by Amy Faye
No, fuck that. I wasn't willing to admit defeat. I was going to keep trying, until I knew that things were over for us for good. I just had to figure out how to bring her around to the relationship.
She wanted to leave Bell Bend. Maybe that was the real issue, that she was worried I would hold her back. No way, I would go with her! I didn't want to stay in Bell Bend any more than she did. Hell, I was the one who encouraged her to go to school when she wasn't sure where the money would come from!
I resolved to tell her I would follow her anywhere next time I saw her, and that eased my anger a lot. It meant I had a plan, and a reason to talk to her again. That was all I really needed to make her fall in love with me again, right?
–
Sitting on the toilet, I was hyperventilating and truly flipping out. As I had woken up, I realized that not only had I let Brant fuck me, I had let him fuck me without a condom while I was on a break from birth control.
I stopped taking the pill for two months because I was having some side effects and wanted to switch over to an implant. He came in me, multiple times, without any protection at all. If I got pregnant, I was fucked!
I knew how hard it would be to find a job if I was a single mother, and I doubted that Brant would be thrilled about having a child. He's lived a bachelor's life for so long. If I was pregnant, I probably wouldn't even tell him. If I cleaned fast enough, I could move away before I started showing. He would never have to know, and I would never have him tell me he didn't want to help me raise a baby.
There was no way I could have a child with Brant, not when he was so broken and definitely not when his job was to have his face beat in. No matter how much money that might bring in, it wasn't worth it to see him get hurt.
But I also knew that I wouldn't be able to find a morning after pill anywhere near here, definitely nowhere near enough for me to walk it. I didn't have enough money to call a cab, and there was no chance in hell I would ask Brant to take me.
I worked it out in my head, and chances were pretty low that I could get knocked up from sex this time. I likely wouldn't ovulate for another 4 to 7 days, depending. My shoulders relaxed as I worked that out, and then I began to cry in relief.
“You should have known better,” I sniffled to myself. “You shouldn't have spent any time with Brant at all.” I knew that if I did, things could have gotten out of hand, and now they have. I might end up having his child because of my own stupidity.
It wasn't his fault, not really, but I couldn't help myself from blaming him for it all. Why did he have to be so goddamn handsome and charming? Why did he have to invite me out? Why did Brant have to sweep me off my feet?
The blame was all mine. It really was. I just didn't want to admit it. Things were easier when you had a scapegoat.
But I knew that I could never see Brant again. If I did, the drama would start all over again. If I could avoid him, somehow, I might not have to deal with the consequences of still being in love with my high school sweetheart.
Chapter Six
I slept the whole rest of the day away. I didn't need the sleep, not really, but I wanted it. Maybe I was depressed because of how Vivian had treated me. Would that have been unmanly, for me to be depressed?
I just hated the idea that she might never reconsider me again. In high school, she was absolutely everything to me. She was my Sun, my Moon, she made everything better. Even my dad loved her. He probably loved her more than he loved me.
While she was gone, I never took the time to process how much of myself she had taken with her. She took my ability to laugh and I never really could picture myself settling down with any of the other women I had been with.
It wasn't because those women were somehow bad. I was just broken without Vivian. She gave my life meaning, and now that I knew that, being away from her again was painful. It was almost like when she first left, all over again.
I was less angry when I woke up, though anger never really left me. I thrived off of anger, it was what gave me power in the ring. It was destructive but useful, and I was damn good at using it.
Checking my cell phone, I saw that I had a missed call. For a fleeting second, I thought it might have been Vivian. I had kept the same phone number I had from my first cell phone in high school, the old brick that my dad bought in an attempt to keep me out of trouble.
It was my manager, though. “Brant, hope you're well. I haven't heard from you in a while. You know I have to talk to you now and then if you want me to keep finding you work, right? So call me at some point or I'll come down there and kick your ass.”
I chuckled. She was right, I never answered her calls and rarely called her back.
“Anyway. That's not why I called. You have another fight, and it's really soon. I tried to tell them to reschedule you, but they refused. It's next Tuesday, so I hope you can be healed up by then because this might be your big fight. It's against Francis Bush. Yeah, I know, that Francis Bush! I saw the video of your fight against Nathan, though, and you looked fine at the end of that. Just stay out of trouble, eat enough food, and get enough sleep. I'll call you in a few days with more details.”
She hung up. I would have to call her back soon. A fight with Francis Bush was a big deal, because he was almost a household name himself. If I won against him, I might end up picking up some good sponsors and more big fights. That meant more money, more fame, more recognition.
Francis Bush could be my ticket to the big leagues. But would Vivian support me if I chose to go that route? Would she let me keep fighting?
I didn't have any other skills. If I couldn't fight, what was I supposed to do?
Maybe I was wrong to expect her to accept me back into her life after all. Maybe I shouldn't be so damn selfish.
I shook my head and took a shower, getting dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. I was going to go out drinking, enjoy myself and relax. Let Vivian have some time away from me, time to think and to maybe figure out what she wanted.
