Memphis

It’s nothing like the movies. When I’m prepping for a fight and I literally have days left, I start to panic that I’m resting too much, and at the same time that I’m resting too little. Workouts phase down, running amps up and I’m hungry as fucking hell.

Weigh-ins are in exactly six days. I get in the ring with Morales in seven. I have ten pounds of flexibility. I have eleven pounds to lose then gain back overnight. It sounds impossible, I know, but I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again.

The problem is I can’t stand to step foot in the place I’m supposed to train. I can’t stomach food, so I’m losing weight too quickly. And I’m a ticking time bomb.

I’m a ticking bomb because of the very people I thought would make me a champion. Maybe that was their plan all along. It was only a matter of time before Angela broke the news, and I’m sure when I turned down the Fuel contract, it eliminated any reason she had not to stir my emotions.

Liv hasn’t left my side. She packed the few things she had in her suitcase and dragged it into my RV minutes after I punched the wall in the hallway across from where Angela stood and spilled her guts like one of those moms who purposely make their children sick just so they can take care of them. I’ve been trying to remember the name of it all day. It’s this obsession I can’t let go, because if I’m not thinking about it, I’m thinking about all of the lost time with my dad, about all of the things I could have known, and about these awful people.

“Munchausen by proxy syndrome,” Liv says, finally looking it up on her phone, and I breathe in deeply, relieved by solving one fucking problem. Too bad it isn’t the bigger problem.

“I’m pulling out.”

Liv gives no response. I’ve said those words at least a hundred times since everything came crashing down last week. It’s the only solution I have. I can’t fight for Leo. I can’t be their prized horse. I’d rather start over than serve them in any way at all. Liv, though…she sees the big picture, and maybe that’s because she’s been their victim before.

The only thing I can stomach is running. The first night, I was gone for three hours, and Liv was worried I’d done something. Hungry…angry…she understands how those two compounds can be explosive. Boxers can be irrational—it’s the result of pushing the human body to extremes. Now I run the same mile over and over. Liv sits on my steps and pretends to read, but her eyes are up every time I pass by, scanning the sidewalk in anticipation. She waits for me, counting the seconds, knowing my pace by heart. Sometimes I think about not passing by just to test her—to see if she’d worry again, like a gut-check to make sure her concern is real. This place has torn apart my ability to trust and to see good in people. It has to end.

“I’m really pulling out,” I say again, standing from the blanket we’ve laid on the ground next to Miles. His life out here doesn’t seem so bad now. There’s a freedom to it, no attachments or promises to lose.

“Sit down, you damn fool,” Miles says, pulling the hat away from his face. I thought he’d fallen asleep an hour ago. “It’s late, and when you stand and make noise in the park people think you’re open for business. Potheads will come looking to buy and the angry fuckers over there will try to pick a fight. You ain’t quitting shit. Now sit down and fix your head. You’ve got some adversity to overcome in a week.”

I do as he says only because I don’t want to make him miserable too. Liv hasn’t moved once. She doesn’t even dare look at me.

Liv feels responsible. She won’t come out and say it. At least, not directly. She’s constantly trying to prove to me that she’s on my side—leaving Leo’s to stay with me instead, quitting and refusing to handle the quarterly tax reports for the gym, and pouring over the contracts I do have in search of ways I can get all of the money I’m owed without having Angela involved.

I should tell her she’s not the one who did those awful things. She isn’t. She’s just the one who let me hear them. We made eye contact in that house, just outside of Archie’s room, and I stayed quiet, ready to back her up in what I thought was an argument with her mom. I was blindsided by what was said. There’s a part of me…a part that I’m not proud of…that’s a little angry at Liv for it. It’s not fair, but that feeling is there, in the pit of my stomach. It’s why I’m not talking; because if I talk, I’ll say something I regret.

“When I was in the Middle East, we had a lot of…let’s just say covert operations that went on. It wasn’t a clear-cut war. They used words like conflict and scandal. It wasn’t so different from life on the streets. I think it’s why I can survive out here so well. This life feels more like home, because it’s literally just like the world I’d left.”

Miles doesn’t talk about his military days much. The mention of his service paralyzes me, forcing me to think about something—someone—else rather than my problems. I’m not sure if he’s just trying to distract me or if there’s a lesson to be learned, but I hold my breath and roll to my side, my eyes grazing over Liv’s profile as she looks up at the stars. She’s lost in them, and worry lines weigh down her mouth, dimpling her chin.

“Sometimes, it’s hard to see who your enemy is. Sometimes, it changes.” I glance to Miles’s profile again, his hand holding the top of the old ball cap his wife gave him years ago. It’s the only possession he never lets out of his sight; even when it isn’t on his head, it’s on his body somewhere. He draws the brim back down over his eyes, and I wonder if he’s done sharing and ready to fall back to sleep.

