by Claire Adams
“I do MMA,” I tell him. “I took a shot to the head and we just want to make sure I’m all clear.”
The doctor writes something on his clipboard. He has yet to look at me once.
“We’ve been getting a lot of MMA injuries the last few months,” the doctor says. “Maybe it’s time to find another hobby.”
I give Ash’s shoulder a squeeze, trying to encourage her to just let that sort of thing slide, but it’s no use.
“Excuse me, doctor?” Ash asks.
“Yes?” the doctor answers, still looking over his clipboard.
“It’s difficult to do an exam if you won’t look at or touch the patient, don’t you think?” she asks.
The doctor finally looks up.
“Miss, I’m sorry, but for now I’m going to have to ask you to climb down from the bed—at least until we know what we’re looking at here,” the doctor says.
I tell Ash she’s fine, but she gets up anyway.
The doctor gives me a quick once over, shining his light into my eyes and asking me who’s president and he leaves the room without voicing what he’d found.
“What do you think that means?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “It could be a sign that something serious is going on, or he might just be acting like he’s so much better than everyone else that he doesn’t have to do his job and tell a patient what’s going on.”
That altercation in the ER waiting room really seems to have sparked some fury for Ash. I try to lighten the mood, asking, “Is it true that doctors and nurses really don’t get along or do they just play that up for television?”
“Screw it,” Ash says and gets back in bed with me, giving my ribcage a good squeeze when she gets comfortable.
“Easy there,” I tell her. “I’m going to be pretty tender for a few days.”
“Right,” she says, pulling away. “I’m sorry. I forgot he got you there.”
I smile and tell her, “It’s all right. I don’t think he broke anything,” though since Ash put pressure on those ribs, I’m not entirely sure I’m right about that last bit.
“You know when I knew?” she asks.
“When you knew what?” I respond.
She looks up at me and then away, not answering my question. “It was that day at the lake,” she says. “You saved me that day.”
“I’m sure you would’ve let go of the boat when it started to pull you under,” I tell her.
“It already was,” she says. “You’re right, though. I’m sure I would have let it go. I’m not going to let myself drown just to save some stupid boat, but that’s not what I’m talking about. That was just incidental.”
“What do you mean, then?” I ask.
She shakes her head a little. “I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. It’s just,” she hesitates, “when we were out there, chasing after the boat, I knew there wasn’t going to be anything we could do about it. I mean, we were in the water: It’s not like we had something solid under us for leverage. Still, though, once my hands touched the rim of that boat, I didn’t want to let go. Everything but that boat felt so utterly hostile,” she says. “That sinking rowboat felt like the only solid thing I had to cling to, but it wasn’t.”
“What made you decide to take me seriously?” I ask.
She sighs. “Are you ever going to get tired of that question?”
“I’m glad you did,” I tell her. “I guess it still doesn’t make sense to me, given the way I looked when we met.”
“There was something in the way you carried yourself, something in the way you spoke,” she says. “You were confident, but it wasn’t just a show. I mean, it was a show, but it wasn’t just a show. I have never felt that.”
“You’re kidding,” I tell her. “You’re probably the most impressive person I know. You know,” I jest, “myself excluded.”
She gives my ribcage another quick squeeze as punishment for the joke, but I’m wheezing laughter as I say, “Ow, ow, ow.”
“In the world I grew up in, real confidence is one of those things you just never find,” she tells me. “In my parents’ circle, you’re either acting confident because you’re trying to cover how incredibly insecure you are or you’re more than a little deluded. You didn’t start getting delusional until I told you I liked you, and by then it was too late.”
I snicker a little and kiss her forehead.
“Can I go back to what I was saying now, or are you going to further undermine the very confidence that tricked me into liking you in the first place?” she asks.
“Fine,” I laugh. “Go ahead.”
She rests her head on my shoulder again. “The heavier that boat felt in my hands,” she says, “the tighter I held onto it and the harder I tried to lift it to the surface, even after you first told me to let it go. I can’t tell you how much I hated you for saying that.”
“You hated me?” I ask.
“…for saying that,” she says, finishing the thought. “I hated you because you were telling me what I knew very well to be the logical thing, but I had no intention of letting that thing go. Like I said, I’m sure that would have changed if I held onto it even five or ten seconds longer on my own, but it was what you said after that. That’s when I knew,” she says.
I want to see if she’ll finally explain what it is that she knew, as that’s not the sort of thing I guess about anymore, but a new person in scrubs comes into the room.
“Miss, I’m sorry, but—” he starts.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ash says, getting up from the bed a second time.
“Thank you,” the man says. At least he’s more polite this time around. “I’m Jack, your radiology technologist,” he says. “We’re going to get you in for a quick MRI to make sure everything looks good and then we should be able to get you out of here.”
He and a couple of nurses release the brakes on the wheels of my bed and they cart me out of the room, with Ash in tow, and down the hall.
Despite the flood of people in the ER, I get right in for the MRI and I’m back in my room before too long. The technician says the doctor will be in shortly and so we wait.
