by Izzy Sweet
“What?!” I blurt out a little too loudly, drawing a few curious looks. “Are you serious?” I ask leaning closer to the table, dropping my voice to almost a whisper.
“Yes, I’m serious, Grace,” he answers and waves a waiter over, asking for a wine refill.
I pick my own glass up now and take a sip from it. The wine is a deep red, very dry and bitter. It suits my mood perfectly right now.
Once the waiter is out of earshot, I ask, just laying it all out there, “How have you tried to please me? The problem has always been that you don’t try at all.”
“I’m trying,” he insists angrily.
“How?”
“I’m stepping up for our daughter.”
“After four years of never being there!” And I’d hardly call what he’s doing now stepping up.
“Would you please lower your voice,” he hisses between his teeth, forcing a smile as the waiter returns with his wine.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Carson takes a sip of his wine. “You never wanted me around.”
“That’s not true,” I immediately deny.
“It is,” he sighs and leans back in his chair.
I really feel like a trick or something is being played on me right now. I glance around the restaurant half expecting someone to jump out with a camera, telling me I just got punked. I can’t even count how many nights I was up crying after Hope was born because I felt so alone and overwhelmed.
“I wanted you around. I needed you around, but you never answered my texts or phone calls.”
Carson shakes his head. “You didn’t want me around.”
“How can you say that?”
“That first night, after she was born, when I tried to change her diaper and I put it back on wrong you bit my head off.”
“I was a hormonal mess! I’d just given birth.”
Carson nods his head slowly. “And the next day I couldn’t hold her correctly so you didn’t want me to hold her at all.”
“You weren’t supporting her neck,” I mutter and take another sip of my bitter wine.
“You made me feel like a fool,” he grumbles.
Yeah, I’m not perfect and I probably had my moments when I wasn’t nice to him after she was born, but I didn’t drive him away. There were days where I felt like a fool for begging him to be there. I was desperate for his help, I was desperate for my daughter to know her father.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel like a fool but that doesn’t give you the excuse or the right to leave me to do it all on my own.”
“I know,” he says sincerely, and my eyes swing to his face in surprise.
“You know?”
He nods and sets his glass down on the table. “I told you I have a lot to apologize for, Grace. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I’m very sorry.”
“You are?” I repeat, dumbfounded.
Reaching across the table, he takes my hand in his. My eyes drop, staring stupidly at it before I try to pull it back.
His grip tightens, trapping me. “I wasn’t there for you, and I wasn’t there for Hope. I’ve failed us all.”
On one hand, his words are like music to my ears, I don’t know how long I’ve hoped and dreamed for him to come around. On the other hand, he’s touching me and it’s making my skin crawl.
“I can’t change the past, but if you let me, I’d like to be a bigger part of her future.”
I stare hard into his baby blue eyes and I just can’t tell if he’s being honest or not. I’m afraid I’ve wanted this for so long that I’m seeing simply what I want to see. But shouldn’t I at least give him the benefit of the doubt?
Taking a deep breath, I yank hard on my hand, finally freeing it from his grasp before I tell him, “I would like that.”
Carson flashes that dazzling smile at me but thankfully I’m still immune to its effect. “Can we start over?”
My gut instinct is telling me not to agree right away. “Meaning what?”
Carson’s smile fades away and he finishes off his wine before saying. “I’d like to give us another shot.”
“What?!” I almost choke on my own wine, and cough and sputter into my napkin.
He waits until I have myself under control before clarifying. “I’d like to see if we can make this work, you and I, and Hope.”
“Why?” I ask suspiciously. I know Max warned me that this was Carson’s true intention but still I don’t understand it.
Carson reaches across the table and holds out his hand to me as if he expects me to willingly place my hand in his. “So we can be a family.”
After all this time, after all those tears, it’s not going to happen. I drop my hands to my lap. “I’m already seeing somebody.”
His lip curls with disgust. “That MMA thug?”
“He’s not a thug,” I say defensively. Max is such a better man than him.
“How long have you been seeing him?” He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest.
I guess today makes it exactly a week… Fuck.
“For a few days,” I say vaguely, trying really hard not to squirm. It sounds ridiculous saying it out loud.
Carson’s head tips back as he laughs. “You know they go through girls like porn stars go through condoms?”
I do know that, I’ve heard the stories from the ring girls at the club, and I’ve heard dirtier stories straight from Mandy’s mouth.
But Max isn’t like that… Max and I are serious… it’s just saying it out loud to someone else makes it sound absurd.
Carson relaxes in his chair as if he’s no longer threatened. Thankfully, our dinner arrives and I’m saved from having to respond.
We manage to get through the entire meal civilly with me redirecting the conversation towards Hope, though I can tell it’s frustrating him when he tries to grab my hand but I dodge all of his attempts. After paying the bill, his hand returns to the small of my back as he escorts me to the car.
By the time we pull up in front of my house, I feel like I just lived through an episode of the Twilight Zone.
“I had a wonderful night,” he says, leaning towards me, and being the rude bitch that I am, I push open my door and jump out.
