Fighting to Start

by S. L. Ziegler

  As soon as the official finishes with the intro, we touch hands. The bell rings and the biggest fight of my five-year career starts. I start my sizing up of Ric “Redman” Dalton immediately. I need to see the weaknesses you only ever see when they are standing right in front you, ready to pounce on you like a fucking piece of meat. Redman is one hard motherfucker and sure to be one of the toughest opponents I’ve ever met. Right now, he dances around, throwing punches and jabs that I dodge.

  He gets the drop on me and lands the first punch of the night, straight to my lip. I instantly taste the salty metallic tang of the blood that fills my mouth, going down my throat. Like every time someone hits me, I snap, and all my focus is immediately zoned in on the idiot that just hit me.

  Right there, I see his weakness—his left side is completely unguarded. I move in to make my attack, landing my foot into his ribcage, right at his spleen. That’s right, jackass, you’ll be feeling that shit tomorrow. Not giving him a way to come for me again, I don’t hesitate and keep throwing punch after punch, kick after kick. Forcing him to the ground, I move until I’m hovering over him, pounding into him, ignoring everything around me till the official breaks us apart when the bell goes off, signaling the end of round one.

  I drop my hands to my side, trying to gather air into my lungs. I have sixty fucking seconds, but those sixty seconds is all the time I need. Lance pops on his black gloves before he slathers my lip with Vaseline to stop the blood from oozing out.

  Coach pours the water down my raw throat and gazes over my lip, saying, “Make sure he doesn’t hit you there again or it’ll open that shit up, we don’t need your ass dripping blood all over the floor. He keeps giving you a window for a leg takedown and I want you to fucking take it the next time it’s open. After that, get a couple clean hits to his face and you’ll have this. Nothing else matters, but the here and now, Rike.”

  I only nod my head. The hunger for the win takes over my ability to speak.

  The bell rings for the second round and Redman meets me in the center, reminding me of a crazed bull. He lands a hook with his left fist to my face, and kicks me in the stomach, sending me staggering backward. The sound of my back hitting the cage and the screams of the crowd echo in my head, feeding the fire inside of me, helping me gain the control I need to sweep his legs out from under him. Swinging my legs over his body, I slam him to floor with a thud. I move slightly and hook my arms around his neck, and then I squeeze. The pressure of my biceps against his windpipe causes him to stop struggling against me, but the stubborn son of a bitch won’t submit. However, that shit won’t prevent me from squeezing until his eyes bulge out.

  Finally, his arms fall and he becomes dead in my arms.

  Holy shit! I just fucking beat this punk! I did this shit. No one else. Next thing I know, my left arm is raised as the crowd goes crazy, chanting “Riker.” Twentieth straight win, my eighth by submission, and I should be fucking proud of myself…but I’m not. I stand there and look through the crowd, searching for my girl, praying she showed up, praying she is here one more time to watch me win. But she’s not here. She’s out being happy somewhere else. Everything she’s been fucking keeping from me comes rushing back, suffocating any satisfaction of proving people wrong.

  After the endless pictures and interviews are finally over and I have a butterfly bandage on my lip, I stand in the tiny stall and let the cold water run over me. Now that the fight is over, I allow my mind to wander. The light bulb in my head flashes and everything becomes crystal fucking clear—Hadley would never go to Atlanta without me because she’s too committed to us to ever think about leaving me behind. She’s too in love with an idiot to see what she is giving up. Her love for me literally blinds her to the sacrifices she’ll be making, the same sacrifices she will one day regret…and fucking end up regretting me in the process. I can’t let her do that. I won’t let her do it. I have too much damn baggage from my shitty past that I need to deal with, but I need to do it alone in order to prove to myself that I can. I know I can’t be the man she needs or deserves till I do.

  Kenny comes in while I am drying off, breaking me away from my fucking depressing thoughts. “Good job, Riker. Damn proud of you. The guy from MMPL is in my office and he wants a couple words with the new hot shot. So hurry your ass up, you don’t want to keep him waiting.”

