The steady, rhythmic pounding of the punching bag was competing against the sound of my heart in my ears. Each blow I delivered was an explosion of energy. I felt it leave my body in sporadic sparks, igniting a flame within me that felt untamable. Though my limbs grew heavier and ached with passion, something wasn't letting me stop.

I wasn't actively imagining the faces of all my enemies as I delivered the blows, yet the aggression was there. There were complex emotions underneath every jab, every right hook, that threatened to overtake me if I didn't release them into the lifeless sack of sawdust.

At first, the boxing session was torturous. I had to go through numerous rounds of laps around the gym, several sets of burpees and crunches, and a vomit inducing amount of jumping jacks. It was as if my instructor, a bulky woman with broad shoulders and calf muscles that were the size of my thighs, had taken one look at me and decided I needed to be broken down. Whenever I would stop moving, placing my hands on my knees as I tried to remind myself what it felt like to breathe, she yelled at me in her thick Italian accent. She would say "If you can't handle this, then get out of my gym!" It awakened my anger but more so my pride.

It kept me going.

It was a few minutes into the actual boxing where I had reached an euphoria. It was like I had reached the top of a mountain. I ached all the way down to my bones but the worst of it was over. My body was warm and adrenaline was swimming through my veins. I wanted more.

My instructor, Gina, had demonstrated some basic moves and had me copy her as she critiqued my form. She didn't have to make many corrections but instead of complimenting how well I was doing, she upped the intensity.

As I returned my borrowed gloves into the bin at the back of the gym, a towel hanging over my shoulder for the showers, Gina stopped me. I was about to thank her for the class but she spoke before I could get a word in.

Her tattooed eyebrows narrowed at me. She was only a few years my senior. I had seen pictures of her as a teen on the wall of the gym's entrance. It seemed like she had been boxing her whole life.

"You would do better if you were in shape," she said, crossing her arms over her neon pink sports bra. I could smell the strawberry scent of her deodorant. "Start working out regularly. You need stamina in a fight."

With that, she left me.

After a little more pushing from Vincent, I decided to take his advice and learn some self defense. It felt a bit silly to me. If my attacker had a gun, then punching and kicking was useless. I couldn't deflect bullets with a roundhouse kick. But Vincent was persistent. He reminded me that I couldn't predict how I may be attacked and that I needed to arm myself with as many skills as possible. What really got my attention was when he said that the biggest thing self defense would do for me was build my confidence. I would be more certain I could help myself.

I think I got a piece of that from my first class. It was part of the addictive feeling I felt. It was embedded in the euphoria.

When I came out of the gym, I was showered and clean. My hair was wet, making the light breeze send goosebumps all the way up to my scalp. Gone was the sweat stained t-shirt and yoga pants, replaced by dress pants and a blouse. I wasn't wearing them because I wanted to but because my family thought I was working at the local library with Vincent. I didn't know why I was trying to keep boxing a secret. It wasn't like I was doing anything wrong.

Vincent was waiting for me outside the gym. He was leaning on a parking sign, his phone in his hand like he had been idly scrolling through it. He nodded at me in greeting, his features impassive though he had made no indication he was going to meet with me today. I had told him about going to the boxing class and happened to mention when but that wasn't an invitation for him to tag along. Maybe there was an update in the case.

"Hey. What are you doing here?"

He tucked his hands into his back pockets, not saying a thing about how he had turned up unannounced. For a second, I wondered if I had forgotten some agreement to meet up but I was certain I would have remembered.

"I need the note from Adonis."

"Oh, right." It was bold of him to assume I would simply have it on me while at the gym but it wasn't wrong. I kept the note as close to me as possible ever since finding it the day before. I was terrified it would go missing and the tiny sliver of Adonis I had left would be gone. I also didn't want my family to find it.

I unzipped my bag and pulled it out of the innermost pouch along with the pen. Vincent quirked an eyebrow at how I placed it into his palms. It was like I was bestowing a royal scepter to him.

"Thank you." He tucked it into his satchel and then he gestured to the gym with his thumb. "How was the boxing class?"

I shrugged. If I were to be completely honest, I was still riding the adrenaline high. I wanted to rave about it but then I remembered that I had attended the class not to improve my health or try a new hobby. It was to give myself a better chance at survival. "I liked it more than I thought I would."

"Good." He didn't say it but I knew he was proud of himself for convincing me to attend a class. It was in his grin. He was probably patting himself on the back for being so persuasive. "Where are you heading to now?"

