#oth2

I took out the piece of paper and definitely felt foolish when it was my turn, Liam and Cleo having already been cleared.

“Why is it paper?” The bouncer asked the question I knew my friends were also wanting to ask.

“I lost my wallet and I have to wait for Missouri to process a new license for me. This is what I've got until they send me an actual card,” I explained, my cheeks feeling warm with embarrassment.

He looked over the paper and then back at me, and although he was clearly hesitant, he let us all in any way.

I folded and slipped the paper into my back pocket as quickly as I could while Liam held the door open for me and Cleo.

“You lost your wallet?” He asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I think I left it on the train and when I checked with the CTA they said they never found anything or got anything turned in, so…” I trailed off my lie and ducked my head to get under the arm of someone who was cheering over a Cubs RBI.

The Cubs were in the postseason and not only was all of Chicago alive with the excitement but my neighbourhood, being right near the stadium, was ecstatic.

“Wow,” Cleo sucked in a breath as we stepped up to the bar. “That sucks. Did you have to cancel all your cards, too? Did any of them have any charges?”

I nodded, “I did, but thankfully no charges. I froze them immediately from my phone once I'd realized what I'd done. I also had to report my Ventra card as stolen and have them transfer my pass to a new one. It was a hassle.”

“Thankfully you always keep your phone in your pocket,” Liam nodded at me before he turned to the bartender who’d just shown up, and ordered himself an IPA.

It had been four days since I was mugged.

After getting some oxygen back and peeling myself up off the porch, I had stumbled inside through the back door. Once both doors were locked and I was upstairs, I called the police.

While I waited for them to arrive I proceeded to cry as I cancelled my bank cards from my bank app on my phone and made a note to call the DMV as soon as they opened.

Then I made a note to call my landlord about the front lock. I'd be using the back door until he came by to fix it or put in a new lock.

I gave my account of what happened to the officers, tried to give a description as best I could, but it had been dark and I was attacked from behind by a man with a hood. I kept my tears at bay as best I could while I scratched out what had happened through a damaged throat.

One of the officers had given me a notepad of paper and a pen to use when I started coughing up blood from all the talking I'd done. Another handed me a handkerchief before he got me a glass of water from the filter in my fridge.

I had serious doubts that the police would find the man, not that I doubted their abilities, but I'd given them practically nothing to go on. Still, I felt marginally better after having them come to my home and make sure I was okay.

They assured me that attackers rarely come back to the same area for fear of the area being on alert after such an attack. It shouldn't really have given me peace of mind that my attacker had probably fled to another part of the city but, in a way, it did.

The officers recommended I go to the hospital, even tried to call the paramedics, to have my trachea checked out and make sure there was no real, lasting damage. I refused, figuring my wheezy voice would get better and that if I iced the bruises and used a salve the skin would return to normal colour soon enough.

I also wasn't going to tell anyone else what had happened.

I was going to be fine, just fine.

My friends and parents did not need to worry needlessly. My mom would only tell me to come home and leave Chicago forever and my friends would hover unnecessarily and neither option seemed the least bit appealing to me.

By Monday the wheeze had diminished from my voice so that it was almost unnoticeable. I told Louis I'd strained it while singing as I cleaned all day the day before and he shrugged it off.

The bruises were still a dark, deep purple and blue colour when I got ready for work on Monday though, so I'd settled for concealer and a turtleneck. The same went for Tuesday and now Wednesday. It was all turtlenecks and scarves for me and I'm sure it would be for a few more days.

Luckily, I was quite prone to wearing scarves tied fancily around my neck, so although it was abnormal for me to have my neck covered every day it wasn't enough to raise suspicion.

Today’s red fashion scarf was paired with a black T-shirt with a collar that had always been a little tight. I never wore it anymore because of that, but it meant that my neck was covered from top to bottom today and I didn't look too out of place when it ended up being warmer. A long sleeve turtleneck sweater might be a red flag in today's weather.

