Chapter 123: Redemption Part II
After returning home from Korea, and meeting with his family. Alex did not even bother attending the second half of classes that day. He had already missed a few days already, so what was another? Instead, he immediately got dressed in his gym attire and headed out to the American Fight Club. So, while Chad was at school while waiting for the concert that he would attend later that night, Alex was going at it at the gym like an absolute mad lad.
It had been days since Alex had been able to hit somebody, and though he had let out a lot of his pent up energy on the divine bodies of his seventeen different “fiancees” the raw aggression that would accumulate in his body with each passing hour had stacked to a point where Alex was particularly aggressive during his rolling and sparring sessions.
Though he limited the power in his hands and legs to avoid injuring his training partners, Alex was an absolute beast. He exploded with power during his rolling, while pressing forward during sparring like a raging bull, far more so than usual. Vanessa took notice of this sudden increase in aggression and was surprised.
She knew Alex to be a hyper-aggressive fighter, but he was normally quite chill in sparring. And though he wasn’t just absolutely hammering his opponents, he also gave them little room to work their own game plan in. Thus, she called the man out after the classes were over to speak with him.
Alex was getting his hoodie over his sweaty torso when Vanessa approached him with an almost concerned tone in her voice.
“Is everything alright?”
After Alex got his hoodie on, he looked at the beautiful Brazilian milf with a confused expression on his face before asking what she was talking about.
“What do you mean?”
“You just seemed to be going a bit wild today. Are you perhaps angry with all the hate you are receiving online and taking it out on your sparring partners?”
Alex cared so little about what the idiots online had to think about him that he did not even give the comments a second thought. In fact, he barely paid attention to his social media account to begin with, only uploading content to build up hype for his fights. Thus, he looked at Vanessa as if she were insane, before commenting on his recent aggression.
“Oh, that bullshit? Nah, I don’t give a fuck, I’m not angry, I just haven’t punched someone in the face for the last few days, so I got a little bit too excited. Sorry about that. I’ll dial it back tomorrow.”
This comment stunned Vanessa. Did this man seriously just say that by not punching someone in the face for a few days, he suddenly became so aggressive and violent? What kind of madman was he?
Not only that, but he brushed off a level of harassment and hate that would cause most people to contemplate suicide. And he did so, as if was just any other day. She honestly believed that Alex was just trying to act tough and was quick to console him.
“You know, if you are having problems, I’d be willing to listen. I mean, I am your coach and your manager. Sometimes you just need to talk about these things.”
Alex chuckled when he heard this, while pulling his shoes and socks on. But he had an interesting idea when doing so, and thus he approached the mature Brazilian beauty with an offer.
“I’m fine, honestly, but if you want to learn what makes me tick so bad, how about we go out for drinks? I’ve got no major plans tonight, so unless you’re busy, I don’t see why not?”
Vanessa thought about it for a couple of moments. Alex was forcing her into a position where if she wanted to learn more about him, then they would have to spend more than just a few minutes after class talking about it. At first she thought about telling the man to fuck off, but she was genuinely concerned for his mental health after today. And thus she sighed and nodded her head, before agreeing to Alex’s request.
“Alright fine… I know a place nearby that’s got cheap drinks and decent food. But since you’re so fucking rich, you’re paying!”
Alex smirked when he heard this, and nodded his head, agreeing to pay for their date, before grabbing his phone, keys, and wallet from the nearby bench.
“Deal!”
Soon enough Vanessa had gotten dressed in some proper clothing, and followed Alex out to the parking lot, where she was surprised to see the kind of car he drove. She wanted to ask how he could afford such a thing, when she remembered he bought seventeen different women some rather expensive wedding rings and thus she sighed heavily before getting into the passenger seat.
“I should have known you were driving such an expensive car…”
Alex merely chuckled as he jumped into the driver’s spot and drove off to the bar. He did not say a thing until they had sat down, gotten their beers, and ordered their food. Where he then smirked at Vanessa before asking her what she wanted to know.
“Alright, so what did you want to talk to me about? Is this seriously about my mental health? Honestly Nessa, like I said, I don’t give a shit what people think of me!”
Nessa scoffed and rolled her eyes before voicing her thoughts on Alex and the tough guy façade she believed he was putting on.