"Home." I looked at the numerous blocks ahead of me. The street signs and traffic lights that extended for a half a mile before I would be walking the blissful suburban roads the rest of the way. Suddenly, I was regretful that I had gone so hard during the workout. "Why?"

"Mind if I walk you?" I must have made a face because Vincent's deadpan countenance evaporated. His shoulders loosened their grip on his ears and the crease between his eyebrows vanished as his skin relaxed. "You know, since you're not exactly a black belt yet."

Was that a joke? He was actually trying to crack a joke.

I was beginning to conclude that for Vincent, it wasn't natural to engage in pleasantries. His priority wasn't to make anyone comfortable or to be well liked. I had never met anyone so uninterested in how others perceived them. After his acting display with Kimberly and my sister, I had to question how often he was acting with me. The last time he walked me home, when he told me about how killing a criminal in self defense had nearly ruined his life, it felt like he had revealed something that was personal. I got the impression he had only told me because he knew I would understand and he wanted me to feel less alone. But couldn't it have also been a strategic move to get me to trust him? I knew we were technically working together but for him, this was his job on the line. For me, it was my family and my life. He couldn't afford to care if the truth about Adonis's death undid me. He could have easily played me to get what he needed to put us all in prison.

I fished for an excuse. "Won't that look a little weird? My coworker meeting me after the gym to walk me home? Since I'm most likely being watched all the time . . ." I was referring to the anonymous caller who seemed to know my every move. The whole point of Vincent being undercover was so my family and this mystery person wouldn't suspect him as a detective. I doubted the hired protection would see hanging out with my coworker as remarkable but it was worth noting.

"Worst case scenario your hired protection thinks you're having an affair." Vincent's dry manner of speaking was back. He said the word affair like it wasn't scandalous. "It won't matter unless it gets back to your boyfriend."

"That makes me feel a lot better. Thanks." I, unlike Vincent, cared to make things as pleasant as possible so I ended my sentence with a laugh and let him follow me down the street.

It felt rude to put in my earbuds with him next to me so, instead, I tried to embrace the sounds around us. The birds were chirping to each other from across the trees and the cars were zipping past us to beat rush hour. It was late afternoon and the sun was getting to that part of the sky where everything became tinted orange. I loved how the sun could filter everything, make old things appear new. Like my own hair, Vincent's hair shone brown in the light.

Without having to worry as much about being attacked since Vincent was with me, I could look at things a bit more closely. I could pay less attention to the scary things and more attention to the non-hazardous ones.

For example, when Vincent walked, he seemed to look at everything at the same time. It reminded me of when I was a lifeguard one summer at Hershey Park. In training, they taught us to swivel our heads back and forth, up and down, to check for anyone in crisis in the pool. It was a tedious task that made my neck ache. Vincent did his own version of this routine. I wondered if this was him being a good body guard or if it was a result of paranoia from his line of work.

When we were out of the busy part of town, we fell into a conversation about how accurate detective shows were to reality. He had more to say about it, obviously, and it kept things entertaining as we strolled down the lawns filled with the sweet smell of butterfly weed.

My phone vibrated in my back pocket. It would have rang but I placed it on silent for my boxing class. I immediately thought of the mysterious caller. I glanced up at Vincent, wishing I hadn't said anything about the person getting suspicious about Vincent and I meeting up outside of work.

The panic was unwarranted. The number was recognizable. It was Kimberly.

I interrupted Vincent's monologue to apologize and then answered the phone.

"Mickey," she said. "I just saw the strangest thing."

"What is it?" Either Kimberly was to tell me something super creepy and urgent, or she was about to launch into a half hour tirade about something very inconsequential. Kimberly had a knack for doing that when she was bored.

"I was on my lunch break earlier and I saw Darren." Kimberly added emphasis to his name, as if he was an endangered species. "We were both in our cars so I don't think he saw me. He came from this dead end road and was acting spooked - looking over his shoulders, wearing this awful baseball cap. He sped out of there once he got back on the main road - race car driver fast!"

It was a weekday which meant Darren should have been at the office. I could rationalize that he was on his lunch break but Kimberly said it was a dead end street. And a baseball cap? It was an odd detail to get hung up on to most, but Darren would have rather died than mess up his hair.

"Are you sure it was him?"

"Yes. It was his movie star face and mediocre car I saw." She paused and I heard her take a breath. "Listen, it might have been nothing but I just thought I should tell you. Just in case."

Just in case what?

