Blind Loyalty with the Enforcer

Chapter 5: Pain of Love

Pauly's POV

“My mother had… has a reputation among her society friends. They say she collects men like she collects purses. I think the last time I had a number tally it was twelve fiancés. Five of them made it to the actual altar with her. The last one however stuck the longest. Six years. He passed sadly last September. How about you? Did you and your family take road trips?" Eleanor ask.

“No. No. Actually, we've never been on vacation before. It's the one thing I promised Cheska. We made this bucket list of items before I left for the fight in Chicago. It was a really fantastical thing. It was made up by a kid." I laugh, though the sound of it sounds hollow in my ears. “Eating ice cream till we puked. Things an eleven-year-old would come up with. Though she's almost thirteen now…

My voice fades off. Every time I speak of my sister, my heart aches. Like invoking a spirit from the past, everything I've missed out on haunts me. Guilt settles in my gut like an iron anchor. I clench the steering wheel in my fist as I blink past the sudden blurring of the road.

“Are you concerned her tastes have changed?" Eleanor asks.

Her question seems random at first until it settles that she's more aware of me than I give her credit for. More aware than anyone else in my life I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. The warmth of her care soon replaces the icy-cold fingers of guilt and shame. Settling back into the driver's seat, I ease off my death grip on the wheel.

“In complete honesty, I never really cared about the list we made. Especially when we made it. I won't deny the fact that every time I see an ice cream store, I check the list of flavors. Wondering which one she would have started with first. Maybe memorizing the weirdest flavors to ask her when I saw her again. I would be a liar if I didn't admit that what's haunted me isn't the ticking off the items on the list. But if she… If someone else has helped her. Complete that disgusting bucket list. The overwhelming fear that she might not even want me, becomes almost all I can think of. I'm terrified that I'll show up. Anticipating an outcome. And it'll all be too late."

“Because you think she sees you leaving her as abandoning her?"

If it was anyone else using the word abandon in conjunction with my sister, I would have grown defensive. That though they wouldn't have been wrong, the fear was very real. I wasn't ready to face it. But coming out of the lips of the gentlewoman sitting next to me, it was alright. Her question wasn't judgmental. It was nudging me toward a conversation I needed to have before I faced the scariest opponent in my life. My sister.

“I did," I admit. “There's no other word for what I did when I left her with my mother in Philly. I left her, alone, and now almost two years later, I'm returning. Practically with my tail between my legs. Expecting her to understand my actions and embrace my excuses. Forgiving me for not rushing back to her immediately. I barely understand what happened over the last year. How am I supposed to expect a kid to understand it? I'd be setting myself up like an i***t if I expected her to react in any other way."

“Well, then you're the biggest i***t in the entire world, Paul." The tone of Eleanor's words shocks me enough to take my eyes off of the road momentarily.

Eleanor's arms are wrapped around her. Her light blue sweater is wrapped around her hands as she tucks them under her arms. Folding herself around herself. Her body language communicating that I've pissed her off. She couldn't be any more adorable. Sitting in the front seat of the expensive European car a scowl planted on her face.

“Kids, regardless of the reason their family was taken from them, always want their family. Even if she's mad at you. She wants this."

“You don't know—"

“I know." Eleanor interrupts me, her fiery reply makes me more attracted to her. “I know because if you were anything like the man you are now then… she'd know that it would have taken something drastic to keep you from her. She'd know that you would move heaven and earth to return to her, and if that didn't work, you'd burn the world down. She'd know it because you have done that. You are doing that to get back to her. Don't limit her. Don't limit people because of your fear, Paul. You'd be surprised by the capacity of people's understanding."

Silence settled around us more comfortably than before. I felt guilty for liking the side of Eleanor that invoked her to react with less grace and calm than normal. But only slightly. I took for granted a sort of one-sided familiarity with Eleanor. Demanding her to let me in, only to keep her at arm's length.

“I gravitated towards the ring when I was in high school." I broke the silence. The sun was bright in the highest peak of the sky.

“I needed the outlet for the pain, and aggression inside of me. Somewhere to channel the frustration. The hurt. The anger. I continued boxing because I found out I liked the pain I received. That kind of pain made sense in comparison to the pain I experienced outside of the ring. That pain had a reason, a cause. It was justified. The pain outside the ring didn't make any sense. I couldn't make it add up in my head as I could when I was boxing inside the ring."

I wet my lips and continued. “My opponents' choices didn't feel somehow as impactful as my mother's choices. Hers seemed to send me spiraling worse than the weight of anyone's fists. As much as I tried to shield Cheska from being impacted by our mother, she was just affected as equally if not more. I was all Cheska had as far as a father figure. My father left me before he could have even made an impression, and Cheska's father was an utter ghost. That pain didn't. Her pain. My mother's pain. My pain, none of it made sense to me—"

“You're afraid that if she doesn't hate you, you won't be able to make sense of the emotion. The pain Paul. The fear you've experienced being separated from your sister in the last year. The worry. The fear. That's not pain. That's not something to figure out and make sense of. That's love. That's what loving someone with such intensity that it doesn't make sense. It turns you inside out and tears down your defenses. Until you're not who you were before. You're better because you were loved. Because you love despite the pain," Eleanor said.

“Have you ever been in love?" I ask her a question that's been nagging in my soul from the moment I laid eyes on her. Her passionate retort to my self-inflicted negative outlook on reuniting with my sister led me to believe that perhaps, Eleanor Hart has experience with love.

“I've been on the edge of love, I think. Dipped my toes in so to speak. But never allowed myself to fully submerge myself," she quietly replies.

“Why not?" I ask the question I really didn't want to ask. I really wanted to ask who the man or men were. I wanted to ask when it was. I wanted to ask for details. I felt envy weaving itself around my soul.

“I want it to be a choice, love. I want to be the one who chooses who I fall in love with." Eleanor's response sets tiny alarms off in my head as a grip the steering wheel.