“Come on, drop the act. It’s just the two of us. You can be honest with me. You don’t give a shit about the hate you’re receiving? What a crock of shit. Everyone cares what people think about them?”
Yet Alex scoffed as he took a sip of beer before responding to this comment with his genuine thoughts on the matter.
“Maybe pussies do. But I don’t care what anyone thinks about me, nor do I give a shit about their pathetic little feelings. Let me put this way: I am obligated to care about three groups of people, and their lives. My family, my friends, and my lovers. Everybody else can go fuck themselves!”
Vanessa nearly choked on her drink when she heard this, before asking if Alex was being serious.
“Come on! You are so full of shit! You mean to tell me that you genuinely don’t care about the millions of men and women who are calling you a sexist, a scumbag, and are genuinely telling you to go kill yourself?”
Despite the fact that Vanessa could not believe Alex when he said that he did not care what other people thought about him, he continued to entertain her disbelief and answer in the same exact way.
“Why should I care what those losers think? You ever hear the saying that the lion should not concern himself with the opinions of the sheep? That’s pretty much my mindset towards everyone else in this world.
Okay, Nessa, let me phrase this in a way you can understand. Let’s say that tomorrow, the entire state of California got nuked off the fucking map. Everybody else on this godforsaken planet would be shitting their pants in panic and screaming about how such a horrible thing it was. Meanwhile, I would be going about my daily business, not giving a fuck about it.
Why? Because I don’t know those millions of people who were suddenly turned to ash. If I don’t know you, then I don’t give a fuck about your existence, and if I don’t give a fuck about your existence, then I certainly don’t give a fuck about your thoughts and your worthless feelings.
Nessa, there are close to eight billion fucking people in this world. I don’t have the emotional capacity to give a shit about all their worthless lives and feelings. I only care about myself and those who I personally know, and am close with.
So, like I said Nessa, I’m perfectly fine. If people are jealous of me for having seventeen beautiful women by my side, or think my behavior is reprehensible, then let them bitch and moan all they want. Because that is all they are fucking good for. Meanwhile, I’m going to be living my life, and doing what makes me happy.”
Vanessa was completely shocked by Alex’s admission of just how little he cared about other people, and their lives, thoughts, and feelings. In today’s world, where it was almost considered mandatory to care about everyone else in the world, Alex just simply didn’t.
But this, of course, confused her, because if Alex wasn’t fed up with the hate he was receiving online, then why was he so aggressive today? She was quick to ask this, despite having already done so at the gym earlier.
“Wait… So if you aren’t upset over the hate you are receiving. Then why were you so aggressive today?”
Alex simply rolled his eyes and scoffed while thinking that this woman was a broken record. He chugged the rest of his beer, and ordered the bartender to give him another one, before reiterating why this was the case, albeit in more detail.
“Like I said, I haven’t punched anybody in the face in the last few days. If I don’t get my natural aggression out of my system, it just stacks, and when I finally am met with a scenario where I can engage in violence, I go all out.
It doesn’t matter how many women I fuck! If I can’t hurt somebody, like genuinely engage in violence, then eventually I just go full blown psycho when I am finally able to do so. That’s the whole reason I fight, because without violence, a part of me is just missing.
And if I don’t release my aggression in the cage, or daily during sparring sessions. Then that aggression turns into anger, and then that anger turns into hatred. And eventually that hatred becomes something monstrous.
When that happens, I guarantee you I will be in the news for something far worse than banging seventeen different women at the same time. You see, MMA is an outlet. It allows me to vent my more toxic emotions in a healthy manner so that I can maintain a sense of normality in life.”
Vanessa simply laughed when she heard Alex’s response. She now got a better understanding of the man. He wasn’t trying to appear tough by saying the hatred he received online didn’t bother him. He genuinely had a screw loose in his head. A natural born psycho. Thus, she responded to him with an almost comical tone in her voice.
“You’re crazy… You know that, right?”
Alex simply smirked before responding to the woman in an almost bitter tone.
“We don’t choose the things that make us whole again…”
This was a remark that Vanessa had entirely missed as a notification appeared on her phone, and she immediately began to scramble out of her seat.