“Over there, we had no idea who the enemy was. Seemed like a lot of really nice people just trying to survive—go to work, take their kids to school, buy groceries. It got to the point where we were getting orders that just didn’t seem to add up with the world in front of our faces, so this one day…we just refused to fight. A whole church full of people wasn’t blown up. Was a bad guy in there? I don’t know. But I saw the kids come out, and I can live with my choice. I’m good with it.”

My eyes move from Miles to Liv again during the silence after he speaks. I know what he’s saying…but boxing doesn’t work like war. Hell, war doesn’t work like war most of the time. If I give this up now, it might not ever come back.

“He’s right, you know?”

Somewhere in the midst of my thoughts, Liv rolled to her side and her eyes found mine. She tucks her palms under her cheek to rest on them and shifts her eyes a hint so they almost beg me to consider what Miles is suggesting.

I breathe in slowly and imagine the scenario, and it makes me sick. The worst flavor is resentment—I would resent them all for losing out on this. I’m afraid I would resent her, and I just don’t want to do that. I think I love her. There’s no room for love in a resentful mind.

“It takes years to get boxing to take you seriously, Liv. You know that,” I say. It comes out condescending, so I reach forward to her arm, brushing the ends of my fingers on her elbow. She doesn’t give me her hand, and I know it’s because she’s hurt.

“I know it’s a lot of money,” she says.

“I could give two shits about the money,” I cut in. My eyes stick to hers, and my words sink in for a few quiet breaths. “But the shot at being considered worthy of a major bout? Liv…that’s not gonna happen again if I back out. You know it. I know it. That’s just how this world works—one shot.”

Her eyes slip lower, to the blanket between us. I reach forward again and this time her hand tentatively slides toward mine. I lie flat on my other hand, my arm folded under my head, while my fingers dance with hers. What a cruel joke life has played on me—to give me dreams but wrap them up in nightmares.

“You really don’t care about the money?” Her hand continues to move with mine, and when I look at her face, her eyes are distant again, like they were at the stars, but this time at our touch. She chews at her lip.

“I really don’t. I mean I would never turn it down. I’m not stupid. But if I’m talking priorities? Money ranks pretty fucking low, Liv.”

I think it’s hard for her to understand that kind of response. She comes from a family where money is at the heart of everything that’s wrong, yet it’s all they fight for anyhow. At that very thought, her eyes flit up and meet mine.

“I know someone…” Her words come out in a slow whisper. Our hands have stopped moving. “Either he gets your contract, sits in your corner and earns fifty percent of their take…”

“Or they get nothing,” I finish for her.

Her eyes blink slowly as she nods.

“You really think that will work? That they’ll give up owning me just to get a little now?” I doubt it as I say it; Angela and Leo are just so vengeful.

“I really do,” Liv says.

I sit up, a shot of adrenaline rushing to my heart with hope, kicking my nerves in and pushing me to move. I’m ready. I’m ready for this now if Liv really thinks it will work.

“Why are you so sure?” I need one more convincing argument—something more than my gut instinct and hers.

“Because the man you’re going to ask? He’s the one man they can’t refuse. They owe him too much,” she says, still lying on her side, her hand stretched out to where mine left it, her gaze fixed on a nothingness. I glance to her fingers, and they remain there lifeless. Something about this makes her nervous.

“I’ll call him in the morning,” she says, moving slowly to her knees and then her feet. I stand with her, uncertain because of how distant she seems.

She senses it. After reaching down and gathering my favorite quilt in her arms, she pushes her hair back over one shoulder, and tucks the rest behind her ear. Our eyes meet in the filtered light of the moon that paints us both in spots because of the thin blanket of leaves on Miles’s tree.

“And yes, Memphis. I am incredibly sure that this will work. And this is right,” she says, swallowing back emotions. Her voice cracks. “This…it’s the most-right thing that’s come along in a while.”

I know there is still fear buried under her brave face. I see it in the way her eyes slant with worry, the way they won’t focus on me for long, because they’re too busy searching for a way to jump to the future…or the past—to fly to any time but this one right now.

I take a few small steps until I can reach for her, my hand sliding under her trembling arm to the warm curve of her back. Her eyes fall closed and I draw her in, pressing my lips to the top of her head as she nestles into my chest, my blanket rolled and tucked under one arm while her free hand grasps at the front of my shirt, holding it close to her face.

“I’ll talk to him…or them. Whoever it is. I’ll say you sent me, and I’ll explain. I mean, other than me, who turns away free money, right?” I smile against her hair, but just as the air begins to feel light, Liv adds more weight.

“It’s a him. This needs to be me. And he’s not interested in the money, either. He’ll do it because he loved my dad, and my dad loved him back. And that’s enough.”

That’s enough.

I echo her final words over and over in my mind as I wrap my other arm around her and keep her close. This here…it’s enough, too.