by Ford, Mia
“Technically…”
“I promise,” he said. “I’ll have them leave a ticket for you at the gate just in case you change your mind. By the way… what was it you wanted to tell me?”
I tried to think quickly. “It’s not that important right now. I’ll tell you when you get back.”
“It must have been pretty important for you to drive over here,” Jay said. “Whatever it is you can tell me. I’m a big boy. I can take it.”
“I promise, I’ll tell you when you get back.”
“OK. I guess we both have promises to keep now.”
I said goodnight and walked to my car. Driving home was cold and lonely. I kept fighting the urge to go back and tell Jay how I felt about him, to say what I’d gone there to say. But it was the wrong thing to put in his head right before a fight.
When I got home I looked the fight information up online. The guy he was fighting was almost undefeated. He was twenty-seven and two on his professional record. That meant he only had two losses. And his amateur record was even better. Jay said he’d beat him twice before…
After a bit of digging I was able to find out that Jay had fought this guy twice in amateur matches and had beaten him pretty soundly. Jay would have gone on to fight professionally it was assumed, but the concussions sidelined him and that was all she wrote for his fighting career.
I spent the next few hours watching this guy, Barnes, fighting on YouTube. He was fast and strong. He also appeared to be fairly ruthless and often had points deducted for cheap shots. Why was he allowed to continue fighting when he regularly broke the rules? I guessed people loved the bloodthirsty nature of a guy like that and it was fun to watch.
I kept thinking about Jay’s offer to come and watch him. It would be exciting to see him doing battle with this guy up close and personal in a cage. It could also be horrible if things didn't go his way. I couldn’t bear to see Jay get hurt, even if he did win. Still, it might have helped ensure his success if he knew that he had someone out there cheering for him who was close to home.
I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down on the couch in my empty house. It was quiet and getting late. I figured that Jodie would be falling asleep at my parent’s house about now. I was tempted to go over and get her, or just go over and be with my family. Being alone sometimes was too much to take. That was another thing I loved about being a mom. I always had someone close by who loved me.
But alone time could be good, too. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times when Jodie was being crazy fussy and I was just exhausted from everything that a little time alone didn’t just hit the perfect spot. So, I tried to relax and just enjoy it.
Eventually, the silence got to me, so I decided to turn on the television. After flipping through a few things I found an interesting paranormal show. I usually loved those programs. I’d never experienced anything paranormal and didn’t really believe in that sort of thing, but I found it all to be very interesting.
However, after about ten minutes I started getting bored even with that and shut it off.
I picked up my phone and called my mom. I knew she would still be up. She was a bit of a night owl like me. Hearing her sweet voice was always the perfect medicine.
“Hi, mom,” I said when she answered.
“Hey, honey. Your little one is sound asleep if that’s what you were going to ask.”
I laughed. “I figured. No, I just wanted to talk with you.”
“Oh, great,” she said. “What’s on your mind, kiddo?”
I told her about Jay and the fight.
“Hmmm. Wow, those fights are terrible. It’s so violent…I don’t know how it’s even allowed.”
“Well, it’s not that bad, I don’t think. But people do get hurt. That is kind of the point I think.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure he will be fine.”
“You can’t know that, and that’s not stopping me from freaking out over it.”
“Honey, you need to learn how to relax. It might make you feel better to actually go to the fight.”
“He offered to leave a ticket for me, but I don’t think I can watch that. I’m nervous enough already.”
“Yeah, but if you care about him as much as you say you do then you should really go and support him. I think that would give him the best chance of success. A man has to have something personal, something that tugs at his heart to fight for sometimes. If he is just going through the motions, or feels like he is fighting alone—he tends to not do as well. That is something you learn after you’ve been married long enough.”
I laughed. “You would be the expert on that sort of thing.” I’d always admired my parents strong and long lasting marriage. I’ve always been afraid that when I got married it wouldn’t measure up to theirs and I’d feel like some kind of a failure.
“I’ll take that compliment,” my mother said.
“I’d actually love to go and see it” I said. “I just… if he gets in trouble or if he is injured. God, what if he has another concussion?”
“Then you will be there with him to pick up the pieces if need be. That’s what loving a man is,” she said. “If you think Jay is the one for you then you have to be prepared to be there with him through thick and thin, good and bad, and bad and worse. A good woman doesn’t leave her man if he is in trouble. I know you are a good woman; I wouldn’t have raised any other kind.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I have to go.”
“That’s my girl,” she replied.
“The fight is Friday night. I’ll just bring Jodie over on my way there, ok?”
“That’s fine,” she said.
After I hung up with my mother I felt great, invigorated. I actually wanted to go and see Jay fight. What he was doing was extremely noble and showed how much heart and guts he had. He was willing to do whatever it took to help his family. How could I not want to be with a man like that? I couldn’t believe what had taken me so long to get though my fear to understand this.
I finished my wine and then went to bed to get some sleep. I honestly felt to jazzed and wired to sleep much, but eventually I started to get drowsy. As I lie there in the darkness of my quiet house, knowing that my sweet baby, Jodie was not there, but she was safe and well taken care of I allowed my focus to shift solely to Jay.
