Out of Bounds

Chapter 1

Gwen

I watched the bright morning sunshine, high in the sky over what should have been another beautiful day in my life, but the clouds within my heart darkened the day over by about five times. It might as well have been stormy and wicked looking. That was how I felt, anyway.

I was being forced to leave the school I’d been attending for three years. It was not fair. I’d gone over and over the events that had led to my dismissal, and I didn’t see any other way out of it. I was out of chances to fight this. It was bullshit. That’s all it was. There was no other way to describe it. Professor Alex Nelson was to blame for my expulsion. He’d been the instrument behind it all.

My semester had started like any other, full of hope and promise, with my senior year looming—my last year. I would graduate in the spring and I would be on my way to bigger and better things. I had no idea what those things really were, but I was planning on doing something with my life. I wasn’t sure what a degree in philosophy was actually going to do for me, or what it really qualified me to do in the world, but it was something I believed in and it was something I was passionate about. I’ve always believed that if you follow passion, then the world will respond to that passion positively.

But this time, I chose to follow my mind, and to follow my morals. And it had cost me dearly.

Bastard, I muttered to myself. Maybe, I will find a way to burn down his house. He wouldn’t know it was me, right?

I shook my head and smiled at the silly thought. It was comforting, but still silly all the same. As bad as this was, it was not worth going to prison over. If anything, Alex Nelson should have been going to prison. I could just see him now in his little orange jump suit, looking frail and afraid as the other inmates made him feel very welcomed...

I laughed at the fantasy. I wondered if they would hold back their true feelings.

The first day of class, I’d noticed Alex looking at me a little more closely than he probably should have been. I tried to ignore it. I tried my best to pretend it wasn’t real, that my professor was not leering at me, but it was becoming obvious the way he was looking at my chest, and the way he would smile at me.

I tried to let it go, but one day he asked me to stay after class to discuss something. I’d failed my first quiz. Speech wasn’t my strong suit, and I didn’t really see the need to learn all the different labels of each part of the speech outline. No one was ever supposed to see it but me anyway. And I didn’t plan to give any stupid speeches. But Alex, wanted to try to help me. I had a feeling it would be weird.

And I was right. He basically began to hit on me the moment we were alone. He told me that he would make it well worth my while, if I made it well worth his, to get a bit of extra credit...

I told him no angrily and I stormed out of this class. I was going to tell the Dean, but I figured that they wouldn’t believe me. I’d just tanked an assignment, it was my word against his, and he was a distinguished member of the faculty.

I kept my mouth shut and I studied as hard for the next quiz as I possibly could. He gave me a D. I knew I had done better than that. I went to his office furious over the grade and told him how ridiculous it was. He just smiled and said, Well, I believe you know exactly how to improve your grade. You just have to... work a little harder...

He emphasized the word work. I was recording the whole thing, but it was almost like he knew that, and was choosing his words carefully. I could see his facial expressions, which were not evident on the recording. I knew exactly what he meant, but when I played it for the Dean, he just shook his head and said that he didn’t hear anything inappropriate there.

I told Alex that I was not going to put out and sleep with him. I wasn’t like that and he could not bully me. I had it all on the recording. But Alex was ready for this. He just said. I think that is enough of this conversation. His voice was stern, but his eyes were laughing. Leave my office and never come to me with this again.

You need to talk to other people. You can’t be the first person he has done this to. You have to fight this, Brandy Newman, one of my best friends said when I told her everything.

I know... but I just don’t know how I can, I replied. He is going to flunk me. I know it.

Suddenly, a knock on the door came. The assistant Dean and a few associates were there in our dorm room. They said they had received word that there was drug paraphernalia in our room. We were forced to leave the room while they checked. They didn’t find drugs, but they did find stolen exams. Several of them, Xeroxed copies.

