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“You’redead!”Brettwallopedme on the ear with the punch mitts. “For fuck’s sake, you’re not even protecting your head.”
There was no tease in his voice. He was angry, and I was failing.
I brought my hands up to my side. He switched his feet, so I switched mine, putting my weak side back.
He turned a glove, and I jabbed, barely moving the glove. The hit was so frail.
“Weak,” he said, his brow coming together in a frown.
He turned his wrist to make me do a jab-cross, and he did the same curse, calling my hits feable.
“If you weren’t so busy playing fucking games,” he lamented, loud enough for others to hear. My cheeks burned with embarrassment.
“Brett…” I said under my breath.
“What? You feeling sensitive, little girl?” he asked the last bit with complete derision.
What had I done to make him hate me?
Another jab-cross-hook, and his left hand struck me in the ear when my cross hand didn’t pop back to its defensive spot quick enough.
“You’re dead!” he yelled, his booming voice filling the gymnasium. “Christ, I can’t believe you used to be a champion and you’re making rookie mistakes, like not keeping your hands up.”
He took the punch mitts off and threw them out of the boxing ring.
He brought his bare fists up to his face, his elbows down.
“Come on, little girl. Land a fucking punch.”
I let my hands down and looked at him, confused.
“What?” I asked. “I can’t…”
He struck me square in the jaw.
“You’re fucking dead!” he yelled again. “You can’t even defend yourself. I can’t believe you even won your last title.”
My cheeks burned, and my eyes stung. I didn’t want to hit him. I didn’t even know if I could.
“Brett…” my voice was pleading as I brought my hands back up.
“What? Did you win just because your opponents wanted to tug at your little braids?” he scoffed. “Un-fucking-believable.”
Brett and I circled one another, switching feet and changing directions. My gloved hands were up, but I wasn’t ready to strike. My arms were exhausted, my hips, legs weren’t ready to deliver any kind of power, and my heart… it had been through the ringer.
It had only been two weeks since I was shot. After having an almost-threesome with a man who couldn’t bear to look at me now. Who glanced at me from afar, then walked away? Now, my only solace was screaming at me, hurting me. My dad was watching me fall apart, then stomped on my shards to break me even further.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to crawl into a ball and die. I refused.
“For fuck’s sake, defend yourself.” Brett’s uppercut to my rib knocked the wind out of me. “You can’t even do that.”
He got into my box, and my hands refused to move. They refused to hit him, refused to defend me, and he struck me in the side with a hook that took me to my knees. I couldn’t raise my fist to the last person that was by my side.
I had lost focus. My mind had been jumbled by lust, by a certain man’s leather smell, and icy eyes. Maybe I deserved this.
“No wonder Leopold never brought you in,” Brett hissed. “Such a fucking liability. I should have followed his lead.”
A tear ran down the side of my nose before I saw it fall, splashing onto the canvas of the boxing ring mat.