Cleo has even complimented me on the scarf.

After work Monday I had signed up for the early morning kickboxing classes at my gym and also found out they have a new self-defence class that's running. I missed the first two sessions, but I’d joined and would show up to class number three tomorrow.

I was fast and had some strength, but I don't know how to use either of those traits to my advantage, especially not when I'm attacked from behind or when I freeze up with fear. I couldn't feel weak like that again.

I couldn't.

I also hadn't been able to work out since it happened. I tried, too. Turns out a damaged trachea and heavy breathing do not mix. Sunday morning I had coughed up blood again less than a quarter of a mile into my run and ended up walking back to my apartment at a leisurely pace.

I think that was one of the things that upset me most. Not that I was keeping a secret from my friends, not that I had been made to feel so inexcusably weak, or that I was feeling kicked for thinking that my uncoordinated strength would help me in such a situation.

It was that my normal routine, my everyday life had been disrupted just enough to make me feel uncomfortable. I usually run to calm down and relax and just use the time to sort through the thoughts in my head that all seem to untangle when I'm running through parks and past storefronts. Now I can't even do that with my injured throat.

One of my coping mechanisms was stripped from me in the process of my mugging and that was hard for me to come to terms with.

I was looking forward to just spending time with my friends tonight, trying to return to a somewhat normal pattern of life outside of my typical go to the gym and then work and come home.

A sense of normalcy was what I strived for and as I ordered sparkling water and Liam rolled his eyes at Cleo, I felt a puzzle piece fall back into place. One out of thousands, but still, it was a start. My friends would always make fun of me for my choices at a bar.

I just stared at him for a moment as he and Cleo made faces to tease me, and instead of saying anything like they probably expected I would, I shrugged and took the gentle ribbing.

Once we had each been given our drinks we made our way over to a table against a wall. Liam and I sat beside each with Cleo sitting across from Liam and against the wall.

They both taught second grade and it was science project week for their kids and the two of them were so over it. I knew that they both secretly enjoyed their kids and the messes but they also definitely got stressed about their kids and the messes.

Liam was calm and level headed whenever he was out with us, but turned on a charismatic charm around children that had them listening to his every word, doing whatever lesson he'd asked for them to complete without complaint.

Cleo was almost Liam’s opposite, the yang to his yin if you will. While Cleo was chatty and charming with us and with her many suitors, she was a calming presence with her students. She never got riled up with them--near them when they couldn't see her, sure. (She'd often make faces and rub her temples and even let out a silent curse when she was alone in her classroom or walking in an empty hallway).

Cleo was so unyieldingly patient and easy going around her students that I often had trouble wrapping my head around it. How Liam and Cleo could alter their personalities back and forth in rapid succession with such success was a little admirable if not very unusual to me.

I think that's why they became such quick friends when Cleo started at the school. She and Liam are inverses of each other in varying situations and that has resulted in a deep understanding between each of them. Their friendship was absolutely adorable. I would be jealous of it if I didn't already get to be a friend to each of them.

“You look really tired, Ruby,” Cleo eyed me up before taking a sip of her red wine. I narrowed my eyes at her but shrugged a moment later.

“Oh cheers,” I told her and Liam, who had nodded in agreement that I looked tired. “You could just say haggard or some other variation of the word shit.”

“Just saying,” she smiled, undeterred by my comments.

“Has Louis been putting you through the ropes again this week?” Liam asked now as he sipped his drink. He had gotten a little bit of froth on his upper lip but he saw my eyes go to his mouth and immediately wiped it away with the back of his hand before I could say something.

“No,” I shook my head.

Really, work had been wonderfully normal all week. No projects, no weird discrepancies or anything. I still needed to talk to Louis about his stress levels and not opening a fourth location, but he'd not mentioned it all week, so I was giving it some time before I brought it up. Mostly I was still trying to figure out how to bring it up.

