Just Around the Corner

Phyllis stood, satisfied. “That’s what I thought.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

“Well, send me the bills.” Tossing the paper clip, he stood, too.

“I will.”

“Okay, see ya.” He’d followed her to the door.

“Goodbye.” Phyllis spoke with finality.

If she had her way, they’d never see each other again.

He made her tremble. He made her crazy and just a little angry. She absolutely refused to let him become part of her life.

She didn’t want or need his financial contributions.

This time it was the bills and not the check that would get mysteriously lost in the mail.

THE KICKING BAG went down. And came back up. Then went down again. Turning, Matt caught it with a perfectly placed side kick, knocking it into the corner of the wall. And, with hands properly angled in front of him, he turned and landed another perfect blow with the opposite foot.

Sweat dripped down the sides of his face. He didn’t bother wiping it off. It burned his eyes, but he ignored the pain, which was only the minutest portion of the punishment he deserved.

After more than an hour in his home gym, he wasn’t even close to the worn-out state he was working toward.

How could he have done it? He of all people?

Had life taught him nothing

? The time he’d never be able to recapture. The humiliation and abuse. The lost dreams. Lost innocence. Had it all been for nothing?

Another smack on the bag, and the sand-weighted bottom scooted along the floor.

He just couldn’t believe what was happening. Couldn’t have imagined a worse day than the one he’d just had.

He’d made a woman pregnant. A perfectly respectable doctor of psychology was facing a complete and permanent upheaval in her life because of him.

Forgetting himself to the point of lost discipline, Matt hauled off and slugged the kicking bag with both fists, over and over, like a novice and completely unskilled boxer, rather than the Tae Kwon Do black belt he was. Logically he knew he was solving nothing. That he was probably going to hurt himself.

But he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t harness the anger, the despair and disappointment coursing through him. Didn’t know what to do next, except wear himself out, force himself into complete exhaustion. How was he going to live with himself?

He’d just begun to find a measure of internal peace. Maybe even forgiveness. And in the span of a ten-minute office visit, years of hard work, of unrelenting self-control and mental promises, had been shot to hell.

He’d been in Shelter Valley for four years. Pretending to himself that he was building a new life, becoming the man he’d always expected himself to be.

When instead, he was exactly what he’d been before Will Parsons had been kind enough to give him this job, this chance.

A man who’d spent years in prison. He hadn’t been guilty of the statutory rape of which he’d been convicted. But he hadn’t been entirely blameless, either. He’d allowed that girl—a student—to think he found her desirable. He hadn’t intended to; he’d only meant to offer a confused young girl a measure of confidence, a sense of approval. In his own idealistic ignorance, he’d tried to help someone and had only confused her more.

Slumping to the carpet, sweat dripping down his back and chest beneath the soaked T-shirt he was wearing, Matt grabbed his aching head between both fists.

The tears, when they dripped slowly from beneath tightly closed lids, mixed in with the sweat. Fell unnoticed. Forgotten. Allowing no forgiveness for a sin not committed—and then committed six years after the fact.

This was the second time he’d contributed to the ruin of a perfectly lovely woman’s life.

He deserved to rot in hell.