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“Martin?” she asked, blinking in surprise.
“Don’t let his size fool you, that man can scrap with the best of them. It’s come in handy a night or two at the bar. Anyhow, I met him, and he was just full of rage, you know? His old man used him for a personal punching bag, and when he fought back, he got kicked out. He knew a lot of the MMA and got me started. I saved every dime I could, you know? Every dime.”
“And you still fight.”
“I still have the rage, Trina. Some days I can’t get past it, and I don’t want to take it out on the people I care about. So, I save it for the matches.”
“I heard Justin say he wants to go.”
“Yeah, but it’s a tough crowd. I don’t know about involving any of you. I don’t think I could concentrate if I was worried about you, too.”
“I don’t think I can concentrate knowing you’re going into an illegal fighting ring and potentially getting killed.”
He opened his mouth to protest, then grinned. “Touché. What about you?”
“No fighting for me,” she said, holding her hands up, causing him to laugh.
“No, after...after I left. Tell me everything.”
She hesitated, taking a drink of her water to stall, to gather up the courage.
“Trina?”
“I fell apart, Ren. I absolutely fell apart.”
His smile fell. “I’m so sorry.”
“No! No, I get it.” She folded her hands in front of her to keep from fidgeting. “I understand now why you had to go. If it wasn’t for Justin, I never would have made it for my finals, never would have graduated, or gone off to college, or any of it. I isolated myself, even with his help with doing what had to be done. That’s it. I did the bear minimum and somehow landed a cushy job with Bradford Marketing. There are long stretches of time that I don’t even remember. I’ve never looked at our prom photographs because we were supposed to look at them together. I haven’t been to the marina in years, haven’t had much of a social life outside of...” Her voice trailed off and she looked down at her hands.
“I never wanted any of that for you.”
“Well, a heads up would have been nice. Although knowing me, I probably would have missed it completely. I missed so much happening right before my eyes, Ren. I’m having a hard time forgiving myself.”
He reached across the table and placed his hand over hers. “There’s nothing to forgive yourself for, I promise.”
Tears touched her eyes as he said the words. “Maybe someday I’ll believe that.”
“We already toasted to forgiveness, you know.” His thumb caressed her hand sending a jolt through her body. “What do you say we toast to new beginnings?”
“With our water?”
“Well, our waiter hasn’t come for our orders let alone the wine.” He pulled back and held his water glass into the air.
“We’re doing an awful lot of toasting lately.”
“Well, we have a lot to celebrate. To new beginnings.”
She smiled through her still-threatening tears.
This was Ren.
She could do this.
“To new beginnings.”