“I just haven't been sleeping well,” I said.

A half-truth.

I was sleeping fine. I'd only had one nightmare all week. It was really that I couldn't fall asleep. I didn't feel secure enough to fall asleep and drift off to unconsciousness. I tossed and turned, not actually asleep until I eventually was overtaken by exhaustion in the early hours of the morning.

It helped a bit that I couldn't wake up early to exercise and therefore got to sleep in an extra hour and a half, but it really wasn't that much of a help in the grand scheme of it all.

Oddly enough I didn't feel all that scared as I walked my street or walked in the city. I wasn't afraid to come out with friends tonight. I knew the statistical likelihood of it happening again was so low that I was just my normal state of nervous when I went anywhere.

I had downloaded one of those safe walk apps that you hold and when you let go for a few seconds it calls the cops automatically. It wouldn't stop anything, but I felt minutely better for having it anyway.

It wasn't that I was afraid to leave my house for fear of scary people in the world. I was still considerably bright-eyed about Chicago and the great big world in general.

I was just unsettled. It had become my constant. I was constantly checking over my shoulder, even in broad daylight. It had become my constant companion, the gnawing feeling in my stomach that kept me up at night.

I was in a heightened state at all times, my nerves not really calming down since last Saturday night. I hadn't been able to properly relax, not even in the shower with warm water willing my muscles to loosen and the steam surrounding me begging me to let go of the tension.

I had moments, when Louis would make me laugh or when I was on the train in the morning just seeing the orange sunrise through the dingy windows before it went underground that I'd take a breath and feel normal.

The feeling would be gone before the breath was even released, but that faint glimmer would live in my mind all day even if I couldn't hold onto it like I wanted. I knew my normal was out there. I just couldn't find it in a quantity that I could hold onto.

I was pulled back into the present by Cleo as she laughed at Liam.

“I can't believe I forgot about that!” Cleo said through her laughter.

I'd completely missed whatever story Liam had told, and he was giving me a strange look. He could tell I had been somewhere else in my head. He wasn't upset by it, rather he was just curious.

“One of my students managed to get herself stuck in the broom closet next to my classroom when she got the doors mixed up,” he filled me in. “She didn't even seem to mind that she was stuck. Instead, she just started tidying up the closet. When we realised where she was and got her unstuck, we found her sweeping the tiny space with one of the brooms.”

I laughed at the story once I'd been filled in. I vaguely remember being told about it when it happened. It was not long after Cleo started working there and the whole school went on lockdown when they couldn't place the girl. Cleo has been so nervous, terrified that she would somehow be blamed and get fired.

I forced myself to focus on my friends now, gave myself orders to engage in the conversation and just let my heightened state slip to the back of my mind while I engaged with them. It was as close to normal as I could manage.

I smiled when Liam began talking about a new band he’d found. Liam was one of those people to listen to a song or a CD over and over again until he remembered there was other music out there and then he would feel guilty for being so one-track minded--in some cases literally. He never stopped listening because he was bored though, it was simply because he had remembered something else wonderful or found something new.

The band is from Vancouver and he found them through a friend who'd seen them as an opener for a bigger band. Liam was now very invested in this band--a pop-punk band supposedly. He did promise to send us each the band info later tonight though so that we could listen as well. Cleo and I had each had a pop-punk phase.

“Have you been training for the Chicago Marathon?” Liam asked now. They're each on their second drink while I continued to sip my bubbly water. “I know you ran it last year,” he added.

I shrugged. “It's only a month away and I run around 20 miles daily, but I haven't been marathon training per-say. I haven't quite decided if I should do the race yet or not.”

“Isn't it expensive to sign up so late?” Cleo asked.

“It is,” I nodded. “Marathons are expensive anyway though, so I have enough set aside for it just in case. I just have to make up my mind.”