“See you next week!” I blurt out, slam his door and run up the front steps of my house.
He guns his engine and I wave my hand over my shoulder as I unlock my front door. Jumping inside, I slam the door behind me and lean against it, listening to him squeal out before I can relax.
Once I’m sure he’s gone, I release the breath I was holding and pull out my phone. I have several missed texts from Max but I don’t read them yet. First I send him a message.
Me: You were right.
Chapter Thirteen
Max
Fuck, I don’t like dropping her off.
I didn’t sleep for shit Friday or last night, and it’s getting worse. The longer we are together the more I need her next to me in bed. I need that presence that will bring me some sort of peace.
I know she will.
I can’t pretend in my head anymore that I am not pushing this whole thing to its final conclusion—she and Hope need to live with me.
I talked to Grace a bit Saturday and that was really good, but it wasn’t enough for me, though I did get to talk to Hope for a bit also. That was good, I like her, she has a sharp mind. She is way too funny for someone so young.
Well, maybe I’m a bit immature as well.
She certainly had a lot of fun at the zoo, she was telling me all about the animals her and Grandma were drawing together. I got her to promise me she would make one of the bear we saw for me.
This hotel bed is absolute shit. Like a pile of fucking rocks shit. I haven’t slept in such a shitty bed in all my life. In fact, I didn’t end up sleeping in the bed at all. After tossing and turning and unable to get comfortable, I ended up sleeping on the floor.
Fuck, I am a prissy little bitch for whining, but t
hat thing sucks.
So far I have abused the gym equipment here at the hotel and tried to swim laps in the pool. But when it only takes four to five strokes to cross the pool, it isn’t so much a workout as it is just making a shit ton of splashing in the pool.
Running, running fucking sucks. I hate running. I know some people who live and swear by it, but I fucking want to kill the man who invented running. I do it though, I do it and keep my opinions to myself.
I hate it but it helps release the tension I feel trying to build up.
I am normally pretty unflappable. But this whole visiting someone who is dying… Shit, I don’t know how to act. I keep trying to think of ways to go about saying hello, but I can’t think of anything that doesn’t sound stupid.
Running and thinking. Yeah, that sucks too. I do that for a long while, running the streets that surround the hotel. I don’t have much else to do. I have to wait here until one of the Give-A-Dream reps show up, then we drive to the girl’s house.
I don’t know what to do from there. I have kind of seen what they do in the news, and the reps from Give-A-Dream have been pretty helpful, but I still have no fucking clue what to do though. I brought some stuff with me... Hopefully that helps.
Finally, the time to get out of the hotel has come. I hate just standing around with my thumb up my ass.
“Hello, I’m Claire. You must be Max,” a blonde smiles at me as I enter the lobby. She has the Give-A-Dream badge pinned to her blouse.
The rep waits as I check out with the front desk then escorts me to her car. She is a kind, older lady and I guess she has seen all kinds of people in her life because she doesn’t flinch when she meets me. I am not the most clean-cut guy but she is all smiles.
Her car though isn’t the largest of vehicles and I kind of get the feeling I might have been better off renting something to move me around in.
Shit, I feel like a circus bear in one of those funny cars.
We pull up to a house in a small suburb outside of Cincinnati and as I look around, I see how much life is just going on as normal outside of the home. But I also know inside the home a little girl is in end-stage leukemia with in-home hospice care.
Fuck, this is feeling weird in my stomach.
Thank fucking god Colt didn’t alert any press or shit like that. I didn’t think he would but I had to make sure he knew not to. I don’t want shit like this publicized. It’s hard enough for the girl and her family with her being so sick, why the fuck would they need some glory hound mixed into it.
Another car with Give-A-Dream is waiting on the street for us and another woman steps out of her car with a camera in hand. They told me about this so I am not put off by the picture she takes of me as we walk to the door. These are for the family and the charity.
The knock on the door helps pull me from the inside of my head. I feel jittery now like right before a fight. It’s not the same, but the nerves are the same.
A tall blue eyed, blonde-haired older teen opens the door. She is pretty in a next-door neighbor kind of way, and she would probably be prettier if she didn’t have giant dark circles under her eyes.
A tall man appears behind her, and he, like her, has the dark eyes. They both smile though and that helps. I know they must be in hell right now.
Both stepping out onto the doorstep, the man says, “Hello, I’m Matt Willows. This is my daughter Julie.”
Taking his hand, I feel the strength in his grip, but he doesn’t try to do one of those power things, he simply shakes my hand like all men should.
“Good to meet you, Matt, you too Julie,” I say as I shake their hands. “I wish it was under better circumstances.”
“We all wish it was, Max, but we are so very thankful you’re taking time out of your schedule to come see Krista. It’s an honor for us to meet you,” he says.
And I can tell he really thinks this is an honor for his family. Shit, it’s more like the opposite. They are honoring the shit out of me.
“I am honored you guys would think of me to come visit her,” I say.
We head in shortly after that. The whole house is in on the surprise except for Krissy, as they tell me everyone calls her.
