I'd Do Anything

Game five against Ottawa, Trisha basically stopped watching after the third Ottawa goal. There was a moment of hope when the Canadiens scored, but when Ottawa scored again the entire bar gave up.

“Turn this shit off.” Trisha muttered to Mike the bar tender. “If I keep watching it, I’ll cry. Isn’t there a Ranger game on tonight or something?”

“Yeah, give me a minute, I’ll find it.”

“Maybe the Rangers will give Crosby a concussion.” PJ said hopefully. “That’ll cheer me up.”

“The Rangers are a completely non-physical team.” Annalise replied glumly, watching the TV at the other end of the bar that was still showing the Montreal game. “All players, no enforcers. That’s what Lars says, anyway.”

“Annalise, don’t kill the hope.” Trisha said.

The Rangers won, without any Penguins receiving physical injuries. Trisha and PJ both drained their beers and he paid for their next round. Annalise headed home, figuring that Lars would be in a bad mood and might want to talk.

“Well, Ottawa has to have it out of their systems by now.” PJ said hopefully. “We’ll get them on Sunday.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s wrong with you? You got money riding on this or something?”

“No.”

“Come on, cheer up. They still live to fight another day.”

Lana slinked into the bar, looking around nervously. When she saw Trisha, she hurried to her side and sat. “Hey.”

Trisha straightened up and looked at her friend, frowning. “Hey. You don’t hang out here normally.”

“I wanted to talk, and I figured you’d be here. Issac and I got in a fight.”

“What about?”

She shrugged and turned to face Mikey to order a drink. As she did, Trisha noticed the heavily applied concealer on her jaw.

“Lana, what happened?”

“I don’t know, alright?” She said, watching Mikey mix a very strong LIT. “We…we had a good night. Everything was fine. And then he started drinking. And usually that’s okay, but I guess he’s been really stressed with work, and he said something about getting married. And I reminded him that I had to get divorced first.”

Trisha nodded, remembering Lana’s first husband. It was a very short affair that happened in Vancouver. Though they had been separated for six years, Lana had never put in the paperwork for her actual divorce.

“And then…he started calling me a slut and this and that. And I started crying and he got even more mad. So I grabbed one of his stupid records and smashed it. And then we…we sort of got into a first fight.”

Trisha’s knuckles were white. As soon as she saw the concealer, she knew where the story was going. It didn’t mean she had to like it.

“He hit you?”

“Well, I hit him first.” Lana said, tugging on her hair. “And I throw a hard punch.”

Lana was a big girl. She was five-nine with a sturdy frame, and big hips from riding horses. In college she and Trisha had played roller derby for a year.

But that didn’t mean that Trisha could be any less pissed.

Trisha slowly stood. “He’s at your house, right?”

“Trish, I don’t want you to do anything about it.” Lana begged, grabbing her arm. “We’re fine! We apologized! I just wanted to vent, that’s all!”

“Apologized?” Trisha spat, furious. “Apologized for what? Did he apologize for never respecting you? For getting drunk? Because I know him, Lana, and I know there’s no way in hell he apologized for hitting you. Because that would be too decent of him.”

By now the whole bar was staring. It was like a scene from one of Annalise’s soap operas.

“You’re the one who always is preaching about the gender equality shit, Trisha! I hit him first, and he hit back – “

“And that doesn’t send up any red flags? That you need to hit each other? And don’t you dare call that gender equality. When you love someone, Lana, you don’t hit them. Period. Maybe one of these days you’ll meet someone who can teach you that.”

Lana slammed down her LIT and stood. “Well, Trisha, I hope when you actually find yourself in a lasting relationship you’ll know what to do when things go wrong.”

She stormed out of the bar, and Trisha watched her with mixed feelings. She hadn’t meant to get so angry at her. But it was frustrating to watch someone let themselves be destroyed. And now the situation was even worse than what she had originally told Max.

Still upset, Trisha turned back to the bar. Mikey came over to collect Lana’s unfinished LIT.

“Hey Mike? Can you make sure – “

“Issac is on the no-fly list?” he finished. “Yeah. No problem. Don’t like the wife-beaters hanging out here anyway. Gives us a bad name.”

~*~

The next morning, Trisha woke up late and headed over to the shop. She had told Paul she’d be in the store to help him out in the afternoon and rearrange the store for board game night, and then be gone hopefully at five. Saturdays were usually the busiest day of the week. She didn’t want to see Lana, not right after their fight, but it couldn’t be helped.

Before doing anything, she slipped into the studio to put down her purse and coat. New pages were sitting on Lana’s desk, and Trisha walked over and picked them up. They were the full color pages of Max getting beat up, like she had asked for.

With a sigh she headed back out to the main store front, picking up the new volume of Dengeki Daisy, a manga she read. She thumbed through to the part she had left off at. Paul was helping a father find something suitable for his six year old son.

“No, Deadpool can be a little gruesome.” Paul said. “I don’t really recommend it for kids. Honestly I’d stick to the basics. X-Men, Captain America, you know. The new Hawkeye is really popular too.”

“Hey.”

Trisha looked up to see Lana standing on the other side of the counter. She still had a ton of concealer on.

“Oh. Hey.”

“Look, I’m sorry about what I said about you being single.” Lana began. “And…well everything else. But I needed my friend, you know?”

“I know.” Trisha said glumly. “But you have to understand, you keep coming to me with this stuff and I know that you could do so much better.”

“But we have really cute moments too! Like last night …”

Lana kept talking, and Trisha tuned her out, staring at her ear. She had heard it all before, and she didn’t want to hear it again because even if it was true it wasn’t right.

“But I love him.” Lana finished. “That’s what matters.”

Trisha nodded, like a good friend, and let her think that it was all okay. But it wasn’t. This was the point where love wasn’t enough.

She remembered once telling Max about why she had broken up with her own abusive boyfriend, Anthony, years ago on the way to a party. In her case, the boyfriend had been emotionally abusive. It was different, she knew that. But sometimes it had felt as if he had hit her.

“It’s just, he kept saying he loved me and this and that but I just don’t feel loved any more. I don’t know if I ever did.” She had said, hugging her knees in the passenger seat.

He sighed and threw on his car’s blinker. “Well Trish, maybe that’s just it. Maybe love just wasn’t enough anymore.” He smiled at her. “I’m sorry, but I’m glad it’s over.”

“Yeah.” She said, not knowing it till she said it. “Me too.”

Poor Max. She had no idea how he had stuck by her for that year without losing his cool like she had last night. She had loved Anthony, mainly because he wasn’t Max.

And back then, not loving Max was what she spent most of her time doing.

“What are you thinking about?” Lana asked.

Trisha sighed and looked at her manga. “I wish we could write manga. Well, not manga. Slice of life. Or crazy fantasy battle things. But no one would buy it.”

“We could publish online.”

“Isn’t there a clause against that in our contract?” Trisha sighed. “Besides, we don’t have time with how busy we are with Curtain. Not that I don’t love writing Curtain. I just want to write a romance.”

“You could write in a romance arc.”

Trisha sighed and reopened the manga. “Maybe.”