Chapter Twenty-Five
SKY HELD SAWYER’S hand, silently begging the powers that be to let him be okay. She couldn’t stop shaking, even though Sawyer had already come to, but according to the doctor, it had taken longer than he would have liked. It had also taken Sawyer several minutes to relay basic information such as what he’d had for breakfast and what he’d done the day before. Sky didn’t know much about being knocked out, but she knew from everything the doctor had said and the worried look in his eyes that this was not normal and far from a good sign. They were running all sorts of tests and waiting for results. Roach stood beside her with one hand on her shoulder, a steadying force in a sea of fear, handing her dry tissues every few minutes. The doctors wouldn’t let any of the others in the room, and she knew they were probably going crazy with worry, but there was no way she was going to leave Sawyer’s side.
The right side of Sawyer’s head was swollen and already bruising.
“Sky,” he rasped. “I’m okay. Don’t cry.”
“Don’t cry? You got knocked out, and the doctor was worried that you weren’t going to wake up.” She swiped at her eyes and leaned over him, kissing the side of his face that wasn’t stricken, his forehead, his mouth, everywhere she could. “You scared me so badly, Sawyer. I was wrong. I can’t watch you fight again. I can’t do it.”
Sawyer wrapped his arms around her. “Okay. It’s okay. I only have one more fight, and you don’t have to watch.”
The doctor came back into the room. He was a tall, older man with salt-and-pepper hair and serious eyes behind wire frames.
“I just got off the phone with your doctor.” He shifted his eyes to Sawyer. “He says he’s already told you not to fight.”
Told you not to fight?
Sawyer’s dark eyes held the doctor’s gaze. “Dr. Malen gave me the same warning every doctor gives every fighter.”
“Sawyer,” Roach said in a husky voice.
Sky looked up at him as Sawyer released her. His eyes narrowed. “This is my fight, Roach.”
Sky had never heard his voice so cold before.
“Perhaps there was some miscommunication,” the doctor suggested. He folded his hands in front of him and said, “Although I know Dr. Malen well, and he’s meticulously precise.”
Sawyer’s jaw clenched.
“Can he fight or not?” Roach asked.
Can he fight?
“Is he physically able? Yes,” the doctor said. “Is it advisable? No. I would not send my own son into a ring after being concussed as Sawyer was. Nor would I have let him into the ring after having endured so many concussions prior to this one.” He turned stern eyes to Sawyer. “It took you too long to come out of it, Sawyer. You got lucky. You’re playing with fire. As Dr. Malen told you, you’ve had numerous concussions, and the next one could leave you permanently brain damaged or worse.”
“Wait. What?” Sky looked at Sawyer. “You’ve had numerous concussions? Your doctor told you that already and you still fought?”
“Sky, all fighters get concussed. It’s not as bad as it sounds. They’ve said that for as long as I can remember.”
Her heart lodged in her throat, and it took all of her focus not to yell as she turned to the doctor and asked as calmly as she was able—which wasn’t calmly at all—“Are you saying that his doctor already told him that he could get brain damaged, or worse, if he got knocked out again?”
“No,” the doctor replied.
Sky let out a relieved breath.
“I’m saying that, according to Dr. Malen, he’s told Sawyer that he could suffer brain damage or worse without losing consciousness. A simple blow to the head could be enough.”
A simple blow to the head. Simple blow. What on earth did that even mean? Her legs went weak, and she held on to the side of the bed, her whole body trembling, her mind reeling.
“Sky?” Sawyer’s voice was muted through the rush of blood in her ears.
“Doctor, can you please give us a minute?” Sawyer sat up and swung his legs off the bed.
The doctor put a hand on his shoulder. “Do not get up. Try not to get riled up. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
The doctor walked out the door, and Sawyer shifted his eyes to Roach. “Do you mind, Roach?”
“Remember what I told you, Sawyer. I’m not making that phone call to your mother.” Roach laid a supportive hand on Sky’s shoulder before turning and walking out of the room, leaving them alone.
“Sky.” He reached for her, but her body was too shaky, her mind too chaotic, to be touched. She turned away.
SAWYER’S HEAD WAS pounding and his body ached from slamming into the floor when he fell, but nothing hurt as badly as the devastated look in Sky’s eyes.
“Sky, listen to me. I have to fight. I have to do this for my father. He’s not doing well. I don’t have much time.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “If you fight, you might be more right than you know, Sawyer, about not having much time. How can you even think about going back in a ring after what the doctor just said?”
He steeled himself against her words, as he’d done with Roach so many times in the past. “My parents need this win, Sky.”
Her voice trembled as she reached for his hand. “And I need you. We’ve just found each other, Sawyer. You could have been injured for life today, and what’s worse is that you knew this was a risk. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s the same crap they’ve been saying for years, Sky. They say it to everyone.”
“It sure didn’t seem that way, Sawyer.” Her voice escalated. “Even Roach doesn’t want you to fight. I can see it in his eyes.”
“I’m fighting, Sky.”
“Don’t you care about us at all? Don’t you care about your family? What about all that talk about a future? Was that all bull? You just decided to write with your father so you would have something with him for the future. The future, Sawyer. Remember how much you wanted that?” She pushed away from the bed and paced, her arms crossed over her chest as tears fell from her eyes.
“Of course I want a future with you. But I’m a fighter, Sky. It’s who I am.”
She stopped pacing and leveled him with a cold, teary-eyed stare. “You told me that fighting was what you did, not who you are.”
“I was wrong. I have one thing to give to my parents. And this is it.”
“Then you need to make a choice, Sawyer, because I love you too much to sit back and watch you suffer brain damage because of some jerk who hits you upside the head on your way out of the ring—or worse, to watch you die.”
“How can you ask me to choose between loving you and my father’s well-being? My parents’ entire future?” Anger brewed in his gut, for the brutality of the illness his father faced and the unfairness of the battle he and Sky were having.
“I’m not asking you to choose between me and your father. I’m asking you to love yourself enough to want to live a whole life, with all of your cognitive functions intact.” She sucked in a breath through her tears. “And to have faith that together we’ll find another way to make ends meet for your father’s medical bills.”
“Sky, you gave up your life to help your father get through rehab. You gave up your friends, your job, your apartment, and you moved back here to run his business. How can you not understand this?”
“It’s different! I couldn’t have died helping him.” She was trembling so badly that he wanted to wrap her in his arms and make the pain go away—make the decisions go away. He wanted to reverse time to before he got hit in the head and pretend everything was just fine and that the doctor’s warning didn’t exist.
He’d pretended so well for so long.
“Sky.” His voice was a thin thread as he tried to rein in his anger.
“No. No more Skys, Sawyer. I love you too much for this. I lost my mother to something she had no control over. You’re losing your father to a fate that’s out of his hands. Your fate—our fate—is in your hands. You once said that you didn’t want to leave our future to chance. Well, Sawyer, that’s what you’re doing. If you don’t love yourself, or us, enough to do what it takes to save yourself, then we have nothing left to talk about.” She spun on her heel and walked out the door.
“Sky!” he called after her as he rose to his feet to go after her, but the room spun around him. He gripped the edge of the bed for stability, trying to make sense of what had just happened. He lifted his eyes to the door, and the room continued to spin. One step sent him off-balance, and he fell to his knees on the cold floor. His head and chest ached like never before. The ache of a broken heart, it turned out, was all consuming and ten times as bad as any punch could ever be.