Chapter Ten Cherise
Cherise Monroe had four hundred thousand followers and a talent for being exactly where cameras were.
She showed up to Amir’s next press conference in a dress that cost more than Mika’s monthly rent, introduced herself as a “content partner” for the fight promotion, and spent the entire afternoon finding reasons to touch Amir’s arm.
Mika watched from the back of the room, a laptop open on her knees, three chapters of Evidence outlined and forgotten.
“She’s thirsty,” Nina muttered, arriving with two waters and a face like thunder. “I already told the promoter I don’t trust her camera crew. She’s been sniffing around every up-and-comer in the city trying to attach herself to somebody’s come-up.”
“He’s talking to her a lot.”
“He’s talking to her because she won’t leave. That’s different.” Nina squeezed Mika’s shoulder. “You good?”
Mika said she was good. She was not entirely good. Something about the ease of Cherise’s laugh, the practiced tilt of her head, the way she made herself the centre of a conversation without seeming to try — it activated every insecurity Mika had spent a year trying to talk herself out of.
That night Amir came to her apartment smelling like the outside world, cologne she didn’t recognize threaded under his own, and when she asked about his day, distracted, he gave her three sentences about a sparring session and nothing at all about Cherise.
She didn’t ask. She told herself it didn’t matter. She told herself a lot of things that year that weren’t quite true.
Cherise didn’t disappear after the press conference. She showed up again two weeks later at an open workout Nina had reluctantly credentialed her for, camera crew in tow, and made a point of finding Mika at the edge of the gym — not Amir, Mika, which somehow felt worse.
“You must be the girlfriend,” Cherise said, looking her over with a smile that never once reached her eyes. “I love that. So low-key. Some of these boxing girlfriends, they’re so extra, you know? It’s refreshing that he keeps it simple.”
“I’m not sure what you mean by simple.”
“Oh, I just mean — real. Grounded. Not everybody’s cut out for the spotlight part, and that’s okay!
Somebody’s gotta hold it down at home while he’s out here becoming, like, an actual brand.
” Cherise’s eyes flicked, deliberate, to Mika’s shoes, her bag, the thrift-store blazer Mika had thought looked nice that morning. “It’s sweet, honestly.”
Mika felt the words land exactly where they were aimed and made herself hold Cherise’s gaze anyway. “I’ll let him know you stopped by,” she said, evenly, and walked away before her voice could betray anything else.
She told Nina about it that afternoon, expecting sympathy. She got fury instead.
“That girl is not sweet, and she is not confused about what she’s doing,” Nina said, already typing something furious into her phone. “She sizes up every girlfriend on every fighter’s team the same way, looking for the soft spot. You didn’t give her one. Good.”
“It didn’t feel good.”
“It never does in the moment.” Nina softened, put the phone down, took Mika’s hand instead. “But you stood there and didn’t shrink. That’s the part that matters. Don’t let somebody like that convince you quiet means weak. Some of the strongest people I know don’t raise their voice for nobody.”
Mika wanted, badly, to believe that too. But the sentence somebody’s gotta hold it down at home followed her for weeks, echoing in the exact register of every fear she hadn’t said out loud yet.