As I thought about him though, Tucker briefly popped into my head. It had been a few days since I’d spoken to him seriously, other than the occasional text. We were supposed to make plans to do something this coming weekend. I’d totally forgotten about him.
I needed to tell him that things with us could not be moving forward. But I was hesitant to do that because the thought kept creeping into my mind of what if Jay decided he didn’t want me back? I was acting as if I had told him everything I wanted to say and he felt the same way.
“Great,” I said. “There is always an obstacle, right?”
I closed my eyes again and tried to shut out the noise of my obsessive thoughts. I just had to take one thing at a time. First, I needed to go to Jay’s fight and show him that I was there for him. And then afterwards I would tell him exactly how much I cared about him. He might not reciprocate it and that was OK, but if he did then it would be the beginning of a beautiful chapter in my life. And that thought made me giddy from the inside out.
When I woke up the next morning I went to work with an extra spring in my step. I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten to sleep at all, but eventually my drowsiness found its groove.
“Well, I’d love to know what drug you are on,” Heidi said as she came in. “You told Jay, didn’t you?” She gave out a little squeal. “What did he say?”
I sighed and calmly told her everything.
“Wow, that is so awesome. I wish I had tickets to see it,” Heidi said.
I also revealed to her my plan to tell Jay after the fight that I wanted to be with him, if he would have me of course.
“That is so romantic,” Heidi said. “Now I’m so glad you waited. This is just
getting juicier by the moment. Imagine one day telling Jodie the story of you two. No one has a great story like that, or at least nobody that I know.”
Heidi was right. We were crafting our very own story and it was beautiful.
Now I just had to wait for all of the pieces to fall into place, but in reality that hardly ever happened smoothly.
But, whatever came next, I was ready for it.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jay
I could hear the crowd outside yelling and carrying on. The noise was like music to my ears. It was like an old favorite song that you hadn’t heard for a long time, or maybe you used to love it as a kid, but forgot about it, and now there it was popping up on the radio again. It touched something profound in your soul and it brought back all of the nostalgia from that time period. You could remember the way it felt back then, where you were when you used to hear it, and even the way that time of your life smelled. It would all come flooding back.
The crowd was that song to me. I just closed my eyes and it transported me back to that time period of when I used to fight, and it was a much smaller crowd then. It was amateur. This was the big time and I didn’t think I even deserved to be there. Other fighters had come up the ranks and paid their dues, and likely should have been given this shot (not that any of them in their right minds would take a fight like this on less than a week’s notice).
But I needed this for many reasons. When I told my father that I was fighting and that I would have the money win or lose, he burst into tears. I’d never seen or heard my father actually breakdown before, but the relief in his voice made all of this worth it.
Did I think I actually had a chance of winning? I wasn’t sure. I remembered the fighter that Barnes used to be, but as Naomi said he’d been training and fighting at the professional level for eight years. He was hardly the same fighter I’d faced then, and I was more or less the same guy he’d fought. I’d kept in shape and I’d trained because I loved martial arts, but I hadn’t been training for combat, where each day I grind out eight to ten hours of non-stop training because it is my job.
Sitting there in my dressing room by myself trying not to stare at the guy in the mirror because I didn’t want to see the fear in his eyes, I felt pretty raw. It was hard not to feel that way. I knew that I’d been cleared, but I didn’t really know how valid that was. It commissioned me to fight, but I’m not sure it was a proper diagnosis. I felt fine and I didn’t see any issues, but if I took a hard kick to the face at some point I might have ended up with another concussion and who knew?
Naomi… I could hear the pleading in her voice from the other night. She didn’t want me to take this fight and I understood that. I hated to cause her any grief and it touched me that she seemed to care what happened to me. Was it possible that she did love me?
Well, sitting there I knew that she loved me as a friend, as her child’s father, but whether she loved me as her significant other, her partner…the jury was still out on that one. But I still wanted her to come around. It was still my dream that Naomi, Jodie, and I would be a real family one day.
Mondo came into the dressing room right then. I’d asked him to be in my corner as my coach and trainer and he’d agreed. He was still a good friend from the old days. He almost peed himself when I told him this fight was happening. Hell, he thought he had good news that his boss wanted me to fight their champion in three weeks for five grand. I politely declined. I believed that my pit fighting days were over. After this, I was officially retired from the ring.
“Hey, man,” Mondo said. “You got five minutes. You feel alright? You ready to go?”
“Yes,” I said. I punched my small, eight ounce gloves together and flexed my fingers. It was taking a bit of getting used to again. The gloves often felt like some other appendage, but you did not want to go out there bare knuckled, even if it was allowed.
“Good,” he said. “This is awesome. Remember to move around as much as possible and dance until that guy doesn’t know where he is. You don’t allow him to take the fight to the ground.”