“Shit! I totally forgot! I’m sorry Alex, I have a client to see early in the morning tomorrow! I can’t be out this late. Thanks for the beer and the wings. We should do this again sometime! Maybe then we can talk about why you are so crazy!”
After saying this, Alex watched the woman and her fine ass leave the bar, where she got a cab to bring her back to the Gym so that she could drive home. And though Nessa had laughed about Alex’s mental state, he continued to sip his beer with a strange expression on his face. Almost as if he had remembered something disturbing from his past life.
—
Alex would continue to drink until he was properly buzzed. Knowing that he was too intoxicated to safely drive home, he decided to go for a brief walk through the city streets of Vegas in an attempt to clear his head and sober up.
Ever since he opened up to his coach about his true thoughts, he had some pretty nasty memories appear in his head about the difficulties he had suffered while growing up in his past life. Normally, he didn’t think about such things. After all, these days, it felt like he was becoming more and more like the character he was supposed to be in this world, and less like his past self.
But it was only after he stumbled upon a depressing scene did he truly remember everything in great detail. A young woman, practically the same age as himself, maybe a year younger at the most, was crying alone in the middle of an alleyway. She was leaning against the back door to some unknown business. Or perhaps even an empty building. This girl kept sobbing, and asking the same question over and over again with a particularly defeated tone.
“Why? Why do I even bother living? Everybody hates me!”
It was after Alex heard these words that he received a sudden flashback from the memories of his past life. It was a normal a day, just like any other. Or it was supposed to be. Alex, or whatever his name in this past life was, was perhaps fifteen at the oldest. His mother and stepfather were at work. And it had been years since he had heard from his biological father.
He was supposed to be looking after his little sister, but lately his mother and the girl had been getting into so many fights, over stupid shit like prohibiting the girl from dying her hair pink, or wearing piercings. These fights were so intense and so often that Alex had completely checked out of his home life.
Normally he spent his days on the computer either watching anime, or playing videos games. And if he was doing the latter, he was listening to heavy metal music so loudly that he could not even hear the screaming that was going on in his background.
But today was a dreadful day… A day he had tried to forget in both lives. Because when he went to look for his thirteen-year-old little sister, to see when dinner would be ready, he found her lying in a pool of her own blood.
Her wrists were slit in a way that was completely untreatable, and there was not a single ounce of color on her face. Perhaps she had been crying in agony as she bled out, hoping that her big brother would save her from her foolish mistake. But Alex would never know, because whatever sounds she made in her last moments were drowned out by music he had chosen to listen to.
The young girl had killed herself, after repeated bullying at school, and at the hands of her mother. Every attempt she made to properly communicate her feelings to the one person she felt close to, which was none other than Alex himself, had been dismissed, because he was too busy playing video games as his only escape from the terrible life he lived.
She had killed herself, because to her that was the only escape she had from the terrible life she shared with Alex. And because of that, the moment Alex snapped back to reality, and saw this stranger, someone he normally think twice about, pulling out a bottle of pills from her purse. He rushed forward and slapped the shit out of her face. And in doing so, knocking the pills and the bottle out of her hands and onto the concrete next to her.
When the girl looked up at him with her teary eyes, he could see his own crying reflection in them. As he shouted the words, he had always wished that he could have said to his own little sister.
“Don’t you fucking dare!”
The young woman stared at this stranger, as if wondering why he was crying, and why he had suddenly stopped her from ending her suffering. And in an act of confusion, Alex hugged her before saying his thoughts once again in an almost desperate tone.
“Don’t you dare fucking kill yourself!”
Without even realizing it, the system revealed itself to Alex with a message that he had not expected when he mindlessly rushed over and stopped this pretty girl from killing herself.
[Jade is thankful that you care about her!]
[+25 Affection from Jade!]
[Jade’s Affection: 25/100]
Despite the fact that she did not even know who Alex was. And the fact that she was internally thankful that someone in this world finally seemed to care about her and her miserable life. Or perhaps because of this. Jade hugged Alex tightly and cried into his shoulder while begging for an explanation of why he stopped her. Almost as if she was pleading for a single reason to continue living.
“Why? Why did you stop me?”
