10. Everett #2
“You say that like there’s a chance I won’t be safe.”
“There’s always a chance.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.” I pull off my jacket and hand it to her.
Underneath, I’m wearing a tank top and sweats.
My hands are already taped—I do my own wraps these days, thin enough that it barely counts as protection but thick enough to keep my knuckles from splitting open on someone’s teeth. “I’ll be quick.”
“How quick is quick?” Her eyes are darting back and forth, and now she’s breathing faster. She’ll chew her lip off if she’s not careful.
“It depends on the other guy.”
Tonight, the other guy is someone I’ve never fought before.
He’s about my height, heavier by maybe twenty pounds.
He has the kind of build that tells me he trains, but not smart.
Muscle guys always think size is the whole game.
It’s not. Speed is. Knowing where to hit and when to stop holding back.
That’s what wins fights. Anyone can throw a punch. Not everyone can end one.
I don’t look at Isla when I step into the circle.
I can’t. If I look at her right now, I’ll see her face.
If I see her face, I’ll think about what she’s thinking.
If I think about what she’s thinking, I won’t be able to do what I need to do.
And I need to do this. Not just for the money, though the money is the reason I’m here.
I need the quiet. I need the part where my head empties out and there’s nothing left but the hit and the sound it makes, and the half-second of silence that follows.
There’s no bell to start the fight. No countdown. Just two guys in a circle and a crowd that wants to see somebody bleed.
It takes about ninety seconds.
The first punch I take on my shoulder. He’s going for my head, but he’s slow, and he telegraphs everything, so I slip it easy.
I give him two body shots that fold him at the waist, then a right cross to the temple that drops him to one knee.
He gets back up, which I respect, and comes at me again.
I let him. I let him connect once, a left hook to my ribs that I’ll feel tomorrow, and then a glancing blow over my eye before I finish him with a combination: left jab, right cross, left hook.
It puts him on the concrete and keeps him there.
The crowd erupts. Reece steps in, checks the other guy, and calls it. I stand there breathing hard with my knuckles screaming through the tape. But all I care about is Isla.
She’s exactly where I left her. My jacket is clutched tight against her chest. Her face is white. Not pink, not flushed. White. Like all the blood drained out of it.
I grab a towel from Reece and wipe the sweat from my face, then make my way over to her.
The crowd parts the way it always does, except tonight I don’t notice any of them, because the only thing I can see is the look on her face.
It’s not the look I was expecting. I was expecting fear, maybe.
Disgust. The expression people make when they see what I really am underneath the jersey and the scholarship, and whatever else they’ve projected onto me.
What I see is something that looks a lot like shock. Like she knew what she was walking into but didn’t actually know, not really. Not until she saw it happen in front of her.
“Hey,” I say, stopping in front of her. “I’m fine.”
She looks up at my eyebrow. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s just a cut. It’s nothing.” I reach for her, and she doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t lean in either. “Talk to me.”
She takes a deep breath that shakes on the way in. “That was a lot more than I expected.”
“I know. I told you it wouldn’t be pretty.”
“I know you did. I just...” She presses the jacket against her chest harder than before, like she’s trying to hold herself together with it. “Hearing about it and seeing it are two really different things. Seeing you do that to someone is...”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know how to feel about it.”
Something cold settles in my gut. Not anger. More like the feeling of watching someone you care about realize who you actually are and not being able to do a damn thing. “You don’t have to feel any way about it,” I say, even though it’s bullshit, and I’m pretty sure we both know it.
“I need some time.” She says it quietly, not looking at me. Instead, she looks at the floor, at the concrete, at the spot where a guy was lying a few minutes ago because I put him there. “Just to think about things. Is that okay?”
No. It’s not okay. Nothing about this is okay. But I’ve spent my whole life watching people walk away once they see what’s underneath. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t make someone stay by telling them you need them to.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “That’s okay.”
She nods and hands me back my jacket. Neither of us says anything else for a long time.
I drive her home in silence. It’s not easy to breathe, the silence is so thick. When I pull up outside her house, she reaches for the door handle, then pauses. “I’m not running,” she says, though she still won’t look at me. “I just need to think.”
“I know.”
“I’ll call you.”
“Okay.”
She gets out and walks up the path while I sit in the truck with the engine idling. My knuckles are throbbing. My ribs ache where he caught me.
None of it hurts as much as watching that door close.