by Amy DeMeritt
“I love you, Alex. I’m going to take care of this one last loose end with boxing and then we won’t have that to worry about it anymore.”
Alex looks very worried and it makes my heart ache to see her look at me like that. Did she have this same look on her face watching over me while I was in my coma? The worry and pain on her face is too hard to look at, so I squeeze her closer and bury my face in her chest. Alex wraps her arms around me and holds me close.
I feel both a little relieved and a little more stressed after telling her about this. It’s nice knowing I have her love and support, but it’s also hard to see her so worried.
After a few minutes, I pull back and ask, “Do you want to try the yoga session again or do you just want me to hold you for a while?” Alex gives me a small smile and repositions us so she’s laying down and then pulls me to lay on her chest. “I want to hold you for a while.”
Chapter Fourteen
Before we left my place, Alex arrived just in time to see me off and give me a kiss that had me seriously thinking about telling Callie to go do this alone so I could lay in the arms of my sweet beautiful Alex. Instead, I allowed the powerful kiss to power my courage and got in the car with Callie and we’re now on our way to face Tina in one of hells pits on Earth.
Just as we hit the outskirts, I can almost feel a shift in the air. It’s as if I can actually feel the fear and chaos that reign supreme here. It’s not the good kind of chaos either that I embraced in my coma to better appreciate life. This is the kind of chaos that makes you fear life.
I don’t know if I’m being paranoid or imagining things, but I feel like every single person hanging out on the streets or sitting on house stoops is watching us. I feel like they have been waiting for our arrival and are watching our progress as we willingly roll through town to face a bloody execution. Really? Why the hell am I thinking like this when I need to appear strong and fearless so they accept the plan? Iron fist, iron first, iron fist, I chant over and over again in my head to bury the fear deep inside. I try to remember the determination and courage I had facing Tina in the ring before my coma and I try to channel that energy now. Facing Tina and having this conversation does not scare me, but facing her on her turf, in this hellish place, that does raise the hairs on the back of my neck.
When Callie parks, she looks over at me and I can see she has hardened herself on the ride over. Her face is blank, her jaw is tight, and her eyes are dark. It gives me courage to see her strength. I feel my own jaw tighten and nod once as if to say, “let’s do this”.
The entrance to Tina’s gym is down an ally that looks like one of those places in movies that you yell at the screen for the protagonist to not go down because you know there is nothing but trouble waiting for them if they do.
A couple of guys are standing outside the gym and look very out of place. They have baggy jeans, black boots, black hoodies, and plain black bandanas folded in a thick band around their heads. They regard us with dark cold eyes and small sneers on their faces as we approach. Seeing them standing here increases my already high level of nervousness. Callie just walks right passed them and opens the gym door without a word or any hesitation.
When we get inside, we’re immediately surrounded by several women ranging in age and probably skill level. A girl I recognize as one of Callie’s last opponents walks up and gets in Callie’s face. The girl has guts, considering Callie tore her ass up the last time they met. Having a gym full of bitches to back her up is disproportionately inflating her confidence.
“You have some fucking balls to show your face here. I heard you quit. Did seeing your little friend here get her lights knocked out make you pussy out? Afraid we’re going to help you trade your shorts for a hospital gown?”
“Your brain must still be rattling in your skull from my right hook. How are you going to accuse me of having balls in the same breath as being a pussy? My moving on from boxing has nothing to do with fear. I don’t scare so easily, but you do. Even in your own house, surrounded by your crew, I can still smell the fear on you. It smells like rotten fruit.”
“Who the fuck are you calling scared?” The girl puffs out her chest against Callie’s and gets right in her face. The other girls move in closer and I feel my fists clench and my shoulders tense. Callie stares her down, and with a small grin, she says, “We’re expected, so end the charades. Where’s Tina?”
“Stand down, Carla.”
