Page 14 of Jax

I shake my hands out, much like the fighters entering the ring are doing right now, while I make my way down the aisle. I don’t have tickets for this area, but I figure if I let a little thing like that stop me, I’ll be done before this night is over. Instead, I act as if I belong, walking down the pathway to the ring until I spot a cluster of empty seats that are in Jax’s line of sight.

Before I sit, I peek at the ring one more time to check my view and nearly stumble. Jax is bearing holes straight through me already. His lips move, curling as he narrows his gaze. Finn follows his line of sight and mirrors his brother’s face as soon as he sees me. I smile and wave before sitting down in the empty seats, slowly crossing my legs as my heart batters my rib cage.

So much of my life is a lie. I’m dressed like someone else. I talk like someone else. Sometimes, I worry I’ll never bring the real Sadie back.

How fucking sad is that? Mid-twenties and have no idea who I am because I’m too busy being someone else.

Maybe my concern should be that I don’t actually know the real Sadie. What if I am this person who only looks out for herself?

I swallow the immediate lump in my throat like it’s a train fitting through a stir straw. Finn’s already back down to business even though his muscles are pulled taut. Jax, though, is still glaring, eyes never leaving me as I peruse the ring like I’m just here for the Friday night fights like everyone else.

My skin burns under his scrutiny, lighting me up from the inside out. If I had one wish to be granted, it’s that Jax would no longer hate me.

I can’t take back what I did. I couldn’t even if I wanted to, but I would change the way he hates me.

I avoid his stare, partly because I can’t look at him without feeling the years of guilt settle like lead plates on my shoulders, but also because I’m playing the part I’m supposed to be playing. I’m firing him up. By the end of this fight, he’ll want to call me out and fight me himself.

It’s what I need. Somehow, someway, I have to get back into Jax’s life, even if I’m the enemy.

The announcer goes through the fighters’ stats. They’re the last bout of the night, and the two look like really heavy hitters. Like they’ve worked for months to get this final fight of the night status. If I compare them to any one of Psycho’s guys, these guys come out way ahead. They’re polished. At best, Psycho’s guys are brawlers, untamed, working on pure animalistic need to see blood and feel rage.

It was never that way for Jax and Finn. They saw the sport in fighting. They craved it. In Psycho and his guys’ cases, they enjoy the bloodshed. They love making someone suffer as much as they have.

I glance over at Jax when the fight starts, thinking he’ll be too preoccupied to worry about me. I’m right. He’s staring at the fighters, a serious expression pulling his face taut. He leans on the side of the octagon, yelling out advice and praise intermittently.

Like magnets though, his stare gets drawn back to me until our gazes meet. I’m stuck there, staring, almost like being caught up in a time loop. I can’t look away, can’t blink. Time slows. A million messages pass between us. Of sorrow, of love, of the greatest hurt imaginable.

Our stare down only ends when the bell goes off, signaling the end of the round. I jump, and the returning glare I get sours my insides. My eyes prick, threatening to spill over. I haven’t cried since the old man I’d conned died lost and alone, probably wondering where his newly found granddaughter was when he needed her the most.

I push to my feet to run away but then an image of Psycho standing over me, his features a mask of hate, pops into my head. It stays my limbs, and I slowly sit back in the seat I confiscated. If I run away now, I know Psycho’s wrath. I’m his property. I have to do what he says. If I don’t, he’ll do more than beat the shit out of me like last time.

A whole round goes by before I blink back to reality. The two fighters in the cage are bruised and bloody, giving me flashbacks to some of my own worst moments. I steel my shoulders and enjoy the fight for what it is. I used to watch Jax and Finn train—even trained with them—once upon a time. If I let myself relax, I return to the mastery of fighting, the systematic execution of well thought out plans of attack.

In the end, Jax and Finn’s fighter loses. My heart shudders as he’s submitted by a rear naked choke. The fire in his eyes dies right before he taps out, and then he stands in humiliation as the other fighter’s hand is raised in victory.

I don’t know when Psycho will make his attack as planned, but I feel worse about it now. They lost the last fight, and in a moment, they’re about to be called out again. Maybe that’s why Jax and I never worked out. I’m destined to be his antagonist, the antithesis to his stable life.

Almost immediately, club music pumps through the speakers. A team of men wearing black shirts cover the octagon. The judges’ tables, the announcer, the very seats I’m seated in get systematically folded and put away. The process is so streamline that within minutes, the only reminder that there was even a fight here is the carefully covered cage.

I move around the room, searching for my target. When I find Jax, he’s by a door in the back that the fighters were coming in and out of. He’s surrounded by a group that I imagine are members of his gym. They’re all wearing variations of Elite Boxing shirts, and a few of them boast puffed, swollen faces, indicating that they had fights today.

As I watch, another group approaches, and my heart lodges in my throat when I recognize Psycho’s blue flannel and the hard gazes of his fucked-up entourage.

I squeeze through the crowd and move toward them as they near. The differences between the two groups are vast. Psycho and his guys look like a disorderly group of heathens while Jax’s guys are uniform in their professionalism.

When I’m about to break through the last line before the two groups, I hear Psycho say, “Bet you can’t beat one of my guys with your posh gym training. My guys learned their skills on the streets.”

Finn grins at him as only Finny can do. “You fight too? Cool, man.”

He immediately turns his back to diffuse the situation, but Psycho grabs his shoulder and whips Finn back around to face him. “Did you hear what I said? I saw nothing up there, just a bunch of pansies wearing matching branding on their shorts. Real fighters don’t do that.”

I glance around. Psycho is doing exactly what he wanted. He’s starting to gain an audience.

“Chill, man,” Finn says, the still easy smile on his face. How the Heights never brought him down, I have no idea. “It’s cool. Professional fighting isn’t for everyone.”

Knuckles speaks up, tilting his chin in the air like he’s better than Finn. “No,” he growls. “It’s apparently just for pussies.”

“Fuck you,” the fighter next to Finn spits. For as calm as Finn looks, this guy—one of their fighters—is the exact opposite. His nostrils widen as he breathes deeply through his nose.

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