If she didn't want me, I could live with that. It would just mean I would have to focus more on my fighting career. It just would have been nice for her to love me the way I loved her.
–
Sleeping for a few more hours had dulled the terror a little bit, but I still woke up with that nagging worry that I might be pregnant. Everything would change, the whole course of my life would be destroyed and rearranged.
Could I manage something like that? I probably wouldn't even be a good mother.
Picking up my clothes and throwing on sweatpants and a t-shirt, I spent the rest of the day packing up more things from around the house. I went into my mom's old bathroom and threw away anything usable like soaps and toothpaste, her toothbrush and hair brushes. I kept her hairdryer since I had been without one since before I graduated. Mine just randomly died on me.
Taking down the shower curtains, I cleaned the bathtub for what would probably be my last time. Cleaning the bathrooms was my least favorite chore as a teenager, but Mom always reminded me that doing things we hate builds character.
After her bathroom, I looked at her bedroom. I would have to eventually clean it, but everything was still so perfect. It still felt like she lived there. Her perfumes were a mess on her dresser. The mirror she used to put on makeup had photos of me taped on it haphazardly.
Her bed wasn't made. The blinds were slightly open, like they would have been while she read the news in bed in the morning, sipping on black coffee and maybe eating a pastry.
I missed her so much. When she died, I sort of just threw myself into other things, into school and internships, numbing the pain by being busy. Now that life was much slower, that pain was welling up again.
I don't know when I started to cry, but I did for a long time. I laid down on Mom's bed and just let the tears fall. It was a silent cry, and it was peaceful. I accepted her death, but I just missed her so much.
She would have known what to do about my pregnancy scare. She probably would have told me to accept
the possibility. “You'll be a wonderful mother one day, Vivian. You're so self-aware and conscientious of other people.”
Mom was thoroughly pro-life, and would have expected me to be the same. To be honest, even without her, I still was. If I was pregnant, I would accept the responsibility and raise the child just as she had raised me.
What about Brant, though? It was unfair of me to assume that he would want nothing to do with a child… but would he make a good father? Would he be able to stifle that anger and work through his problems? Hell, I didn't know if I would be able to help him work through them. And how could I expect my significant other to do anything without my help?
No matter how I looked at it, a relationship with Brant was doomed to fail. I just had to get used to that idea, and stop trying to find a way to fix something that was so thoroughly broken.
–
That week went by fast, filled with training and a lot of sleeping. I wasn't depressed anymore. No, I was just determined. I was going to win that fight against Francis Bush. Unlike Nathan, he wasn't massively heavier than me. We were both about the same size.
But Francis had more training than I did, and he started fighting when he was 13. With a head start like that, the fight was sure to be a dangerous one. I was used to winning through my skill alone. Local guys barely took anything but drinking too much seriously.
Francis wasn't local. He was born and raised in Michigan, but his fights were national. Everything I had been literally fighting for rested on this one match.
So I pushed Vivian out of my mind as much as I could, and I focused on working. I got back onto my weight lifting regime, drank gallons of water instead of beer, and got plenty of sleep. It was the most boring week of my life, but it would hopefully be worth it.
If I lost to Francis, it wasn't necessarily the end of the line for me. It just meant that it would be harder for me to move up in the MMA world.
I was thinking about how I would recover from a loss when I bumped into Vivian again in town. The fridge was empty and I needed to pick up milk and ground beef, and I was so in my head that I didn't even register that it was her until she spoke.
“Oh! Brant.” She was blushing as she looked up at me. I guess she didn't expect to bump into me either. Vivian's hair was up in a ponytail, and she was wearing jeans with holes in the knees. It seemed she was just out to run errands, too, since she normally dressed better than that.
She was coming out of the grocery store just as I was going in.
“Viv,” I said, feeling my face burn hot. “Good to see you.” I moved to keep walking, away from her and the awkward conversation.
“Hang on!” She said, running over to me. There was a plastic bag in her right hand that held some apples. “I just wanted to say, I'm sorry. For how I acted.” She looked down at the bag, then hid it behind her back. I didn't ask her why.
I hesitated, then smiled. “It's alright. You were freaked out.”
“No, it really isn't alright. Can I do anything to make it up to you?”
She wanted to make it up to me? Maybe she had feelings for me after all. “Well, I have another fight tonight. You could come to that. It might be my big break, and just like last time, having you there will be a great help.”
–
Looking up into those eyes, I wondered to myself why I even offered to make anything up to him. Sure, I was a little rude, but he came in me without protection!
He doesn't know what he did. I shouldn't be so mean.
Truth be told, I wanted to go to another fight and watch him. I really did, but I didn't want to encourage more trouble. There was no way a relationship between me and Brant could ever work.
I think he understood my hesitation, because he reached out and touched my shoulder. “Look, I don't expect anything from you. I think my feelings for you are clear, but I'm not going to push anything on you.” He stopped, then sighed. “I had something I wanted to say, too. If things were to go further, if we were to become serious again, I wouldn't expect you to put your life on hold. I would follow you wherever you needed to go, to do your work.”