  This could be my shot. This could be the thing I’ve waited all this time for, trained all these hours for. “Okay, Coach. I’ll meet you in a minute.”

  I quickly get dressed in a pair of jeans and the only clean shirt I have left in my locker. I hesitantly send Hadley a text that says we won’t be going out and not to wait up, pressing send before I allow myself to think about what I’m really doing.

  Kenny swings the door open before I even get a chance to knock. When he moves out of the way, I see a guy a little older than I am waiting inside. It only takes me a split second to recognize him—Michael “Deadman” Daily. I fought him during one of my early fights—back when I made money for just stepping inside the cage. Daily had me on the ground, tapping out like a little bitch before the first round was even halfway over. He made the move to the League right after that, but one bad hit fucked up his neck permanently. Daily retired and started scouting for the MMPL, quickly moving up through the ranks. Now, he’s one of the top guys in the League. Looking at him, you wouldn’t guess he stopped fighting, though. Daily is still huge, must be at least six-three, and still looks fucking deadly. Even three years after he retired, I still think he would kill me inside the cage.

  “Riker, I’m sure you know who this guy is, being it’s only one of your four losses,” Kenny says, gesturing toward Michael. “Why don’t you come over, Rike? Daily wants to talk to you about some options he has in mind for you.”

  Daily holds out his hand and I nod, moving closer to him. “That fight tonight was epic. I didn’t think you were going to pull it off when he had you backed into the chains. But that guillotine hold at the end looked sick. Congratulations.”

  I take his hand and thank him.

  He sits down and continues, “You’ve certainly changed, grew up a lot from when we fought years ago. I want you to know we have been looking at you for a while and checking in with your coach here. Tonight with your win over Redman, you got the entire league’s attention. We want to make you an offer to the MMPL. You have a lot of raw, natural talent that we want to nurture and expand on.”

  “What’s the plan?” I don’t want to sound too interested, like a teenage boy seeing tits for the first time and shoots his load before he has a chance to touch them. But I needed say something so I’m not just sitting here like a fucking bump on a log.

  “The league wants you to go to a training camp for eight weeks where you will train with some of the best coaches in the sport, harness your raw talent and improve on those areas you’re weak in. After that, we will set up your first fight within us. Unfortunately, all of this is in Las Vegas, and you don’t have a lot of time to get your shit done if you take this. Plane leaves tomorrow morning and camp starts first thing Monday.”

  My mouth is wide open and pretty sure I just pissed in my pants. Clearing my throat, I try to say something, but nothing comes out. I had too many thoughts in my brain and none would come together to form anything fucking remotely understandable. All I could do was stare at Michael in confusion.

  “If you don’t close your mouth, you are going to be eating flies.” Leave it to Kenny to bring me out of the daze with his smartass mouth and off the wall comments. Thanks for making me look like a chump, asswipe.

  Daily cuts all thoughts off. “I know you have to think about it, but you only have till tomorrow morning at seven to make up your mind. But, Riker, I want you to understand that this opportunity from us will not come around again. I can promise you this. Did I mention that if you sign, you will get a twenty-five thousand dollar sign-on bonus?”

  I officially stop breathing, my brain stops functioning and my heart sei
zes in my chest. Everything around me slows down until it’s frozen. I’m being offered everything I’ve always wanted on a silver fucking platter, its right here. Why aren’t I jumping up and down, why aren’t I accepting his offer before he changes his mind? Hadley, and my insane love for her…that’s why.

  Daily stands up, snapping me out of my shocked state, and hands me a card with an address printed on one side. “I mean it, seven o’clock on the dot. Not a minute later. The plane leaves with or without you.”

  It’s the League or Hadley. Hadley or the League.

  My future or hers.

  No…it doesn’t have to be that way. Why can’t it be both? Why can’t she follow her dreams while I follow mine?

  This is my chance to make it, my once in a lifetime. And Hadley needs to go to Atlanta to follow her dreams, too. We can have it both ways without either one of us giving up on what we love. I need to do this, have to do this, must do this. There’s no other way.

