Page 52 of Ours to Lose
His smile faded as he stopped a handbreadth away and searched my face. “Everything okay?”
I clenched my teeth and shrugged, the flood of emotion from the day dangerously close to spilling over.
He nodded toward the ring behind me. “C’mon.”
He led the way to the heart of the gym, then tugged the ropes apart so I could slip between them and followed me onto the mat. We sat in the middle, me cross-legged and him leaning back on his hands, his long legs splayed in front of him like he was opening himself to me.
He made it look so easy. Like the only thing he risked by trusting me with his thoughts was the time it took to share them.
We hadn’t been that way growing up. He’d been in my life as long as Evan, but before the past couple of years, I wouldn’t have described him as my friend.
He’d been my best friend’s older brother. My childhood crush. The boy who girls at school fawned over in a way that made me feel special that he knew my name.
He’d been there but always removed—in high school when I was still in middle school. Graduated by the time I reached high school. Away at boxing camp during the summers I spent at the Hardt’s. He’d been the stories Evan told me about his big brother from their calls on Skype and the weird trinkets he mailed from Thailand, Turkey, and Japan.
Yet, even then, he’d always, always made me feel safe. Where Evan had treated me like one of the boys, Gabe treated me like someone to be protected. Someoneworthprotecting.
He’d intimidated the kids at the bus stop who made fun of my braces. He’d given me hints at game night so I didn’t feel lost when I was learning a new game. He’d shared the chocolate from his Halloween candy with me when Evan refused to trade.
He’d looked out for me.
Maybe that was how he felt when I’d texted him after his mom’s funeral. Perhaps I’d been the safe space he needed to be broken and have it be okay.
Sitting in this boxing ring felt a little like that. Like the space within its ropes was separate from the rest of the world. Like here, it was okay to break apart, to be knocked down, to fall to your knees. Because this was where you learned to get back up.
“I miss Ardena more than I thought I would,” I admitted after several moments of silence.
The words felt dangerous. A sign of weakness or a burden cast onto others no one would want to share. The kind of burden I’d trained myself out of being after my parents offloaded me to be someone else’s problem.
Gabe didn’t react like it was a burden. He didn’t say anything at all. He just listened.
“I hadn’t really viewed it as me leaving when this whole catering thing started,” I went on, “but that’s what it was. As much as Arden Catering is a part of Ardena, it’s separate. The schedule, the kitchen, the team—it’s all its own thing, and I feel like the relationships I built are fading because of it.”
The more I let the words come, the more cracks formed along my shell until there were too many to hold together at once. I flung a tear from my cheek. “The thing is, I don’t have that many important relationships left.” My voice came out thick.
Gabe extended his arm, and I folded into his embrace as the dam of emotions broke. His hand was a shield on the back of my head as he rocked us gently side to side.
The tears hurt, like the riverbed my grief had settled beneath was being dredged up with each shuddered sob. Or maybe more like a volcano whose pressure had built too high to contain any longer. Lava scorched my throat and burned my cheeks, my tears and mascara mixing with the sweat on Gabe’s shirt. I yanked off my beanie, the scratchiness of the wool suddenly too rough.
I’d learned after my grandma died, and again after Mrs. Hardt, that sometimes crying left me feeling lighter, and other times, it left me raw, like a partially healed cut that had been torn open.
That was how I felt when I could finally breathe again. Like an exposed wound. I let Gabe’s hold be the thing to keep me from bleeding all over the mat.
He pressed his lips to my forehead, not caring that I used the bottom of my shirt to wipe my nose. When I’d calmed more, he said, “It was just me in the ring during a fight.”
My gaze settled on the V of his collarbone as it rose and fell with the soft cadence of his voice. I felt like a bottle of honey set upside down to drain, my last drop of energy depleted. I’d have fallen asleep if it didn’t mean missing out on whatever Gabe said next.
“But it never felt that way to me,” he continued. “My coach, manager, cutman, training partners—they were always with me in the ring. Not during the rounds, but they were the ones who got me there. When I won, it was because of them. Not getting to be a part of that kind of team anymore was what scared me most when I got hurt.”
He’d torn his rotator cuff in the High Hitter championship fight the weekend his mom had died. The two things he cared about most, both taken from him in an instant.
“Is that why you want to open a gym?” I’d figured it had always been part of his plan, a vision for down the line that moved up when the opportunity for this place arose. But maybe it was more than that.
“It’s why I need it. Why I have to win this tournament. Coaching is the one way I have left I can still be in that ring, even if it’s not my body on the ropes. And this ring, this gym…” He cast his gaze around the room. “It’s home for me. My only one at this point.”
I tightened my arm across his stomach in a slouched sort of hug. “I’m sorry about your shoulder.”
He huffed out a breath. “Don’t be. It’s what I deserved.”