I look up and see Tina sauntering over with a smug look on her face. The mass of girls around us parts and Carla steps back, only after pushing her chest against Callie’s one last time. Tina takes her place in front of us with her hands loosely resting on her hips with a small smile on her face. She obviously came straight from work just like Callie and I. She’s wearing a pair of black with white pinstripe business pants with a pressed white button up blouse tucked in at the waist. Her black hair is out of its usual ponytail hanging in loose curls around her shoulders and her tiger eyes are staring in mine in a piercing way. Tina has an average pretty face, but her eyes are strikingly beautiful. They look like little golden tiger eye stones and when I first met her, they pulled me in like a moth drawn to a light in the pitch black of night. It didn’t take me long to realize that golden glow had an almost paralyzing painful zap behind them.
“Jordan, you look surprisingly well. Come on back.” Another thing that attracted me to Tina was her sense of control and power. Which is odd since both of which I have never been comfortable relinquishing to anyone – till Alex.
We follow Tina to a back office where her coach and gym manager are waiting for us. Her gym manager, Mr. Pacino, is a thick Italian man with a very thick head of black curly hair and a curiously thick mustache. His hands remind me of tied bundles of sausages and make me nauseous to look at them. Her coach is a mean crazy bitch just like Tina. She looks more like a dude though with her hair buzzed to just a layer of peach fuzz on her scalp and her unnaturally thick bulging muscles everywhere.
We take a seat and I almost groan in annoyance when Tina sits down next to me. Mr. Pacino flops the newspaper down on his desk, and in his thick accented voice, he asks, “What do you want to do about this?” Why is everything about this guy so thick? I sit up straighter in my chair and start explaining my plan.
“I want to make a statement. Everyone in this room and in the boxing community knows I’m not fit for a match in my current condition. I died for Christ’s sake. People like this journalist just look at us as entertainers and don’t care what the hell happens to us. The bloodier we are, the better in their eyes. As a community, I want us to disgrace this journalist. Sure, Tina throwing that right hook after the match ended was fucked up, but what this guy is encouraging is basically a slaughter. I could barely stand against Tina when I was in my best shape ever. There’s no way I would last a minute with her now. This guy has no respect for athletes or the sport that we all love, so he has no business writing about us. Aside from the fact that it would reflect poorly on Tina and your gym to challenge me to a rematch, I have retired and I’m never getting in the ring again. Callie has also announced her retirement so you now have two formidable fighters out of your gyms way in racking up trophies and titles.”
They’re quiet for a couple minutes just looking at me and I’m surprised when Tina is first to speak. “I agree with Jordan. I’m not going to let some out of shape pencil pusher that doesn’t have a clue about what it takes to be in the ring try to dictate my matches. This prick needs to roast. The media does not dictate to us who we are and who we fight – we do. We use them; they don’t use us.”
I’m really surprised that Tina agreed so quickly. She’s normally much more argumentative. I really expected an argument with her coach and manager only agreeing out of wanting to save face for their gym and then having to convince Tina to step in line. Her sudden comradery attitude is unsettling. It makes me feel like she has something up her sleeve and she’s going to stab me in the back the first chance she gets.<
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After discussing what points we want to make in the statement, Mr. Pacino pulls out his phone and we go to the gym to make the video. With the other girls training behind us, we record a statement, basically calling out the journalist for having no respect for the sport or its athletes. Just when we’re finishing, Tina makes a small statement about having regrets for her reaction to her defeat in our final match, which completely throws me off because we hadn’t discussed her saying that. When we finish the video, everyone is happy with how it turned out, so Mr. Pacino posts it to all of his and his gyms social media accounts, the gyms website, and sends a copy to the journalist’s paper and their competing paper.
There, that’s done. Now that Tina has publicly apologized and denounced the ridiculous goad to challenge me for a rematch, I feel much more relaxed. Callie and I shake hands with everyone and Tina walks us out. When we get to the car, Tina says, “Jordan, I want to ask you something. How the hell did you beat me?”