“I didn’t hate you in the objective sense,” Ash says. “It was more a situational thing.”
“What?” I ask.
“We got interrupted before,” she says. “I’m just telling you that I didn’t hate you for anything apart from the fact that you were telling me to let go of something I didn’t feel like I could. It was weird. It almost felt like some kind of accusation.”
“Accusation?” I ask.
“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” she asks, putting the back of her hand against my forehead.
“You don’t have to take my temperature every time you’re speaking above me,” I tell her, snickering as I pat her on the back, my arm around her. “I just don’t know what you meant by accusation there.”
“Oh,” she says. “I don’t know. I guess it was more like the feeling of being caught doing something you know you shouldn’t be doing. What I was doing was silly and I was mad at you because you called me on it.”
There’s a knock on the doorjamb and my doctor comes in a moment later.
He sighs. “Miss—” he starts.
Ash dutifully gets up from my bed and sits in one of the chairs next to it.
“Your scans look good,” the doctor says. “There’s a little swelling on the side of your head, but it looks like your brain’s all right. Let me get your discharge papers and you can get out of here, but I’d take it easy for at least a couple of days. When’s your next fight?” he asks.
“Two weeks,” I answer.
“Two weeks?” he asks, laughing through his nose. “No, really, how long until you’re supposed to back in the ring?”
“Two weeks,” I answer again.
“No,” the doctor says. “Two weeks is ludicrous. I think it’d be best if you cancel your next fight. Just give yourself a month to let your body fully recover before y
ou try to put it through that kind of strain again.”
“Thank you for your opinion,” I tell the doctor. Judging by the way he’s shaking his head, it looks like he gets what I’m trying to tell him.
“I strongly advise against it,” the doctor says, “but hey, if you want to go out there and get your head knocked off, that’s your business.”
With that, he unceremoniously exits the room, closing, for the first time, the sliding door on his way out.
As soon as he’s out of the room, I’m turned toward Ash, who’s already climbing back into the hospital bed with me telling her, “I’m going to do it—the fight. I’m too close to give it up now.”
This can’t be what she wants to hear, but I’m not going to lie to her. If this is something she’s not going to be able to handle, she deserves the opportunity to walk away.
“I know,” she says, smiling. “I couldn’t stop you if I tried.”
Okay, I wasn’t expecting that.
“Really?” I ask. “You’re okay with it?”
“It’s part of who you are,” she says. “The last few months have been both the worst and the best of my life. I’m not going to lie and tell you that I’m thrilled you’re going to do the fight, but I think I can finally understand why you are. I don’t know if you’ve figured it out yet or not, but what I realized that day at the lake is that, for better or for worse, I love you. If you need to do the fight, I’ll be there. I will go where you go.”
She cuddles up next to me and she doesn’t get up when the doctor comes back into the room with my discharge papers.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Two Weeks
Ash
“Don’t get up!” I command before Mason’s actually awake.
He opens his eyes to find my smiling face a few inches from his.
“Good morning,” I say. “How’d you sleep?”
“I thought I was sleeping,” he tells me, rolling over and closing his eyes again.
“Nope,” I tell him. “You said you wanted to get up at ten.”
He forces one eye open to look at the radio alarm clock next to his bed. The clock reads eight-thirty.
“You’re early,” he says.
“I was excited,” I answer. “Stay in bed.”
Without another word, I get up and leave the room. Today’s the day, and I want to make sure he has a good start to his day.
After his last fight, I’ve started going to the gym with Mason. I told him that I wanted to work on cardio, but he didn’t buy it. I was there to keep an eye on him and make sure I wasn’t making a huge mistake giving him my blessing to fight.
I meant what I told him in the hospital, but if there were any signs he wasn’t in the condition to go through with it, I would have said something. Fortunately for both of us, though, he’s strong.
When I woke up this morning, I wanted to let him sleep, but I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm. I tried to channel it into something useful by cooking up a nice breakfast for two, but it’s already done and I don’t want it to get cold.
I plate Mason’s breakfast consisting of three eggs, one scrambled, one hardboiled and one fried just the way he likes them, a stack of pancakes, and six strips of bacon. I take it in to him, carrying a glass of orange juice in the other hand.
His groan in response to the sound of me coming back into the room turns into a grin when he turns over and sees what I have for him.
“You are the best, you know that?” he asks.
“I do, actually,” I tell him. “Thank you.”
He sits up and takes the plate, and I set his orange juice on a coaster on his nightstand before going back to the kitchen to retrieve my own food.
After this, there’s nothing between him and the fight except a very long drive.
* * *
I never realized how many abandoned buildings there are in a given city until I met Mason.
Right now, we’re walking into an old high school gymnasium, surrounded by a slew of other forgotten, empty buildings.
Logan spots us and comes over to offer his advice and encouragement, although his words are heavy on the former and light on the latter. After that, person after person comes over, each one of them with some kind of inside scoop into Mason’s opponent, though nobody seems to know who he is.