They were all in my drawer. I was charged with cheating and I was promptly kicked out of school. It was awful. I had no recourse, nothing to do to fight it. I tried and I was told that the evidence spoke for itself. I tried to explain to everyone that this was all Alex’s fault, but it did not matter. They believed him over me. I knew he set me up. He had me kicked out of school before I could stir up any more trouble. That was it. I was gone.

And good riddance. With a school like that, maybe it was better that I was leaving. I could start my life now and find out what I really wanted to do with it. People were supposed to do that in college, and it had never really worked out for me. I was just spinning my wheels. The only thing I thought I might do was go to graduate school, get a higher degree, and then maybe become a professor myself somewhere. So, essentially, I would stay in school in some capacity for the rest of my life. I would just move from one side of the desk to the other. That might have been a fun life, but truthfully, I didn’t see myself living a life that boring. I wanted something interesting, something that would excite me to get out of bed every single day- ready to take on the world, but so far, I hadn’t come upon anything like that.

I felt a little lost as I sat there outside of the dorm waiting for my mother to pick me up and take me home. My own car had died on me about three weeks earlier. The transmission was shot, and the car was too old and too cheap to bother with. That would have cost twice what the car was worth to fix it, hard pass. I could hitch rides with friends, and I lived on campus, which was strange for a senior to do, but I loved it. I liked being close to the festivities on campus, making new friends, greeting the new freshman coming in and showing them around. It was an honor and a privilege for me to do that here at Southern California State University. It was a great school and a great place to live, but I was being asked to leave now. I was being forced to give up what I thought was a place I had proven I belonged. It felt so weird to just be put out that way. And it was worse to be humiliated by a bastard professor, to know that the bad guy had won. I just hoped that someday I could find a way to pay him back. He deserved everything bad in this world that would come his way.

I’m going to miss you, my best friend Lara Beaumont said as she hugged me. She had missed a class to be there with me, to see me off. I hugged her tightly and told her to stay in touch, but I wasn’t sure she would. In a few weeks, she would forget all about me and she would just assimilate back into the life of the average college sophomore. We’d met last year when she’d entered the school as a freshman. I had shown her around a bit, and it turned out we had the same type of humor. We hit it off right away and we changed some things around so that we could be in the same prereq classes. We had a few English classes together and it made college so much more fun to have someone like her around me.

I eventually told her to go on to class because I was feeling very sad standing there. It was comforting to have her with me, but I honestly thought I might burst into tears at any moment, and I wasn’t about to have people seeing me cry. That was a bad way to leave this school. I had enjoyed my time there, but now the place felt dead to me, and it had dealt me a hand of great injustice.

A few moments later, I watched my mother’s SUV pull up. She was smiling from ear to ear. She hated that I’d chosen to go to school two hundred miles from home, but I really wanted a fresh start and I hoped to leave all the memories of high school behind. In high school, I was all but invisible. People did not really know me. I was just there. I hung around, had a few close friends, and then everyone else just kind of ignored me.

When I came to college, I decided it was a great time to start over. I found that people in college were really much more mellow, especially this far south, than the people I went to high school with. I shed my skin, came out of my shell, and soon I was becoming fairly popular. It was a lot more work, being popular, than I’d ever thought it would be, but I had fun.

And now it was over. I couldn’t believe it. The reality of the situation was tearing me apart, hitting me like two by four right between the eyes. I was trying my best not to cry, and just spill all my emotions all over the place, but it was really starting to get to me. I just wanted to start over, to somehow get that bastard before he could get me. This wasn’t justice. How could the bad guys win like this in real life? Surely, there had to be something I could do.

I thought I would find a way, but it might take some time. I might have to speak to some other people about this, someone back home who would understand my side of the story better. Everyone there seemed deeply connected to that damn school somehow.

Hey, baby, my mother said as she hopped out and helped me with some of my bags. We were going to send some movers back to get the rest of my stuff later.

Mom, I’m not a baby, so please don’t refer to me as one, I said.

You will always be my darling, baby girl, she replied. And don’t forget it. I don’t care who knows it.