Alex himself was stunned by this question. He honestly did not know himself why he had interfered in a stranger’s suicide attempt. Especially after going on a long-winded rant earlier about how little he cared about other people and their worthless lives.
But this sudden chance of fate had snapped out of his stupor. Causing him Alex to wipe the tears from his eyes. If he counted his last life, then he had not cried in over fifteen years. Not since the day he and his family buried his little sister. For him to suddenly cry like this, and in front of a girl no less, he couldn’t help but remark on his own weakness. All while hugging the girl tight and laughing at his own suffering.
“I’m such a fucking bitch…”
Jade looked up at Alex with a curious expression on her pretty face, before breaking out into a fit of giggles. It was a mad laughter, almost as if she could not understand if this was reality, or if she was being pranked by one of those assholes she met earlier at the concert. And then Alex looked down at her and explained his reasoning to the girl about why he saved her.
“You asked why I stopped you? Because I have seen enough people kill themselves, and I couldn’t bear to watch a girl as pretty as you follow in my sister’s footsteps…”
This comment brought Jade back to some semblance of sanity, as she blushed at Alex, realizing only now that she was hugging a stranger. She quickly scurried out of his grip, like a frightened kitten, and backed herself against the door that lie behind her. After feeling slightly more comfortable with the whole situation, she Alex in a very timid voice if what he said was the truth.
“You really think I’m pretty?”
This caused Alex to break out into his own sense of laughter. He had no idea who this girl was, how old she was, what her background was, or why she wanted to kill herself. There were a million questions he had for the girl, and he had assumed it was the same for her. For her to ask such an absurd question in this situation, it was simply too much. And when he had finally calmed down, he answered it honestly.
“Yes… Yes… I do… I’m Alex, by the way… Alex Smith.”
Jade flushed in embarrassment, realizing that she had indeed said something absurd, especially in these dire circumstances. She then spoke in a very meek voice, and in such a low tone that Alex almost missed it.
“Jade…. Jade Graves…”
Alex sighed in relief, now that it seemed like the girl had been walked back from the edge of the abyss. And thus, he smiled and stood up before offering a helping hand to her. One that she would never forget.
“Okay, Jade… If I’m being honest, I just ate, but after this whole ordeal, I think I’m in need of some comfort food. How about we go grab something to eat, and you tell me about why you were about to do something so incredibly foolish? Because like it or not, I’m not leaving you alone until I know you are okay.”
Jade was astonished by Alex’s kindness, and debated with herself internally about whether or not he was truly being genuine. After all, she had some suspicions that he was associated with those jocks from earlier that had made her feel this way.
Her reasoning for this was rather solid. Alex was handsome and fit. Perhaps he was even more handsome than the guy she had foolishly flirted with at the concert. He was also wearing athletic clothes and had a gym bag around his waist, proving he was also a jock.
Logically, if Jade thought about it, there was a high chance that Alex was a friend of those assholes from earlier, and this was all just a cruel joke. If that were truly the case, then she would truly kill herself after this was all over.
But a small part of Jade said otherwise. This was the only part of her heart that still had a trace of hope. Hope that there was still somebody in this world who might genuinely take pity on her and help her through her difficulties.
Hope was a powerful human emotion, perhaps second only to hatred. It was an emotion that could compel somebody to endure through even the most tragic of circumstances. Because of this, she meekly grabbed this stranger’s hand, allowing him to pull her to her feet.
Jade had no idea who Alex was other than the name he had given her. Or why he had bothered helping her… But she was willing to make one last gamble with her life. A wager that there were still good and honest people in the world who were willing to help those in need. Thus, she nodded her head silently and followed this stranger to a nearby diner. Where the two of them would have a lengthy discussion about the girl’s problems.
While Alex was holding onto Jade’s hands, he saw a miraculous message appear in his sight from the system.
[Jade is grateful that you saved her from herself!]
[+50 Affection from Jade!]
[Jade’s Affection: 75/100]
The fact that Alex had caused this young heroine to gain seventy-five affection points towards him in the span of a few minutes astounded him. Even if Jade was not a heroine, he would have made sure she was alright before parting ways, if not solely because of his own trauma. But now that he knew her identity, he planned to milk this chance encounter for everything it was worth.