“I remember,” I said. I’d been studying Barnes’ most recent fights for the past few days. When I wasn’t training I was watching him. He was good and had developed some ground game that he did not have last time. I had decent grappling skills, but I’d always been a more effective striker, especially my punches. I’d been blessed with fantastic knockout power.
I hoped to catch him with a hard right hand tonight.
I’d weighed in yesterday right on the button at two hundred and five pounds. It was the lightest I’d been in a few years and I felt great. Afterwards I drank water and ate good, nutritious foods to rehydrate myself and pump the electrolytes back into my system.
It was the first time I’d come face to face with Barnes in several years. After the weigh in we stood toe to toe for the faceoff picture. He was cocky and thought for sure he was going to beat me down.
“You ready for this? I’ve been aching for this moment for eight years. I guess you finally got tired of ducking me,” Barnes said when the picture was over.
“Whatever helped you get to sleep at night,” I said. “Speaking of which, you’ll be asleep in the ring before you know what hit you.”
He laughed and flipped me the bird. The crowd in attendance cheered as cameras flashed all around us.
It was going to be a tough fight. I had no delusions that I was going to win this easily. I didn’t have to win. I was doing this solely for the money my family needed, but I’ve always been a competitor. I could have just lost easily in the first round and taken a moderately hard shot to sell it to the crowd that I got hurt. But no. My pride would never let me do something like that.
Of course I thought about Jodie and I thought about Naomi. What would they think if I did get hurt when I could have just not done my best and quit when it got hard. I thought about them watching me and knowing that I didn’t give my all and I took the easy road out. They would never be able to respect that, even if I did do it for them.
I wanted them both to be proud of me and I wanted to be proud of myself. Besides, Barnes was a loudmouth jerk who needed to be shut up.
A few minutes later I was marching out of the gate towards the cage in front of me. It was much larger than the amateur cage I’d been used to fighting in before. This had many pros and cons to it, both of which I would have to get used to very quickly. Not to mention the roar of a crowd this size. I tried not to think of all the advantages Barnes had over me. I just had to keep calm and keep my head clear.
I was just stepping up to the ring and removing my robe when I spotted her. I had to do a double take to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. There she was. She actually came.
Naomi.
She was here. I’d left a ticket for her at the front gate. When a venue was sold out it was never really sold out. There were always a few tickets left for VIP’s.
Naomi was smiling and cheering for me. When our eyes met it was like magic moving between us. I couldn’t believe that she was actually there. Suddenly, there was a bright light glowing inside of me, a warmth that was resonating all through my being. I’d been focused and determined before, but now it was like some divine force was guiding me through it all.
“You came!” I shouted.
Naomi was in the front row waving like crazy and laughing. “Kick his ass!” She yelled.
I smiled and stepped into the ring. Yes, kicking his ass was what I was absolutely prepared to do.
The announcements and the judges rules happened so quickly and suddenly that bell was ringing and the fight was on.
And from that moment on, it was just the two of us. There was no crowd, no lights, and no pressure. It was just a contest between two warriors. And I was ready. I knew I was undertrained and overwhelmed, but none of that mattered to me. I was going to win this fight or die trying.
Naomi’s presence there meant everything to me. I somehow knew that she came because she did love me.
She wanted to be there with me. That sweet, beautiful, woman wanted to support me and show me that she was there. Even when the world seemed dark around me, she would always be that light that would guide me back to safety. And I would do anything she ever needed to be that same light for her.
The fight only lasted for about a minute and a half. Barnes was hesitant about getting close to me because he knew he would be eating punches. And I was mindful of the fact that he would eventually shoot on me and try to take me down so he could utilize his submission holds to get me to tap out.
Eventually, his excitement got the better of him and he rushed at my feet to take me down. I quickly leapt to the side and as he was trying to steady himself I blasted him hard in the bridge of the nose with a right hand. He went down hard.
I was shocked for a moment that it had happened so fast, but it wasn’t over until the referee said stop. So I leapt on top of him and continued to punch him in the face. After three hard unanswered shots by a very dazed and hurt Barnes, the referee stepped in and the fight was over.
I’d won. It was a humiliating upset.
Everything after the referee said stop was moving in slow motion. A pool of people flooded into the ring from trainers and friends in Barnes’ camp, to various announcers and reporters, to journalists, and finally to the ring announcer who pronounced me the winner.
He asked me how I felt and I believe all I could mutter was, “Done. I’m done.”
This no doubt left a very confused announcer, but I was too focused on getting to Naomi. I had to see her and talk to her. I wanted to see no one else.
Eventually I made it back to my dressing room. After I was showered and settled a bit I heard the knock on the door. It was Naomi.
She came into the dressing room just then. I was starting to get worried that maybe she’d just rushed out and started driving home, but that didn’t make any sense after she’d come to the fight. Still, when it came to her my thoughts tended to get a bit frantic and neurotic. She was the only person who had ever had that kind of effect on me. After all this time, it was only getting worse. But I actually loved worrying about her. It was part of the reason I got up in the morning. As odd as it sounds, it gave me great comfort.