I sighed suddenly very grateful that none of my friends were still around to hear this. Ok, I replied. I put away a few of my bags in the back seat and then I slipped into the passenger seat. I was not exactly looking forward to the three hour trip, but at least it would put some distance between me and this fucking school that I’d grown to hate.

You know this isn’t your fault, my mother said as she pulled onto the main road. She’d been nice and quiet for a few minutes so far and I thought she was actually going to go the entire trip- for the first time in her life- without mentioning the one thing I didn’t really want to talk about. But she couldn’t resist. That bastard isn’t going to get away with this.

Mom... I don’t want to talk about it...

Well, that’s tough. We can’t ignore this sweetie. We aren’t letting him or that school push you around like this. You are a good student, a wonderful young lady, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand by and let this happen. I’ve been talking to Uncle Louie.

Uncle Louie?

He was a lawyer for thirty years, she said.

But he is your Uncle Louie, and he stopped being a lawyer twenty years ago.

So, not that much has changed. He might be able to help. Don’t you think it’s worth it?

I sighed. I don’t know. I’m mad at the situation, but I’m kind of relieved to be out of school. I wasn’t sure what I was really doing there. I am no closer to knowing what I want to do with my life than I was when I was twelve, and they made us take that Career Education class.

She sighed. Well, at any rate, this was a grave injustice and I’m not going to rest until it is resolved. There is going to be hell to play. No one messes with my family, especially my little girl.

I rolled my eyes. I hated it when my mother referred to me as her little girl. I just wanted to go home and relax for a bit. I would fight this crap when I had the energy, but it felt futile. It would amount to nothing and it would cost us time and probably money.

We need to find some real dirt on Alex, I said. That’s the only way we can make anything stick on him. Or, if I can find a way to get to some of the other girls he has done this to and get them to talk maybe? But they are all so scared, especially after they saw what happened to me. No one believed my story; I was kicked out of school. So, good luck getting any of them to talk.

You can’t think like that, so negatively sweetie. You have to be positive. They don’t know who they are messing with.

I sighed. Ok, I replied. My mother was determined, and there was no stopping her or talking her out of it. She’d made up her damn mind.

So, there is something else I wanted to run by you, she said.

What’s that?

Well, I kind of got married...

I let the words sink in a few seconds and then I turned to look at her to see how much she was playing with me. She was serious and very happy. I could tell. What the fuck ...?

What? What do you mean? When? I asked. I had a zillion questions that needed answered right now.

I got married about a month ago, she said.

A month? You’ve been keeping this a secret from me for a whole month?

Yeah, I wanted to surprise you, and besides, it wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted to say on the phone. You never come home and it’s a long drive, so I thought this would be a good time to bring it up.

Mom, you don’t keep something like that from me. What the hell? When were you even seeing anyone? How long has this thing been going on? Marriage? Really? Why wasn’t I invited to the wedding at least?

There was no wedding. We got hitched at city hall.

Wow, that’s romantic.

It wasn’t, but it was fine, she said. We wanted to do it fast and make things easier. We didn’t need some fancy, expensive wedding.

You aren’t pregnant or something are you? I asked.

She laughed. No. I’m not pregnant.

Well, what’s his name?

Zeke. Zeke Edwards, she said.

He divorced?

He’s a widower. His first wife died ten years ago. He has a son from that marriage named Brady. He is twenty-six. He is very handsome.

Ok... I said rolling my eyes. So, now I have to live with you and some strange guy I don’t know.

Zeke is a great guy. We actually went to high school together. I always had a big crush on him. We reconnected at our thirty year reunion recently. It was great to see him. He’s a cop. Brady is as well.

I still can’t believe that you did this without even mentioning it to me.

Well, I did. I had my reasons. I was a spontaneous decision, I know. And it’s too big of a thing to just spring on people, so we are telling our friends and family a little bit at a time. I didn’t put it on social media or something.