  I know she’ll fight me if I tell her my reason for it. She’ll find a way to make it work, which would only hurt one of us in the end. She’ll think with her heart and not her head. And I know all too well what happens when people think that way. I know the destruction, the chaos it causes. I only have one option—push her away, any way I can. Hopefully, down the road, Hadley will understand why I have to do this. We both need this break to find ourselves. I don’t want our lives to turn out like my parents—I want better for her. She deserves better, we deserve better.

  Before he gets a chance to walk out of the office, I yell out, “Daily, I’ll take it.”

  Holy Shit!

  Chapter 3

  Hadley

  I got you some takeout. It’s in the fridge. xxx

  Hey babe what time you getting home? I can always wait up for you xxx

  Night babe. The alarm is set. xxx

  Three texts sent, three texts not answered and usually, he answers me right away. My stomach flutters with nervous energy, telling me something bad has happened. In the two years we’ve been together, Reed’s only lost two fights. He was lost and distant both times, but at least we were together. At least I could see him, knew he was okay, and I wasn’t left alone to worry how or what he was doing. Reed hurting always crushes me, brings the tears pouring out. I knew it was a big fight yet I still didn’t go.

  I stay awake and glare at our door with my phone clutched tightly in my hand, desperately waiting to hear something from him…but nothing comes. When the clock on the oven turns to midnight, I reluctantly pull myself up from the couch and make my way upstairs to our room.

  I take one of his shirts from the dresser and put it on before rolling to his side of the bed. His scent covers his pillow and it infiltrates me as I hold it close to my face, making it easier to drift off to sleep.

  “Hadley, I love you so fucking much.” Reed wakes me up when he draws me into him tightly.

  I slowly open my eyes, feeling my lids peel away from each other due to the dried tears. “I love you so much, too.”

  He brings his lips to mine in a slow, torturous pace. “God, gotta have you right now, babe.”

  Something rough brushes against my lip and I break away, trailing fingers over a bandage on his face. “Hey, you know I never turn you down, but I don’t want to hurt you. Are you okay? Do you need me to take you to get stitched?”

  “Does it feel like I could give a flying fuck about my lip? I can’t wait any longer. I need this… I need this with nothing between us. Please, give this to me,” Reed pleads as his lips meet the spot behind my ear, the spot that sends a blaze through me every single time. He slips his hand under my shirt, inching his fingers over my stomach, over my chest, before lifting me up enough to rid me of my shirt.

  I pull him into me aggressively. The need to feel his skin against mine, the thirst to feel his lips on me, consumes me.

  Reed gently glides into me, causing me to let out a moan. We move together slowly—our movements fluid and singular—our eyes never break as we stay fixed on each other, breathing one another in. When we climax together, we only moan—no screaming, no hair pulling, no roughness. Nothing about this time together is reminiscent of normal. This is so much more, so different…this is the kind of lovemaking we never do. He collapses on me, frantically trying to catch his breath. “Hadley, babe…damn… Just damn.”

  He pulls out of me and rolls over, pulling my body with him. My leg drapes over his, my arm slung over his stomach, and my head rests on his chest as I listen to the erratic beating of his heart, the heart that has become my lifeline over the years.

  “I love you…it’s fucking mad how much,” Reed says as he rubs his fingers in circles on my back, bringing me back into reality.

  “Mad… I like that. It’s a good thing, right?”

  He doesn’t answer me, only continues with the light touches on my back and the heavy breaths into my hair.

  “Well, stud, I kinda love you madly, too,” I say as I close my eyes and let the rhythm of his heartbeat lull me back to sleep.

  Right before I drift off, I swear I hear him whisper, “Not sure that’s good enough anymore, babe. Go to sleep, and just remember how much I love you. I would do anything for us to make it forever.”