This time, there’s not going to be any waiting. Everyone who’s here is here for this fight, Mason’s fight.
The way it was explained to me, all of the championship bouts in the tournament are going to happen more or less at the same time, each in a different location to cut down on the risk of discovery. Personally, I couldn’t possibly care less about the other fights going on around the state of Wisconsin tonight, but Mason seemed pretty happy about being able to find out who takes what.
I squeeze Mason’s hand and he turns to me, saying, “Yeah?”
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“I’m good,” he says.
“Good,” I tell him. “Do you need anything before—”
“Ladies—okay, there aren’t too many ladies here tonight—Gentlemen!” a man’s voice calls from toward the middle of the gym. “Tonight, we have the Wisconsin State Underground Make-up-a-Name-for-It-Because-Nobody-Else-Did tournament!”
Not the most inspiring introduction to the evening.
“Do you need anything?” I ask Mason, having been so rudely interrupted so the guy in the center could hear himself talk.
“Kiss for good luck?” he asks.
I give him a peck on the cheek and one on the lips just to make sure I’ve got the bases of superstition and girlfriend duties fully covered.
“Tonight, we have the best of the best: two lightweight monsters of MMA. Let me hear it!” the man in the center shouts and the crowd of what I’m estimating to be about three hundred people erupts into ear-splitting applause.
“That’s my cue,” Mason says directly into my ear, but he doesn’t let go of my hand as he starts toward the front.
“Can we have the fighters to the ring, please?” the loudmouthed announcer calls.
When we get to the innermost edge of the circle, Mason stops, turns and kisses me deeply on the lips. When he pulls away, I try to think of something profound to say, but only manage, “Have fun,” before he’s releasing my hand and walking into the ring.
From where I’m standing, I can just hear the announcer asking Mason who he is. Mason answers and the announcer yells, “Mason Ellis! Do we have Ben Jones? Ben Jones get to the ring if you haven’t already pissed yourself looking at this guy!”
Okay, the announcer’s got one of the more annoying voices I’ve heard in my life, but damn it, now I kind of like him. I’m feeling really great about Mason’s chances right up until the moment I spot his competitor.
The man’s standing at the edge of the mob, and though he’s not making a move toward the ring, it’s easy enough to know he’s the guy for the fact that he’s the only one staring Mason down from the crowd.
He’s not moving. From where I’m standing, I can’t even tell if the guy’s breathing, but I know he hasn’t blinked since I caught sight of him.
The man, the announcer called him Ben Jones, takes two steps forward and the throng erupts again. The announcer turns to the man. This time I can’t hear the announcer’s question, but I do see the man nod.
“Ben Jones!” the announcer declares. “Mostly gentleman and a few girlfriends who are going to be looking for revenge later tonight: We! Have! A! Match!”
I have to plug my ears.
Mason is shifting his weight from one leg to the other, working his neck side to side, and I can’t see the front of him, but I can just feel that he’s ready.
A hand falls on my shoulder and I turn to see Logan standing behind me. He looks at me, nods with such seriousness I’m having a little trouble not snorting laughter about it, and he turns toward the ring, removing his hand from my shoulder.
To this day, I don’t think Logan and I have had a real c
onversation, though I’ve bumped into him enough times over the last couple of months.
“If both fighters can stay in it, we’ve got five rounds at three minutes per round for the featherweight championship! Let’s do it!” the announcer says and then disappears into the crowd.
A bald man with a Footlocker uniform on steps forward and speaks to both Mason and his competitor, though I don’t hear any of it.
After that, the two touch gloves and the fight begins.
At first, they’re just sizing each other up. Mason’s cut, but the other guy doesn’t seem to have a single ounce of fat on him. What’s more, I still haven’t seen the man blink.
Mason starts circling and his opponent throws a lazy punch. I’m not sure if he’s gauging his distance or just trying to get things started, but Mason doesn’t flinch when the punch comes within half an inch of his head.
The one thing I have found to be interesting about these fights is the primitive psychology involved. I’ll have to ask Mason, but it looks like the battle is just as much mental, through feints and false openings, as it is physical.
Out of nowhere, Mason lunges forward, his knee out, catching Jones in the abdomen. Mason’s right hand comes down hard, but glances off Jones’s chin as the latter ducks back out of the way.
Jones counters with a sweeping kick that lands just above Mason’s knee with a loud smack. Mason turns a little in the opposite direction, but recovers quickly, only he’s not quite quick enough as Jones connects with a left and then a right into Mason’s face, each blow landing with a sickening thwack.
Mason jumps back and even deflects a third punch from Jones, but his eyes are whiter than normal as he circles back around, throwing his own combination of punches. The two trade fists for a few seconds, but an air horn blows.
Everyone stops and turns toward the source of the sound, and while a surprising number of people are calling the guy an idiot, that was, apparently, the “bell” to end the first round.
Mason finds me in the front of the crowd and comes over. The fight paramedic from Mason’s “pit”—such a stupid name—Tom, pushes his way to the front.