Liam and Cleo each took that for their answers and nodded. I didn't mention that I was going to sign up this past Sunday but after my attack, I needed to wait to train and then wait to see if I'd been set back at all by the week off.

Now though, with having signed up for morning kickboxing classes I doubted I'd be running the marathon. I wanted to push myself, but maybe it was time to push myself in a different direction, to try something new and challenging in a different right.

“Let me know if you decide to do it,” Liam said. “I'll definitely come down to cheer you on and to make fun of you afterwards when you're feeling too exhausted to do anything.”

“I appreciate that support, Liam,” I nudged him with my arm before he and Cleo start in on what they're going to do with their kids on their field trip to the Field Museum next week.

By the time I was walking home and Cleo texted me saying she’d made it home alright, I could feel myself shedding the normalcy I had pretended to dwell within while I was out with my friends.

I had donned the cloak of fine, just fine Ruby for a few hours tonight and it seemed to work wonders. I was worried that Louis might notice my heightened state after a few days and that Liam and Cleo would catch on as well, but it seemed I was a better actor that I gave myself credit for.

Before I got into my bed that night I checked both front doors and both back doors to make sure they were each locked and even then once I slipped under the covers I felt jittery and unsure of my security.

Eventually, the exhaustion pulled me under and I fell asleep with worried thoughts and a tension still pulling tightly on my shoulders.

“Honestly I don't feel all that great about you participating today while you're injured,” he said. “I recommend you sit out this week's session, you can watch and ask questions, but I'm hesitant to let you work out.”

I made a face and felt my heart start to beat faster at the thought of sitting out another activity because of my attack.

“It's really not that bad,” I appealed, feeling my desperation and trying not to let it sink out into my tone. “The bruising is almost a week old. I've been resting since Saturday. I'm kind of restless to do something at this point.”

“The fact that that green and yellow colouring is from what is almost a week old bruise does not make me feel better,” Brian commented. Even with my darker skin tone, the yellow and green were pretty distinguishable and considerably garish.

“But if you think you're up for it…” he trailed off now, giving me a look. “If anything is even a bit uncomfortable--or if you start coughing--you're done, you're sitting and watching until next week. You got it?”

I nodded.

“Absolutely,” I assured him.

“Okay then,” he gave me a once-over and shook his head, almost as if he was shaking his head in disbelief at himself for allowing me to participate. I knew he was right to be worried, right to be hesitant, the bruising was pretty awful. I just couldn't keep sitting when my mind and body needed me to be moving and working and learning.

“Now you don't have to tell me what happened, but I have a feeling it's why you're here,” Brian said softly, his eyes going from my neck back to my eyes with both scepticism and understanding.

I didn't say anything, I just bit my lip and looked down at my shoes before I met his knowing gaze and nodded.

“You’re not going to be upset once we start pairing up to do demos, are you? Because if you are, that's fine,” he gave me a small smile. “And don't worry that you missed the first two classes. The first was mainly cardio to start getting us into shape to do these moves and the second was half questions half cardio. This is our first demo class.”

“Okay,” I nodded. “I think I'll be okay. I'm mad at myself for not doing anything to stop it more than anything else.”

“That's normal,” Brian gave me a knowing look. “We’ll break up the class with cardio in the middle, so seriously let me know if your throat starts hurting again. I won't stand for letting you get worse on my watch,” he narrowed his eyes for a moment before he gave me another small smile.

I took a deep breath and matched his gaze. “I'll be careful.”

“It's nice to meet you, Ruby. We’re glad you're here,” he said after a moment before giving me a pat on the shoulder as he walked past me and back toward the front of the studio to start the class.

It was the first time all week I had left my house without something covering my neck, or more accurately, covering the bruises on my neck. They had faded substantially but were still not healed.

My voice had been normal since sometime around midday on Tuesday after Louis forced cup after cup of warm tea on me. I could breathe normally, too. The light bruising around my ribs had healed enough that when I took a deep breath it didn't stretch my midsection uncomfortably.