I shook my head. So, he is living in the house?

No, I actually moved into his house. It’s much bigger than mine.

Well, shit, I said. Is there even a room for me there?

There is, but you do have another option, she said.

What do you mean?

Well, I met with the lawyers about your grandmothers will a few days ago.

My grandmother died in a car accident three months earlier when a drunk driver went through a red light. I was very close to her and it hit all of us very hard. My mother had bounced back, she was the type of person who hid her real feelings down very deeply. I wished I could be more like that sometimes, but I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve.

Ok, I said.

She left you her trailer and her car, mom said.

I have her trailer? And the car?

Yeah, she said. Insurance fixed the car, so it’s drivable and the trailer is ready to go if you want it. Of course, you have to pay for the utilities and the upkeep on the car, plus whatever bills are attached to both insurance. But if you are planning to get a job, you can totally do that.

I was shocked. I was basically going to be living on my own and I didn’t have to spend time getting to know this random, new guy my mother had just married. My parents had divorced when I was five and my mother had never even dated anyone seriously since then. It was odd to think of her as actually being married to someone else.

Ok, I said. I’ll do that, if I can get a job that is.

Well, I’d be willing to pay the first month for you if you think you can get a job in that time, she said.

Thanks, I replied. I should be able to. I do have a few years of college under my belt, but then again, I don’t think people care about how many years of school you have. They just want to know you graduated something. I’ve only graduated high school. Shit. I’m going to have to apply to some other school and see about getting my credits transferred over.

You will be fine, my mother said. You have worked places during high school and during the summers the past few years. Something will land for you.

I really wasn’t so sure. As we drove along and I tried to get my mind to accept all these psychotic changes happening around me, I wondered exactly how much trouble I was in. My life felt in some very real sense, like it was falling apart. There was nothing going for me at the moment, except I was now in possession of a trailer with no utilities working and a car that had come close to being totaled and currently had no insurance on it.

Yeah, this was not where I wanted to be at twenty-one years of age. Dammit. What else could go wrong?

I tried to keep a level head about everything, and look forward to the next chapter with an open mind, but the last chapter had ended on such a down note that it was very hard to be at all optimistic.

But I was still trying...

Chapter 2

Brady

I found my body rolling out of the bed as the alarm blasted right beside me on the nightstand. I sat up quickly and lashed out with my left hand to grab my phone. I then turned off the alarm, thankful for the silence filling the room after the deafening sound from my phone. I had it set on the actual alarm sound and it was piercing. I’d tried more pleasing sounds, but they always seemed to allow me to sleep more than they attempted to wake me up.

I rubbed my eyes and quickly ignored the voice telling me I could sleep for another hour if I wanted to. That was the voice of a loser. I had things to do, and I didn’t have that much time to do them in. It was time to rock and roll.

Come on, Brady, I pep talked to myself. Let’s get going.

I put on some clothes (I sleep in the nude) and after admiring my above average penis in the mirror, I put on some boxer shorts, exercise shorts, hand wraps, and my boxing gloves. I then went downstairs to the basement, where I kept my heavy bag and had my makeshift home gym set up.

I went to work for thirty minutes doing different types of drills and routines. I’d been boxing and kickboxing since I was a teenager, and it was a great way to stay in shape and keep myself sharp. Being a police officer was not as easy as some people might have thought it was. I typically had the Encino beat, but I lived in Reseda. I was not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, and though people liked to think that there were no bad elements in Encino, there were... everywhere. You quickly figured that out as a cop.

I finished my workout and then went upstairs to the second story to take a quick shower. After that, it was a protein shake, and out the door wearing my uniform to fight crime. That was how I always liked to think of myself, as a crime fighter. It made me laugh sometimes, but I could be the superhero of my own movie. Not a damn thing wrong with that.

When I got to work, I quickly checked in and hurried to the morning briefing. It was dullsville as could be, but it was the way