getting more sore by the minute.” When Simon said nothing, she sighed. “I mean ... if I asked him to and told him I would like it, he might maybe. But, he wouldn’t like it. We’ve talked about kinky stuff and he just seems baffled by the whole subject. Even Pilar didn’t make any headway on getting him interested.”

“So, you don’t think he’d enjoy watching you get spanked on his behalf either?” Simon suggested.

“Nice try, perv. I don’t think I’d be able to stop him from crushing you down to the size of a Rubik’s Cube,” said Arwen.

Simon coughed in the effort to suppress the laugh that threatened to bubble up. “I didn’t mean by me. I was thinking Pilar or one of your other hundreds of girlfriends.”

“I ... don’t think that would work,” Arwen said slowly as if she were considering the idea for the first time. “I just ... Lev doesn’t really understand the idea of somebody getting off on pain or anything that looks negative from the outside.”

Simon didn’t miss the subtext of that statement either, but any discussion of said subtext would definitely end this conversation on a painfully weird note. “You got him used to the idea of sharing you with Nick and your bevy of bisexual babes. Maybe you just need the right approach.”

“Let’s assume I can’t. How do I stop feeling terrible every time I look at him?” Arwen asked.

Simon shook his head. “I’ve exhausted my toolbox, Red. Shelby and I punished each other to some sort of equilibrium. Alexis I’ve just avoided pretty much since I realized how shitty I was to her. Neither one of those is going to work for you. It may just take time.”

“Are you sure we’ve exhausted the whole kitten rescue angle? Because I would totally do that if it would help, but I can’t figure out how I would be there in time to save the kittens. I could ask you to try to drown some, then show up in the nick of time, but I think that might just make things worse.” Arwen gently probed her own ribs with one hand.

“Plus, I wouldn’t do it. I’m not that kind of monster, Ari.” Simon pulled himself to his feet using the ropes.

Arwen looked up at him. “So, all that talk about murdering our classmates was just talk? I was never sure.”

Simon offered her a hand up, which she accepted. He said, “Honestly, there were plenty of times I really wanted to blow up the whole fucking school with all of them in it. If I could have figured out how to do it without it being really obvious that we were the only survivors, I might have moved those plans along.”

Arwen stood and, for a moment, they stood closer than Simon could ever remember them standing. She didn’t step away immediately, but instead asked, “Seriously?”

Simon stepped back in case his answer would make her violent. “I honestly don’t remember. When I work up a really good head of rage, my mind goes some very dark places, but I like to think I wouldn’t waste my one chance to snap on something as petty as a single school full of assholes in training.”