"Who do you think I am?" Ray asked, cutting me off again.
"What?"
"Who do you think I am?"
I didn't know how to reply to that so I didn't say anything. Ray continued:
"You think I never got myself into any shit like this before Alisha? You fucked up, man. You fucked up and you're not going to be able to weasel your way out of it. I get that you're a football player and hey, I can even sympathize with you. This must be a new experience for you, huh? Getting rejected? Well, Tasha isn't one of your little cheerleaders, OK? She's not going let shit slide. You had your chance, you blew it. Maybe you'll even learn something from this, I don't know. But right now, you need to leave. You need to leave and you need to stop trying to contact my sister, you got that?"
Ray took another step towards me as he spoke and I took another step back. He took another step, bumping his chest against mine and I struggled to suppress the urge to shove him away.
"You've got it wrong," I said, not even caring how desperate I sounded by that point. "You're wrong. There's an explanation. I just need to talk to Tasha. I just need to talk to her for five minutes."
Instead of replying, Ray took another step, bumping into me harder that time. The fury boiling in my chest - at the injustice of the whole situation as well as the unfamiliar effort it was taking to hold back physically, an effort Ray in no way seemed to be appreciative of - rose higher.
"Back off," I said, quietly.
"What?"
I said it again: "Back off. Just, please, man..."
'Don't tell me to back off you little shit," Ray shouted, leaning in so I could feel the spittle as it landed on my face. "Don't tell me to back off on my own fucking property after you do my sister like that! I thought you might be trouble, you know. When she told me you were the quarterback at Reinhardt. But then I met you, you spent time with us, shared meals with us - meals that Tasha cooked! But you seemed like a stand-up guy, you had all of us fooled, not just her. But now I'm telling you - and listen to me carefully because this will be the last time I tell you - leave. Now. Get the fuck off our property before this gets a whole lot worse than it is."
When he had finished speaking, Ray put his hands on my chest and shoved me angrily towards the SUV. I shouldn't have reacted, but it was instinctive. Something deep and furious inside me came rushing up to the surface and I shoved him back. Then I swung at him and missed, doubling over as he got me in the ribs, causing me to stumble backward. He was stronger than he looked.
And that was it. I charged at him with all the righteous anger boiling inside my guts and knocked him back onto the lawn. I wasn't even thinking at that point, I was just in pure animal mode. I was raising my fist and struggling to hold Ray down when a thin scream rang out behind us. Both of us - Ray and I - turned towards the scream and I think we both knew who it was before we saw her standing there, her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide.
The look on Tasha's face brought me right back down to earth. I jumped off Ray and backed away, holding both hands up even as I saw, as if from the outside, how it looked.
"Tasha," I pleaded. "Tasha, wait, wait. Please fucking wait, this isn't-"
She flew at me, screaming, lashing out, hitting me with her backpack and her fists, screaming at me to leave, to leave her alone, to never contact her again. Tasha's words were worse than any blow Ray could have landed. All he'd done was enrage me. Tasha shattered my heart. The look of hatred in her eyes, the ice in her voice.
"How could I have been so wrong about you?" She sobbed, helping her brother to his feet. "I seriously - I don't understand. Kaden, who does this? What kind of person does this? What happened at prom wasn't enough? You have to come to my house - my house! - and attack my brother?!"
I knew it was done. There was nothing I was going to be able to say, not with Tasha in near-hysterics, crying and screaming at me at the same time as she was holding Ray back. It was the definition of an ugly scene. I felt my shoulders slump forward as it sunk in that instead of convincing her to hear me out, I'd actually just succeeded in making things much, much worse. Worse than they had been, and that alone was pretty fucking bad.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled, shocking even myself at the sound of my own voice cracking. "I'm sorry. I didn't come here to - Tasha, I came here to explain. I'm so sorry-"
"Just go." She said, breathing hard. "Go."
So I turned around, partially so I could open the door to the Suburban and climb inside and partially so she wouldn't see the tears in my eyes. Behind me, I could hear the sounds of the two of them consoling each other and then their footsteps as they walked towards their front door. I had to say something. It wasn't a conscious choice, I just felt that something needed to be said. I couldn't just leave it like that. She was just about to go into the house when I leaned out and yelled after her: