DAY 15 OF TRAINING
He'd been coming to these training sessions wondering if this was at all wise, what he was doing. And then it hit him - her wrapped foot, her body in midair and her heel collided with his jaw, knocking him onto his shell faster than he could blink blackness out of his vision from the shot. He pressed the palms of his hands to the training mat, breathing rapidly until he could see the lights above him. He'd heard the unmistakable sound of the duct tape on his shell loosening, and he gingerly sat up.
Raphael saw her hand in front of him, and took it, even though he was mostly pulling himself to his feet. He massaged his jaw, feeling the pangs of her kick over and over.
"You alright?" Jude said, an apologetic wince ghosting about her cheekbones.
Raph opened and closed his mouth, testing the damage. He'd bitten his tongue, and he could taste blood, but it wasn't anything to get excited about. "'m fine…" He sighed, checking the time on the large clock on the wall before asking her, "Wanna call it a night?"
"Sure," She said, plucking up her towel from the chair by the wall and draping it over her shoulders. Jude was about to walk away, until she inquired to him, "Uh, Raphael. I know we haven't known each other that long, but I think I might head out for some food. It'd be great if you joined me, if you don't have to jet."
A long silence drowned the room, the only bubbles breaking it was the sounds of the city beyond the walls. Something was churning in Raphael's stomach, though he couldn't tell if it was just hunger or the instincts inside telling him that this was probably as bad an idea as training her. One bad idea after another. She was half his size, a fourth his weight, she was human and scrappy and he really wasn't in any danger from being alone with her. He was bulletproof. She had white skin that bruised easily no matter how much body conditioning she put her body through.
"You got a car?" He asked, still debating. He could practically write Leo's lecture for him.
"Just got it the other day, used GMC Yukon," She said, and scrunched her nose up, detecting his hesitation. "Look, it's got blacked out windows and it sits tall. If you didn't want to wear the coat, you could."
"It's not that," Raphael said quickly, but amended, rubbing the back of his neck, "Well, it's part of it...thing is, lookin' like we do don't encourage anybody to be pleasant. You're one of, like, three humans that I even talk to. My father always says not to put your trust in people just because you want to put your trust in someone."
Jude's mouth curled up in a grin. "My old man used to say the same thing." She faced him, slowly striding over until they were just arms' length apart. "Listen, there's a list three miles long of reasons why this could've been a bad idea." Raph couldn't argue with that. "But I've got nothing to lose with this arrangement. But I'll tell you what - I'm glad I agreed to it. I'm glad we met." Her grin got wider, her lip ring winking at him. "I got a hell of a coach."
Raphael felt the blood rush to his cheeks, and he turned away, fighting a smile. "Alright, get your keys - let's go. I'm starvin'. Wastin' away, waiting on you. Skin and bones over here."
Jude only uttered a tired sigh, rolling her eyes as she followed him out.
"What is this?" Raphael leaned over the console to peer at the radio, the windows up and the A/C blasting cold air against his chest as Jude drove them through New York. The music that was pounding through the sound system in here was unlike anything he or Mikey could've scrounged up at home, plenty of saxophone, some rapping and an easy sway to it that sounded like it was inspired by older music. "It's pretty good."
"You like that? Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment, song's called 'Sunday Candy'," She told him, before swerving as a biker cut her off, slowed her down and she promptly rolled down her window to shout, "Yo, the point of a pedal-bike is to fucking pedal it!"
Raph busted up laughing, never seeing anything like this in his life. Never been in an actual car, never gone for fast food, never witnessed the streets of New York from inside the cars, never saw a twenty-something flip off a biker before, and he'd never, ever in a million years think he'd be above ground doing something like this with a human.
He was taken aback, taken to his younger years where anything new would make his eyes really big and he'd get quiet, like he did now. Uncharacteristically of him, he was silent, but his smile betrayed what might've been mistaken for indifference. In truth, he was having the time of his life.
His thoughts were interrupted by her voice, "Where were you wanting to eat?"
"I was thinkin' fast food," Raphael said, uncertainty in his tone and he ignored how confined he felt squeezed into this seat. He was grateful that she took him along, he wasn't gonna complain and be an ass, "Not really smart to go in and sit...I guess, wherever you wanna go, so long as it's a drive thru window."
"Works for me," She said, pulling up to a stop light and pausing to look at him, saying, "You know, if you want the drive thru treatment, you'll have to get in the back."
Raphael didn't argue. The space between their seats was tighter than he thought as he forced his broad shoulders in the gap, pushing against the back of her seat to help. Frustrated, he sang with a drizzle of sarcasm in his rough voice, "Big turtle in a little car…"
Jude snorted, and as the light flashed green, she got up on the gas - the car lurching forward, Raph's hands slipped, falling on his face into the footwell of the back seat with a grunt, but the widest part of his shell was stuck. He eased himself back, turned so he was on his side, and pushed through, until it was just his massive thighs and his legs that needed to be worked through. He swore under his breath as his cheeks reddened, the jittering in his nerves as his own insecurity at being this huge caught up to his giddiness about this whole adventure.
Once he righted himself up in the back seat, he laid low until he saw the lights from the glowing display of the fast food menu on their left, poking his head up."I'll take a helluva lot of chicken nuggets, a large fry and whatever you're drinkin'."
"Works for me," Jude leaned out of the window, saying clearly into the ordering microphone, "I'll have four number tens, a number nine, and two regular strawberry-banana smoothies."
When Raph noticed the car finally stopped moving mid-smoothie, he leant up to see that the Hudson river was just to their rear. For a mutant turtle who had lived beneath the city his entire life, he was absolutely dumbstruck by what he saw.
The water distorted the lights cast upon it by Manhattan, the skyline illuminated by the city that never slept and Raph's eyes grew wide as they locked onto the familiar shape of the Empire State Building. Entranced by the sight, he gathered his remaining food into his bag and his drink, climbing over the back of the seats into the empty space the SUV left bare. He put down his bag, pressing his hand against the cool glass of the window. He was ten years old again, seeing Times Square for the first time; in his heart, he was amazed but in his mind, terrified. "Wow…"
He heard the sound of a car door shutting, the scrape of boots against the pavement and Jude came into his vision, carrying her McDonalds bag. He drew back, seeing her unlock the back door of the car. The door lifted up and away, Jude hiking herself up to sit beside him in the tailgate. Raph inhaled heavy lungfuls of the crisp smell of summertime rivers mixed with the day's worth of sun on the asphalt.
Jude noticed his intense stare on the city, the straw of her smoothie in her teeth. Her hair looked more white than blonde under the dim streetlights and the lights of her car, which played Donnie Trumpet's "Windows" softly. She remembered the first time she was here. She was eleven years old and sitting on her father's shoulders. Her mother was there... and they were a family. Even if Raphael's features were much different from hers, he was wearing the same expression she'd had that day. Of pure, unadulterated wonder, at something that had been there right under his nose.
"Windows" played slow, and the lyrics crept between them like an invisible cat, "Don't you look up to me...don't trust a word I say…Don't you end up like me, if you learn one thing today…"
Raphael finally felt her eyes on him, and met them with his, the song warning him as Leo would, "Careful…Careful…"
He looked away, to the thick pink liquid in his clear plastic cup, "This is actually pretty good...how much do I owe you for all this? I mean, that was forty chicken nuggets you bought."
"Don't worry about it," Jude waved a hand dismissively, nibbling on her lip ring, "Least I can do for all the help you've been giving me."
Raphael sensed his cheeks heating up again, but he hid it by wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's nothin', really."
"It's something," Jude said, elbowing him in the bicep, which she figured must've been as big around as her head. "After my dad died, I was...wrecked. A mess. I didn't have anybody other than him."
"Nobody?" Raph asked, his bandana bunching as he furrowed his eyebrows. "If, uh...you don't mind me askin', why not? Where's your mom?"
"Yeah...where is my mom?" Jude repeated bitterly, the tattoos on her fingers pronounced against her cup. She spoke with an old resentment, "She and my old man were divorced...She was…Pfft." Jude pushed her tongue in her cheek, searching for words. "She was a real piece of work. She never approved of my dad boxing, didn't think it was 'practical' when raising a family to fight for money. Once she found out I wanted to do it too, she threatened divorce...didn't think it was 'proper' for a girl to fight. Especially at my age."
"How old were you?" Raph asked, chewing a few fries.
"Fourteen," She shook her head, her nose wrinkling in disgust. "She told me that if I ever stepped into an actual ring, she'd never speak to me again."
Raphael listened to all of this, watching residual anger and hurt war on her face. He exhaled a single word, "Shit...obviously you didn't listen."
"She was trying to say that boxing would make me not want to get married, that I'd have scars that would drive potential husbands away - like marriage was all I was made for," The muscles in her pale arms flexed as she ranted, and then she glanced at him, asking him, "How screwed up is that?"
Raph didn't fully understand the whole need to be married, but he did understand about having a set of rules or conditions placed upon you, then being ostracized for challenging them. But there was a difference. The rules placed upon him were put there to protect him from the discrimination of the outside world, to keep him safe. The box Jude's mom shoved her in was raised from one of three places: jealousy, bigotry, or flat-out sexism. Or all of the above.
"Pretty screwed up," Raph agreed. Against better judgment of his comedic skills, he attempted a joke, "I get you. Case you haven't noticed, I'm a turtle. I'm supposed to be in a zoo or 'in the wild'. I'm not supposed to be walking, talking, and ass-kicking."
He didn't expect him to wax philosophical, but she was nodding as he spoke like she followed all of that, so he went on, "We all got someone we're supposed to be, someone we can be, but there's nothing that says we've got to be that person…Just because you look a certain way, you're this species or that species, don't mean you're meant to be that and only that. You can do what you want, do something amazing. Your mom didn't get that, and you know what, between you an' me - you turned out alright from where I'm standing."
Jude stared at him, her demeanor brightening. A timid smile spread across her face, and she was finding herself pleasantly surprised at him. This brutish mutant turtle, who could probably break her in half over his knee, was talking to her with an earnest sincerity, a kindness in his gravelly voice.
"Raphael."
Raph felt his cheeks coloring under his dark green skin, freezing with the straw of his drink inches from his lips. The scar above his top lip twitched, "What?"
She wanted to tell him that she thought he spoke really well, that she could listen to him talk for hours. She didn't. Her eyes just cast out over the river, and she said quietly, "I appreciate you saying that...I really do."
A few moments passed, and the corner of Raph's mouth perked up, "Welcome."
"For what it's worth, I think you're alright too." Jude said, running her fingers through her short hair and bringing her knee up to her chest, holding it there with her lean arms.
"Uh…" Raph kicked himself inside for his mind blanking when she said that, "Thanks…" He remembered something, jumping as he told her, "Oh...I got you somethin'."
His big fingers clumsily moved to his belt, to a pouch on his hip. His hand worked the drawstring loose, taking out a small orange-and-white box and handing it to her. "I don't care if you use 'em or not, just wanted you to have 'em."
Jude's eyes narrowed at the words on the box. She felt awkward, holding it in tattooed hands. Nobody had done something like this for her before. Just a simple gesture. "Nicorette."
"I don't know if you planned on quittin', but I just wanted you to know," Raph tried to brush it off like it was nothing, watching her blank face. He rambled, "I don't know, that in case you wanted to. I can help."
A full minute passed, her eyes glued to the box and his glued to her. Then, her own fingers, usually strong and sure, shook as she pried open the box. She was hearing her father's words in her head. Only if you're sure, if you're absolutely sure you want to, Judie. He'd said that before she ever did anything risky. Raph didn't know this, but her father died from COPD...from smoking. The last thing she wanted to do was disgrace him by smoking, but when it happened...when he died, she found herself with a cigarette in her hand. She felt closer to him when she did that, and hated it, and herself, ever since.
"You're only supposed to use 'em when you're one-hundred-percent sure you wanna quit, just so you know," Raphael warned hastily, his hands dumbly on his lap.
"I'm doing this shit right now," She said through a tight jaw, and she popped out the first piece out of the foil into her hand. She threw it in her mouth, chewing quickly and then slowed, tasting the flavor.
Raphael was looking at her, his brows raised. His curiosity was piqued; he quit smoking cold turkey. Didn't have any nicotine gum to help him. "How is it?"
Jude's lips were cocked a bit to the right as she grinned. "Good. Really, really good."