I knew what she meant. It was the kind of thing I hated to think about because Darren was an anchor in my life. If I ever found out that he was hiding something from me - of any nature - it would be a wound that festered and burned. I had become used to my aunt and uncle keeping things from me but Darren and I were different. We were equals. When I told him about my past, about my parents, he beamed at the fact that we were sharing parts of each other. To pride ourselves in being open, only to discover that one of us had been hiding things, would be agonizing.

I managed to convince myself that wasn't what I was doing with the investigation. I would tell him as soon as I could and it was for the best that I didn't tell.

"I'll ask him about it the next time we talk," I said. With a glance to my side, I saw Vincent was unabashedly listening to my conversation. If it was humanly possible, I would have seen his ears prick up in an attempt to hear what Kimbely was saying on the other end.

"Let me know how that goes. I'm curious."

When I hung up the phone, Vincent asked, "Was that about your boyfriend, Darren?'

"Yeah." Not that it's any of your business. "My friend saw him out when he was supposed to be at work. She said he was acting weird."

"Weird how?"

Like he was scared of getting caught.

That was what Kimberly had portrayed in her recounting of the sighting. Vincent's brain would have a field day with that. He would start speculating that Darren was somehow connected to the drug trade or maybe even that he was cheating on me.

My hesitation put him off. He reframed the conversation. "So, I never asked, how close were Darren and Adonis?"

A spark of frustration as orange as the rays of the sun burst within me. It was because I was afraid his asking that meant that Darren was another suspect in the case. I had thought I was only protecting my family from being implicated as accomplices but appareantl;y that title was going to extend to my boyfriend as well.

As upsetting as it was, I tried my best to answer accurately. I thought back to all the double dates we had, all the family events they both attended. They had become familiar with each other because of how often they crossed paths. It was crucial for them to get along. I could remember them having some conversations in front of me, none of them particularly passionate or interesting. The two of them seemed to not understand each other. I couldn't count the number of times when one of them made a joke that flew over the other person's head or the times one of them held back a grimace in reaction to something the other person had said. They had no overlapping parts and thus, everything between them was bland and awkward. I wouldn't have been surprised if they scoffed at each other in private.

"They were acquaintances at best. There was no real connection there."

Vincent nodded slowly. "They didn't have much in commission, huh?"

"Nothing aside from dating a Morales."

The rest of the walk, I couldn't quite focus on what Vincent was saying about real detective work versus tv show detective work. I was too busy thinking about what Darren could have been doing when Kimberly saw him. I was too busy thinking that maybe some form of karma was coming my way for lying to Darren about the investigation. Whatever Darren was up to this afternoon, if it was bad, it was my fault.

At home, I found a sleeve of books sitting on the kitchen counter. Plastic wrap with a barcode on it laid next to the collection, like it had just been opened. Inside the sleeve were ten brightly colored book spines. They were tall and thin. The titles were all of fairytales I had grown up on, The Three Little Pigs, Snow White, The Gingerbread Man. Each cover was decorated in a gold colored text box with beautifully detailed illustrations. There was something retro about the art style, too imperfect and non-cartoonish, despite how they were all in perfect condition.

I imagined that it was Nancy's purchase. The night before, she had seen an infant dress on a random ad online and purchased it on impulse. I told her it was a nonsensical thing to do considering she still didn't know the gender of her baby but she couldn't be told. And she was certain it was going to be a girl.

I pulled out the last title in the series. It was Rapunzel. Instantly, I understood why Nancy had bought the storybook collection. We had the same one when we were younger.

Before our mother died, she would read us stories every night on the weekend. She would take one of the books from the collection at random, covering her eyes with her hand and having us scramble the books so she could point to one to read. My mother was an amazing reader. Though it was long ago, I could vividly remember how she used different voices for different characters and used her hands to make gestures or make shadow puppets on the walls. I remembered thinking that she could be a movie star if she wanted because her big bad wolf was extremely believable. All these memories had come flooding back because I had seen the cover of my favorite story for my mother to read: Rapunzel.

There was something about the tale that put me in a trance. Maybe it was the allure of the gorgeous, magic hair or the novelty of being trapped in such a gigantic tower but the story had stuck with me from the first time I heard it.

The cover featured a woman with blonde hair draping out of a window in a stone tower. She wore a dress that was red on the skirt and blue at the corset. She was smiling and I imagined that it was an illustration from the part in the story where the prince was climbing up her hair to save her because how could someone smile while they were trapped?

I was hit with the overwhelming urge to be surrounded by my mother's things and by memories of her. I knew why. One glance at the calendar and it was confirmed.

This day marked the anniversary of my mother's death. 

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