“I couldn't ask you to do that.”
“You're not asking me to. I'm just telling you that I'm willing.”
If he's so serious about me that he's willing to drop everything just to be with me, maybe I should give him a chance, I thought. “Alright, I'll go. Will you pick me up at the same time?”
He pumped his arm in celebration. “Yep! See you then!”
As he walked into the grocery store and out of sight, I sighed with relief and pulled the bag out from behind my back. It was a good thing he hadn't noticed the pregnancy tests I bought. If he had, there would have been some uncomfortable things to explain.
I wouldn't be able to test for at least another week, but I wanted the tests there anyway. It was hard not to symptom spot, but every time I did I just threw myself into another project in Mom's house. Cleaning was surprisingly distracting.
But being with Brant would probably be even more distracting. Another date would be nice!
I walked home happier than I had been in a long time. Chances are I wasn't pregnant, and I would just have to be careful in the future!
Chapter Seven
I was determined to have a good time while at the fight, no matter how hard that might be. The crowd at this stadium was huge, fully sold out, and there we TV cameras pointing down at the ring from all directions.
This fight was definitely going to be much larger than the one against Nathan. There hadn't been any cameras then, and the crowd was much smaller.
“Do you know one of the fighters?” Someone asked me. I turned to see a beautiful blonde woman with flowing hair and intense baby blue eyes looking at me. There was a smile on her lips.
I sat up a little bit straighter. “Yes, I know Brant Taggart.”
“What a coincidence. I'm the wife of the man Brant is going to fight. Good luck!” She said, tilting her head to the side. Glancing at the ring on her finger, I found a huge rock that shined in the lights that flashed around the stadium.
“Yeah, good luck,” I answered, turning back to the ring. My heart was thumping and I was ashamed of my lack of makeup and my small breasts. I hadn't felt so self conscious since high school.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a big headline fight for you!” The announcer said through the microphone. Everyone's head turned to the ring, where Brant had just stepped in. Francis came in from the other side as well. “We're about to bring the street to the elite here!”
“Francis is taller,” the woman next to me whispered. “But they're the exact same weight. I wonder if that difference will matter in this fight.”
I didn't know if she was trying to make me nervous, but it was working. I didn't know anything about mixed martial arts, but it was clear to me that Francis could put asses in seats. He had to be good.
I had a really bad feeling about this fight.
The rap music blaring overhead switched to a new song as the referee spoke to Brant and Francis. The two men seemed to be sizing each other up, and both looked tense. “You two know the rules. I want a clean fight.” The referee looked at Francis. “I'm not going to tolerate anything less than a clean fight.”
The fight started, and Francis was the first to swing. Brant took the hit right on the chin, but returned it and slammed a fist into Francis' cheek. The two took turns sending a hit one way and then the other, chasing each other around the ring.
It seemed like a pretty even fight for a while, but at some point things turned and Brant started to look more haggard. I scooted to the edge of my seat, watching in horror as Francis beat Brant into submission. The woman next to me stayed put, and she even took out her phone now and then to check her texts.
Did she not care about what happened to her husband? How could anyone let someone they love go into the ring like that?
–
When I realized that I had no chance of winning, I couldn't tell you. The fig
ht was feeling damn good for a long while, but at some point I lose my energy completely and my confidence went with it.
Losing your confidence in the middle of a fight was a recipe for disaster. Confidence was where half of a fighter's strength came from. If a fighter wasn't full of himself, he was going to lose.
Francis was faster than me, and he was clearly more skilled than I was. He seemed to know my next move even before I did, and he blocked a lot of the hits I sent his way while finding openings in my guard that I never would have noticed.
I tried to get in as many hits as I could, pumping my fist into Francis' stomach and knocking the wind out of him whenever it was possible, but it wasn't going to be enough. He was going to win if I couldn't pull off some kind of miracle.
He was breathing heavy when he locked arms with me, but no matter how tired he looked, his muscles kept forcing him forward, his hits never got any weaker. I pulled away from him then ran to the wall, but he chased me and slammed his fist into the back of my chin, sending my jaw forward.
It hurt so damn much that stars burst behind my eyes. I gasped and fell to the ground, but got up quickly. Lunging forward, I managed to get my fist to connect to his ear, but Francis just returned the hit with an uppercut to my chin.
It was twice as hard and it sent me flying to the floor, my whole body slamming against the bottom of the ring. I tried, I fucking tried so hard to get up, but I couldn't. My body just gave up on me, and my strength didn't come back until Francis had already been declared the winner.
I let out a roar, slamming my fists against the ring's floor. “Fuck! Fuck!” I yelled, but no matter how much I yelled, I only became angrier and the pain only became worse.
Standing up, I tried to congratulate Francis on his win, but he shot me a look that made my blood boil. It said everything it needed to say: if he ever sees me again, he'll make me regret it.