“Who was that, Dad?” I hear a rough but faint voice ask as they station me outside in the hallway.
“The delivery guy, he dropped off a package.”
“Oh. Anything for me?” she asks.
The mom, Anna, and sister, Julie, are standing across from me with huge smiles on their faces. I feel goofy standing here like this, a big giant guy with a travel bag in one hand and a teddy bear in the other.
“Let me go check,” I hear him say before he walks out into the hallway.
Nodding my head to him, I walk into the room. Fuck, I have no clue what to say.
We both just stare at each other for about ten seconds. Me smiling and her just staring at me with huge wide eyes. I am so hoping she recognizes me and doesn’t think I am some crazy intruder.
She suddenly opens her mouth and lets out a loud squeak followed by, “Oh. My. God…. You… You… It’s… You’re….”
Nodding my head, I walk further into the bright pink room. The girl is sitting halfway up in a hospital bed with needles stuck in her, tubes everywhere and her pretty face has the largest smile I have ever seen on it. She’s wearing a Cincinnati Reds hat. I can see that she probably lost all her hair from the skin showing on the sides. She is so pretty though. So beautiful. Fifteen and tragically beautiful.
Fuck. That’s not fair.
“Yeah, I am pretty sure I am me,” I say with a grin. I walk over to the chair beside her bed and motion to it. “Mind if I sit for a while?”
She is slowly turning more and more red as she holds in her breath.
“Relax, Krissy,” I hear Julie say from behind me. She says it though in a playful voice and I can see Krissy give her a quick glance. They share look, I have no clue what it means, but Krista looks back at me.
“Please sit. I just need to get this…” She reaches to her side and gets one of those bed riser remotes. Raising it up, she comes to a full sitting position.
I wait for her to get comfortable again as her family helps, then smile when she turns back to me. “Sorry… It’s getting hard to sit up on my own.”
“Don’t be, there is no need to apologize,” I say, and then lift the bear up in my hand.
I feel stupid all of a sudden for bringing her a teddy bear, she’s fifteen for shit’s sake. But her eyes light up as she sees it.
“Is that for… me?”
“Yeah, sorry… kinda corny maybe.”
“No, it’s totally awesome!” she says taking it from me. She wraps it up in one arm as she says, “I can’t believe you are here. Thank you so much for coming! I didn’t think you would be able to.”
“I had to once I heard you were my biggest fan. From the letter your dad sent them, I heard you have been watching my fights since I started.”
“Oh, I have been. I still remember your first televised fight. We were sitting on the couch watching and you come out into the ring looking like some giant monster…”
As we talk about my career, and her thoughts on all the matches she has seen of me, I doubt there is a more knowledgeable fan than she is. Fuck, even I don’t remember some of the details, then again it’s different when you are getting hit pretty damn hard.
I look around the room from time to time as we talk and I see a poster of myself standing up in a fighting position. Fuck, that is awesome, and if I am being honest with myself, a huge ego boost.
We talk about a lot over the next few hours. She is a pretty girly girl in every aspect except for her devotion to MMA. I mean it too, she is girly. I find myself fascinated by her though as she has so many facets to her life.
At one point her mom comes in to remind her that it’s time for her to take a quick injection of medicine. Thankfully it’s not one of the bad ones, Krissy says. I am guessing she means the stuff trying to kill the leukemia
or the heavy pain meds they pump into her when the pain hits.
I step out of the room as they help her take a personal break. My throat is sore from all the talking. I don’t think I have talked this much in a long time—at least not all in one go.
She doesn’t let my usual quiet stop her. She is way too good at getting people to talk. She already had me explain my whole change in training recently, and she was right up to speed on why I would want to. Hell, she even told me I should watch out for how often the guy will probably try to go for arm locks.
Going back into the room, I look out her bedroom window and see that the skies are darkening. Shit. I can’t believe we have been here this long, it feels like it’s only been a little while.
I can see Krissy is looking refreshed but tired. She smiles but she is flagging. I can tell she is so full of happiness but the day is wearing on her.
“So I brought you some stuff…” I say as I pull out five shirts. One is from Chase’s dojo and one is from the company I fight for. The other three are the ones I like to wear to the ring, each has my name on it or a picture of me.
Holding up the last one though it has my name and a grizzly bear standing up, roaring on it. “This one is the one I wore last time I fought. Took it off right before I entered the ring. I’ve washed it since then…”
Snatching it from my hands, she holds it tight to her chest with the bear I have brought. “Oh my god, that is so cool!”
Damn she is an ego boost.
Then I pull out a phone. It’s brand spanking new, still in its white box but has the cellophane taken off. I loaded it up before I left home.
“That has my home number and address in it. If you ever need to write to someone, call or text someone or talk I am there for ya. No worries about data or calls on it, use it as much as you want. I got it covered, okay?”
Nodding to me, her eyes brim over with tears. She reaches out and I stand up for her. Leaning over her small, frail looking body, I hug her tight to my chest. Her skin is hot to the touch, like a smoldering flame. She is so thin when I wrap my arms around her, I can’t believe I didn’t notice how small she really is.