It wasn’t until I brushed my hands against my neck the wrong way or laid awkwardly against my pillow that I would notice the twinge, the soreness.

I was pretty sure I could handle light exercise in the self-defence class. I hoped I could, anyway.

I had spent all day anxious to get here--the good kind of anxious. I wanted to learn and to get better, to learn how to use my body in a way I never had before.

I had expected the class to be packed, but it wasn't. There were only ten of us, including myself and Brian, the instructor. There were women ranging from a few years younger than me to maybe mid-forties.

Brian himself was probably just about my age. He was wearing a blue and yellow Michigan t-shirt which made me smile to myself a bit. The concentration of Michigan alumni in Chicago was pretty large. It made sense, it was a big city and closer than New York. For anyone who wanted to get out and be in the world, this was the place to go.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as Brian changed the music slightly and then started talking us through our warm up.

The warm-up left me feeling considerably better. I knew the feeling was my endorphins and that I would fall back down after the class. After a few jumping jacks and dynamic stretches, I was fighting the urge to cough, but the rest of me felt so good.

I took a few sips of water after we finished and avoided Brian’s gaze in my direction as I did so. His eyes kept glancing back at me throughout the exercises. I knew he was worried about me, and I knew my throat was hurting a bit, but I soldiered on anyway.

We talked about a few things, like what scared one of the older women about walking to her car at night and that one of the girls who went to college nearby and was terrified to go out at night because she was afraid of sexual assault.

Brian took his time answering questions as he paired each of us off with another member of the class. He paired himself off with me.

“Because I’m the only one I trust to work through some of this with those bruises on your neck,” he whispered in between explaining to Lucy, the college girl, the statistics of sexual assault.

“Not that numbers will make you feel better,” he shrugged. “But sometimes knowledge is power, so before we start the actual self-defence moves, knowing is the first step.”

“We’re going to start today with what to do when you're attacked from behind,” Brian said to the group as he came up beside me. “I’m going to talk Ruby through a move and then the rest of us are going to try it, so watch closely, okay?”

Everyone nodded at him in understanding as he turned to me, and his eyes met mine. I nodded in understanding as well.

“If I'm coming up behind Ruby and I put my hand over her mouth to stifle her cries for help, she's going to grab my wrist and pull it down,” he explained.

He gently placed his hand over my mouth and continued to explain as I wrapped my hand around his wrist. I thought back to that night and how I’d done nothing to really help myself and my resolve to do this outweighed any fear or any sour memory of the event and I zoned into what Brian was saying.

“Now, when Ruby yanks my wrist down she’s also going to bend forward from the hips, right? This will force me to bend with her and it will make me weaker,” he kept on. He gave me a nudge to go ahead and do as he said. So I did.

I pulled his arm down and bent us forward so that he was in a weaker position. I could tell he was giving in a bit for the demonstration, but the move was more than I'd done in real life and I was feeling powerful. One manoeuvre in and I was feeling empowered.

“From here, Ruby can bring her elbow into the side I've left exposed to hold her. She can also bring one of her legs up if she's feeling balanced enough, and if she acts like she's going to kick her own butt she'll end up kicking me in the groin in the process.”

Again he nudged me to go ahead and keep going with the demo. I brought my elbow into his side, not hard, just enough to apply a bit of pressure to his side and show what he was talking about before I balanced myself, took a breath, and brought my leg up, low so that I wouldn't actually hit him, but again, just enough to keep with the demonstration.

“Very good, Ruby. Thank you,” he nodded, I'm sure appreciative that I'd been mindful not to hurt him. He moved back away from me and looked out at the other four pairs.

He let each of them start in on the technique watching each pairing carefully and occasionally amending or critiquing.

“Because this is one of our more basic moves, we’re going to just keep coming back to it until it becomes second nature,” he explained while still at my side. “I don't want any of you to freeze up in fear if anything ever does happen. I want these moves to be instinct, I want you to know that you know what you're doing,” he said.

