Chapter 35 Rule #35 Winning a fight against a friend isn’t winning.
Archer
If Rex doesn’t want to pick up the phone, that’s fine. I’ll find a fight myself. I don’t need him. And I’m sure as fuck not going to sit around in my apartment another night and cry alone over a failed relationship.
Sooner or later, I knew I’d end up back here. What really pisses me off is that if Julian had been willing to risk even a little for us, we could have gotten her back. She only put a crack in the infrastructure—he burned it to the ground.
Last night was unbearable. I got absolutely wasted alone in my apartment and tried to sleep the day away, but they haunted my dreams, making my sleep restless.
But I won’t be doing that again. I’m going to find a fight and maybe find some semblance of who I used to be before they changed everything about me.
Right now, I can’t bear to think about tomorrow or any day after that. Right now, I need to fucking punch something. I need to feel a sick right hook across my jaw to numb the pain. I need a distraction.
As I walk angrily down the streets, I pull up some of the few contacts I have in the fighting circle. No one ever gives out location or time information to just anyone, and it’s early, but I managed to find one thanks to an old friend in my phone.
So I quickly hail a cab and give him my destination. It’s possible I can scrape together a fight of my own with a willing opponent. These guys are never satisfied with just one anyway. They want to bet their winnings before they even get a chance to put them in their pockets.
I turn my phone on silent and ignore it. Staring out the window as we drive across town, I replay the entire thing in my head for the hundredth time. I’m mad at Freya for trying to run, but I’m mad at Julian even more.
With all the faith I put in them, they couldn’t return the favor. He thinks he was protecting himself, but what about me? If breaking my heart was his source of protection, was it ever truly love?
I know in my heart it was. I know deep down that he loves me. He’s just a stubborn jackass who doesn’t know what’s good for him.
Anger brews inside me as I remember the argument. Then for a brief moment, I consider that I should perhaps just turn around. I could march right up to his apartment and demand that he stop throwing away something good. I’ll convince him that we could restore the amazing fucking thing we had.
No. It’s too late for that.
When the cab drops me out in front of the old station entrance, I pay him in a rush and climb out. The late summer air is cool, and I don’t have a jacket, so I shove my hands in my pockets and jog toward the Métro.
The cheers and yells echo through the dingy space as I descend the stairs and find the crowd of guys huddled around two fighters who are wrestling on the ground.
The one on top is laying one fist after another into the other guy’s nose until finally the guy on the ground goes limp and manages to tap out before going unconscious.
I grimace at the gruesomeness of it. It’s been so long, I guess I’ve been sensitized to the violence. Just as the crowd all cheer and boo at the outcome of the fight, one of them recognizes me.
“It’s Chopper!” the stranger calls.
Everyone turns my way.
I glance across the crowd and lock eyes with the one person I came here hoping to see. Rex glares at me as if he’d like to kick my ass. There’s not an ounce of excitement in his eyes. There are, however, some extra scars and some blood on his lip.
“Twenty euros on Chopper!” another guy shouts as he shakes my shoulder.
“Who is he fighting?”
“Fifty on Chopper!”
“I don’t have an opponent,” I tell the guys around me. “Find me someone to fight.”
“I’ll fight you.” Rex’s voice echoes painfully around the dirty walls of the abandoned station.
I shake my head. “I’m not fighting you.”
He tears off his jacket and walks toward me, a sneer crawling across his face. “Come on, Chopper. What are you so afraid of?”
“You’re my friend,” I argue. “I’m not fighting you.”
“We are not friends,” he says before spitting on the ground. “Friends look out for each other, like I’ve looked out for you all this time. Then you go get someone to fuck, and all of a sudden, you leave me in the dust.”
“I’m sorry, Rex,” I say with sincerity. “I’m here now.”
Closing the distance between us, he shoves me hard against the chest. “Then fight me!”
“Twenty-five on Rex!” a man yells.
The voices blend together as they all put in their bets, one after the other. The bookie steps up and starts taking everyone’s cash while Rex continues to snarl in my face.
“All you cared about was winning money in my fights,” I say, “and the minute I stopped fighting, you got pissed at me.”
“Well, I’m not here for the money now,” he growls. “So let’s fight.”
“Fine,” I grit back. “I have some aggression to get out anyway.”
His eyes narrow, almost as if it’s on the tip of his tongue to ask what exactly I have so much aggression about. But he doesn’t.
We circle away from each other. I tear off my shirt and start jumping in place to get warmed up. It’s been months since my last fight, and while I’ve been training in the gym, it’s not the same as getting in a real fight.
With my best friend.
What the fuck am I doing?
They’ve only just dragged the last loser away when the bookie closes the bets and calls us into the circle. I hold my fists up and stare at Rex on the other side.
A moment later, the bookie shouts out to start the fight, and the cheers begin. Rex and I dance around each other for a moment. He knows I’m shit at blocking uppercuts, and I know he’s got a bad right knee. Knowing his weakness doesn’t exactly make me feel good about exploiting it.
We throw a few feeble punches, easily dodging them when the crowd gets agitated.
“Frappe-le!” someone shouts, and Rex throws a mean right I don’t dodge in time. The impact of his fist against my cheek sends me reeling. I stumble backward, the pain radiating in a familiar but distant way. I nearly forgot how much it hurts to take a good punch, which he’s pulling. I can tell.
When I blink my eyes open, I notice the wide-eyed surprise on Rex’s face. Even he was shocked by the hit.
“Get him, Chopper!”
Moving in, I swing at Rex, nicking him in the jaw. He shakes it off and glares at me as if I’ve just insulted him.
“What the fuck was that?” he barks. “You call that a punch?”
I want to tell him that I can’t hit him, but if I admitted to this crowd that I was throwing the fight, they’d toss my ass on the tracks. So I tighten my fist, and I bounce toward him, throwing a harsh left. It makes a brutal impact with his cheek, and he careens backward.
As he quickly composes himself, I see the smile spread across his face. With a shake of his head, he wipes it away and stands upright again. We dance around each other some more, and I start to realize with dread that these guys are going to need a winner one way or another.
It won’t be me. I know that now.
And as I take another punch across the jaw, I suddenly remember something Julian said the night he cleaned my wounds.
Winning these fights isn’t winning.
What a stupid, cliché, sentimental bullshit thing to say…that suddenly makes so much fucking sense now. Beating my best friend, someone I’ve hurt recently, certainly isn’t fucking winning, and it’s not going to make me feel better.
I take another punch, this time a high one, making my eye sting as it cracks across my cheekbone.
The shouts of the crowd grow fuzzy, and all I can see is Rex and I moving around each other, and it definitely isn’t ideal conditions, but at least he’s talking to me again. Surely after this, I can convince him to grab a beer with me later.
Another hit to the jaw that makes my teeth knock together painfully.
Then maybe I could introduce him to Julian and Freya—once I get them back of course. Which I will.
My steps are stumbling as I block a hit from Rex before trying to throw another while he also blocks.
He laughs maniacally. “You better not fall, Chopper.”
“Me?” I ask with a smile. “I never lose, Chunks.”
I throw another punch, which he blocks. For a while, the pain in my face is numbed by the fact that this is almost, in a very sick way, fun.
Then just as I start planning my fall and figuring out exactly how I’m going to go down, I watch as a very harsh punch flies across Rex’s face, making his nose bleed with the impact.
There’s an audible gasp among the crowd, mostly because that punch didn’t come from me.