“Remember what you said to me the last time you knocked me down?” She shakes her head. “You told me, ‘stay down or I will destroy you’.” Her face pinches slightly as if she just ate something sour. “How did that help you?”
“It wasn’t the words. When I looked up at you, you looked uncertain you could beat me. You broke your confidence. I knew if I just stood up and gave you all I had, it would shake you up enough that I could take you down. I knew I couldn’t last long and probably wouldn’t be able to get back up if you threw another head shot, but I was pretty confident the surprise of me getting up would be enough.”
“I know you think that you and Callie retiring gives me an edge, but it doesn’t. Having two less bad ass fighters to go up against and prove myself against will only make me have to work harder. But what you just told me does give me an edge. Jordan, I almost never say ‘I’m sorry’, but I really am, and not just because this little public truce between us may help my boxing career. I know I act like a bitch most of the time, but I regret what I did to you. Even if you hadn’t fallen into a coma, I would still regret it. I’m not a thug, but I acted like one in that ring. I actually do love this sport and respect my opponents. I think the pressure of securing that agent just really twisted up my head that day.”
“I accept the apology. Good luck with getting that agent.”
“Can I ask you one more thing?” I just stand here and wait. “The thing about dating your nurse, is that true?” I just smile and open my car door. “See you around, Tina.” She smirks as if getting her answer and backs up onto the sidewalk.
Just before Callie pulls away, I put my window down. “Hey, Tina. One more thing you should know. You have a tale-tell when you think you’re about to put your opponent down.” She steps over closer to the car with a confused look. “What do you mean?”
“You favor your right side – you stop changing feet. Work on that.” She smiles in a surprised appreciative way. “Thank you.” We wave and Callie pulls away.
When we’re out of the danger radius, Callie says, “I think that Carla chic wants me to fuck her. She kept looking at my lips and that last time she pounded her chest into mine, her groin slammed into mine.” I laugh hard and when I look at Callie, she’s grinning in a cocky way. “Well, you’re not rivals anymore. Just keep in mind she’s one of Tina’s crew so you know she’s probably bat shit crazy.”
“Possibly. I gave her the ‘I’m going to get you naked’ eyes, so we’ll see if she comes chasing me.” I laugh hard again. “And what the hell does that look like?” Callie turns to me with a small grin and definite lust in her eyes. I feel my cheeks blush and I look away. “Oh my god, never look at me like that again.” Callie laughs hard and smacks my thigh. “Relax, Pixie, you’re not my type.”
We pull up outside my apartment building and Callie playfully smacks my leg again. “Ok, get out, Pixie. Go show your woman you’re still alive.”
“Ok, thanks for going with me.” She laughs a little. “Pixie, you know damn well I’d never let you go to that part of town without me. Now that this is behind us, the three of us should go to dinner this weekend.”
“Definitely. Talk to you later.”
I’m so excited to see Alex that I run up the stairs to my apartment. When I open my door, she’s sitting in my favorite arm chair in my living room with her knees drawn up reading a book. She’s wearing a pair of thin rimmed rectangular glasses and when she looks up, I let out a small moan. She’s so beautiful. She smiles and leaps out of her chair. She pulls me into a tight hug and kisses me. Oh man, I could totally get used to coming home to a welcome like this every day.
“How did it go?”
“Surprisingly, it went great. Let me show you.” I pull out my phone and bring up the video on the gyms website. I tell Alex about the night and when I finish, she pulls me into an amazing kiss that leaves me feeling light headed. “I was so worried about you. I was going crazy sitting here not knowing what was happening. I’m really glad it worked and she didn’t do anything crazy.”
“Yeah, me too. I really didn’t know what to expect, but I definitely didn’t expect it to go as well as it did. Have you eaten anything yet? Are you hungry?” She shakes her head. “No, I was waiting for you. It’s getting kind of late; do you want to just order something from downstairs?”