  My arms stretch over my head as I slowly begin to wake up. I throw my hand over to Reed’s side of the bed and find it empty and cold, not surprisingly. He always wakes up early, hates that I can sleep the day away. Grabbing his shirt off the floor, I walk out of our room and head downstairs to get my coffee. Reed always has my coffee ready for me…but this morning, it isn’t there. Where he usually puts my cup, I find a note in his handwriting. My heart skips a beat at how sweet he is sometimes. I tear it open with a smile on my face, but the upturned corners of my lips fall away instantly as my world shatters out from under me with the words he wrote.

  Hads,

  Last night I know you thought I lost, but I won, kicked his ass actually. I was offered the chance of a lifetime after it. I know you didn’t know anything about it and maybe I should have told you, but I thought I was doing the right thing. Some people from the MMPL came last night and babe I couldn’t fucking turn it down. I know about your offer at the hospital in Atlanta and I need you to take it. Hads, do what you love, what you’re fucking born to do. I could never live with myself if you gave up your dream for me. Right now, we both know our dreams are clashing and going down two different paths. If you follow me or I follow you, one of us will suffer, we would be giving up something fucking huge that makes us who we are. It will make us bitter-ass people later. I saw it growing up and it would kill me if that was us. I’d rather leave now while we still love each than to stay together with resentment and only end up hating each other in a couple of years. Saw too much of that shit growing up to do that to us. Babe, I love you so much. That’s why I’m doing this and I know you don’t understand but you will, you will see. I can’t give you a hundred percent of myself till I confront the shit I’ve been pushing down. We’re meant to be together, I know this, I promise. Just right now, I need to find myself and prove to myself that I’m bigger than just some idiot fighter with a dollar to his name, living off his girlfriend. I fucking can’t do that and be here or with you at the same time. We have a lifetime to be together and I want that, I do. Shit, babe, don’t forget that. I just don’t want us to have any regrets and I’m scared that’s what will happen if I stay.

  One life is all we got. I choose you. I will come back to you.

  I’m being the biggest fucking pussy for not doing this last night in person, but I know that with one look in your eyes, you would convince me to stay, and that can’t happen. I pinky you I will come back to us, once I get my shit straight.

  Two sparrows, babe.

  Love you madly,

  Reed

  Chapter 4

  Hadley

  It’s been ninety-five days since Reed left me.

  He said he left me to find himself.

  He left to follow hi
s dreams so I can follow mine.

  Ninety-five days since my heart was whole.

  Ninety-five days of counting each minute I am all alone.

  I’m mourning him as if he was dead. Not one tiny word—not one lone phone call, not a single text, email, no Facebook message or, hell, even another letter from him, so to me it’s like he is. Which is funny because he is very much alive and living his life. As opposed to me, who is at a standstill. The rational side of my brain knows it’s stupid to grieve like he isn’t on earth anymore, but the broken side knows that if he had died, at least it wouldn’t have been his choice to leave me. Reed did choose, and he chose to walk away from me—from us. For something bigger, something better. I would have followed Reed anywhere, the end of the earth, no questions would’ve even had to be asked, and I would have done it without a single regret. But he didn’t give me that option so I sit alone, abandoned, deserted, fighting to breathe in and out, hurting every single day I have to go on without him here.

  You can go through the “stages of grief” and check them off one by one by how I have been acting. The first one, denial, was by far the easiest. It was five hours after Reed left—the worst morning of my life, when my brothers Matt and Mark finally found me clutching the letter and staring at the lines in the tile. It took both of them to drag me out of the corner of my kitchen floor. They tried to bring me to my parents, but I flipped out, kicking and screaming—I only wanted to be at our home, the last place we were us. I remember looking around and everything was exactly the same, nothing moved, nothing changed. The empty cup Reed used to put his protein shake in before he left was still on the counter. His shampoo was still in the shower. His dirty socks were still on the floor, and his clothes were still in our closet. The dishes in the sink that I had yelled at him to put away before we had sex the day before were still there. The Milk Duds he brought me a couple days before—just because he knew I loved them—were on the end table, untouched. All of those were reminders of our daily life together, and that he was real.