My dad looked down at me with a familiar look on his face. He thought I was being “dramatic.” My mom had given my dad a lecture when I turned thirteen. She told him all about the “terrors of raising a teenage girl.” Since then, he seemed to take that to heart and every reaction I had to anything was “overdramatic” and “irrational.” “I’m talking to Ash, Z.”
My mouth dropped open, and I turned to Ash who was trying and failing not to laugh. “God, not you too. My name is Zoey. Z-O-E-Y! Not Z. You can call me champ, if you’d like. But not Z. I am more than one letter.” I glared at Ash. “Will you just stop?”
Ash shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and started walking backward toward his own house. “One day, Mr. Valentine, your daughter is going to figure it out, and it’s going to be all good from there,” he called before disappearing into his apartment. Sometimes I felt really bad for his neighbors in the brownstone. It was bad enough living next door to him.
I turned my glare on my dad, who was chuckling. “Why do you have to encourage him?”
He had already changed into a comfortable outfit, which I was grateful for. I checked his jeans, noticing the bulge of the gun and tried hard not to sigh. My dad brought his gun everywhere with him, and I should have learned not to be so surprised at this point. “That guy is crazy about you, Zoey. I don’t know why you hate him so much.”
I grabbed his arm and started pulling him in the direction of the subway. “Seriously? No…just, no. He’s awful. Do you know that he told Ol’ Barb the lunch lady that he was pining for her, and she gave him extra pie? I mean, it’s disgusting.” I made a face. “And he just tried to trick me into kissing him and squirted water in my face. Like I wanted to kiss him.”
“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt,” he said, as we descended the steps.
“Shut up, Dad,” I said, but only half-heartedly. “Let’s just go enjoy the game, okay?”
Later that night, while on the subway home after a crushing defeat at the hands of the Yankees and my dad I were arguing different points of the game, I realized how lucky I was. I had a great dad, a great place to live, a great best friend, and I was a senior in high school, with an impressive grade point average which guaranteed me admission into a decent college. Life was good, and the future was looking bright.
It was the right moment for the shit to hit the fan.
MOST TEENAGE GIRLS DIDN’T HAVE the sort of schedule that I did. I was in honor society, always making sure that I had the best grades. I helped Madison with whatever cause she was currently on, whether it was decorating for the latest dance or collecting food for the local food banks.
But most of my time was spent in classes. My dad is extremely protective of me. This wasn’t a bad thing of course, but it had led to me being way more equipped to protect myself than was actually necessary.
Mondays were karate, Tuesdays were kickboxing, and so on. I was proficient in so many forms of self-defense and fighting that it was almost embarrassing.
It was Thursday and as soon as I was done with cheer practice and homework, I packed up my bag, and hopped on the subway to that day’s class: mixed martial arts. MMA was just the newest of my dad’s obsessions. I had been taking it for a couple months now and was getting fairly good at it.
I spent most of my time there with the punching bag, practicing my kicks, punches and blocks. I had slipped on my ear buds, turning up the volume of my iPod so that the music was the only thing that I heard. Even though I constantly gave my dad a hard time for making me take these lessons, I kind of liked it. I had muscles in places I didn’t know could become muscle and I knew that I could take care of myself, if anyone came my way. Sure I had absolutely no social life outside of these various martial arts studios but who needed a social life?
Lost in my music and the satisfying smack of my skin against the rough fabric of the punching bag, I didn’t notice when the room had gone silent and the practice fights had begun. Someone went careening into me, causing me to wrap my arms tightly around the bag to keep from falling over. I turned around and noticed the fight. I smiled sheepishly and took a seat on the floor by the mirrors, using a towel to wipe the sweat from my brow.
Two girls were already in a practice fight, and I watched them carefully, mentally correcting a step or a punch when it went the wrong way. It had always come as a surprise to me that despite never having the desire to learn to be a fighter, I was kind of a natural. I wasn’t really good at anything. I liked to read, but past second grade, they didn’t exactly hand out awards for being able to read. I wasn’t social and intelligent like Madison, and I definitely wasn’t able to try out for basketball or swimming or anything. I reluctantly cheered for the football and basketball teams because Madison was head cheer captain, and she always managed to convince me, year after year, that it was a good way for us to spend time together.