“That’s fine. Peking Duck, steamed veggies, and rice ok with you?”
“Perfect.” I turn to get the menu to call in the order, but turn back. “Oh, just so you know, you look really hot in those glasses.” Alex laughs and kisses my lips. “Thank you.” I try to give her that “I’m going to get you naked” look that Callie just showed me, and Alex’s cheeks blush and her smile gets really big before she pulls me into a kiss that makes my knees weak. Wow, that actually works.
When Alex pulls back, she whispers in my ear, “After dinner, there’s something I would like to do to you.” She bites my earlobe for emphasis and I feel my clit start ticking and I release a small moan.
After I place the order, we flop down on the couch together. Alex wraps her arm in mine and rests her head on my shoulder. I kiss her head and she looks up at me for a moment with a smile before laying back down.
“Alex, do you think I’m strong?” She lifts her head to look at me and just stares in my eyes a moment. “Jordan, you are the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
“I didn’t feel strong tonight. I felt weak and scared.”
“What do you think is the strongest material on Earth?” I look at her confused. “What?” She smiles and turns sideways to face me. “Seriously, what do you think the strongest material is?”
“I’m not sure. First thing that comes to mind is steel, but I think diamonds are actually stronger.”
“True, diamonds are stronger than steel. At first glance, just looking at their surface, which would you pick as the strongest?”
“The steel.”
“If you look deeper, at the molecular makeup of both materials, you’ll see that the diamond is far superior than the steel and the diamond will actually cut through that steel without leaving a scratch on its own surface. Strength is not surface deep, just like who you are is not surface deep. Your character, your determination, who you are, every microscopic part of you creates a tight lattice, making you an unbreakable diamond. It’s what is on the inside that makes us strong. People are like water balloons.” I smile and laugh. “So, I’m a diamond on the inside and a water balloon on the outside?”
“Yeah, pretty much. If you fill a bunch of water balloons with all different kinds of materials or combinations of materials and then throw them at a wall, the balloons filled with only fluid burst easily, while the balloons filled with more densely complex materials may just bounce off the wall unharmed. On the surface, the water balloon is soft and can be maimed, but what’s on the inside of that balloon is what determines how easily its bursts into pieces. Getting scared doesn’t make you any less strong if you still face what you have to. It’s when we run away from our fears
that our strength is lacking.”
“Why do you think I’m the strongest person you have met?”
“Because, you never give up, even in the hardest battles that no one else can see – the battles we all fight within ourselves. You don’t run away from the difficult questions and realities of self. You face them and if you see something you don’t like, you change it.”
“Well, it actually took being put into a coma and hearing your velvety voice to help me to finally face what I had avoided and ran from for years, so I don’t know if that really applies.”
“For a diamond to form requires extremely high temperatures and pressure. In your toughest moments, you harden in a brilliant beautiful way, when most people would crack and disintegrate under the heat and pressure.”
“You must really love me or something. You always speak so prophetically and adoringly about me and my virtues.” Alex laughs and kisses my lips briefly. “Yeah, I really love you or something.” She’s smiling so lovingly and affectionately that it almost makes me cry. No one has ever looked at me like Alex looks at me.
“What’s stronger than a diamond?” She shakes her head. “I don’t know.” I grab my phone off the coffee table and do a search. “Spider silk is actually considered stronger than diamonds. That’s weird. Ok, never mind.” Alex laughs. “Trying to give me an inner strength description that tops yours?” I smile and nod. “Well, yeah. You’re way stronger than me, babe.”
“You help make me strong.”
Before I can respond, there’s a knock on the door. “That must be dinner.” I hop up and answer the door. After I pay, Alex helps me dish up some food and we sit down at the table to eat. Alex takes a bite of food and smiles. “I really love this duck.” This is the third time we’ve had this since I got out of the coma. Alex was skeptical that she would like it as much as the dream Alex did in my coma, but she’s in love with it.