The rest of the class continued on much like this. Throughout demos, Brian would constantly pause to answer questions and make sure everyone understood.

It was when we hit the cardio section and we're going through burpees and plank jacks and more jumping jacks than I cared to count that my throat felt like it was on fire. I had to pause in the middle of a timed set of high knees to try and quell the feeling as best I could with water.

Brian cut his glance to me, but I hid my pain well enough that he didn't say anything. I'm sure he knew though.

Just before the hour mark and the end of class he had us all go through the basic move again, making sure we still remembered, still could follow through with it before we stretched a bit and he dismissed us until next week.

“You did really well tonight, Ruby,” Brian said as he gathered his things. “And thanks for not kicking me in the groin,” he smirked.

I laughed and picked up my own bag, slinging it over my shoulder. “No problem.”

“How's the throat?” He asked as we headed out of the studio together. He locked it behind him.

“It feels fine.”

“Lying doesn't make it better.”

“It was nothing I couldn't handle,” I assured him as I shrugged on my jacket, knowing that while the sweat was drying on me I would be getting colder. I also knew what September was like here, and I wasn’t about pretending it wasn’t getting colder.

“Take care of yourself, Ruby,” he said as we trekked down the stairs of the gym. “I can tell your athletic, and that you're struggling with what happened in some way. I was glad to see you feel empowered today.”

I made a face at him as we exited the building.

“Yeah, I could tell… You just have to take what happened and learn from it. You can't keep thinking over what didn't happen or what you should've done.”

“Did something happen to you?” I asked and then covered my mouth with my hand in shock that I'd asked that. My eyes went wide and I moved my hand to start apologizing to him. “I'm so sorry,” I backtracked. “That was… you didn't ask me and now I've just… you don't have to-”

He laughed at my babbling, looking down at his shoes, before looking back up at me.

“It's okay,” he told me. “It was my sister, and I was only a few blocks away, too, and never have I felt more powerless.”

“And she's…?”

“She's fine,” he assured me. “But I started teaching the classes back on campus in Ann Arbor because of it. When I moved here I kept the classes going once I found a gym. I just felt like if I could help others what happened to her wouldn't happen to other people.”

“Guilt?” I could see that along with the other emotions quite clearly on his face.

“At first, yeah,” he shrugged. “Now it's now about empowerment. I want you and everyone I teach to feel safe in whatever way they can.”

When he said that I really felt he meant it. Brian seemed like a genuinely decent person. He seemed like he was a straight shooter, as well. He didn’t let me get away with any of the bullshit I was pulling and he also didn’t make me feel like an idiot for trying to pull it in the first place.

I didn’t know if Brian and I would become friends over the course of his class, but I was grateful that I had found his class, that it was him in charge of helping me. I genuinely felt like even if we didn’t become friends that I could trust him. I felt good about my choice to take the classes.

“And to think, I was probably on campus when you were teaching those classes,” I smiled, almost ironically. “I probably could've been better prepared if I'd paid more attention to my safety before now.”

“You went to Michigan?” He asked as we swiped our cards and climbed the stairs for the train.

“Graduated in 2014.”

“2013,” He smiled. “You were there when I taught. Sorry I couldn't have prevented this.”

“It's not your fault,” I assured him, even though I felt like he was more apologizing that it had happened and all and not necessarily taking the blame for it. “But I'm glad I found your class.”

The Northbound Red Line train was pulling up and I made to get on it, noticing that Brian hung back. “I'm heading South, but I'll see you next week, Ruby.”

“See ya, Brian,” I waved over my shoulder as I stepped on the train and headed toward the pharmacy.

I could've walked home from the gym, but I noticed that I was running low on my salve for my bruises and it wouldn't hurt to pick up some lotion while I was out. It was starting to get colder, after all, and my skin was starting to show it, too.