Page 92 of Ours to Lose
Like hell.
Diego opened his mouth, and I cut him off before he had the chance to say it. “I’m fighting.”
He set his hands on his hips and stared me down. “It’s not up to you.”
I stared right back. “The fuck it’s not.” I went to stand, and pain shot down my left arm. The medic placed a hand on my chest to keep me in the chair. I glared at him next. “I’m fine.”
The medic ignored me and continued his inspection.
“That’ll be up to a doctor to decide,” Diego said. “And if he says you can’t?—”
Don’t fucking say it.
“You’re done.”
The door to the room swung open, but I was too worked up to care who it was. “Fuck what a doctor says. I know my own body, and I’m telling you, I can fight.”
“Like you did those last three rounds?” Diego countered. “Is that how you fight when you’re fine?”
I had nothing to come back at him with, and we both knew it. My last three rounds tonight had been garbage. It had taken everything in me just to stay on my feet. The only reason I still won was because I’d done well enough in the first five rounds for my score to come out on top.
Barely.
“I need this, Diego,” I said. “Just one more fight. It’s not like I have a career left ahead of me I need to protect. If my shoulder’s blown, it’s blown. It doesn’t matter. Me winning this does.”
“What about my career, Gabe? If I let you fight while injured, I lose all credibility. Everything I’ve built here will crumble to nothing because no fighter will trust I have their best interest at heart enough for me to book them.”
I clenched my jaw against more than one kind of pain. My breaths came heavy through my nose.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Diego said. “I get it, man, I do, but it’s the doctor’s call. I’ll wait until the medical assessment tomorrow morning to make the official decision, but I’m letting Isaac Herman know to be ready to fight if you can’t.”
I kept my eyes glued to a dark splotch on the concrete floor. Eventually, I nodded. After another tense moment, Diego turned and left.
The medic gathered his supplies. “You’ll need X-rays to know for sure if it’s torn. Definitely ice it tonight.”
I nodded again, and he left too. The door latched shut behind him, sending a clang echoing through the silent room.
It didn’t stay silent for long.
“What’s your fucking problem?”
I hadn’t noticed when Coach Lou left, but he must have at some point because there were only two of us here when I lifted my head.
Evan stood in well-fitted jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, his normally perfect hair scattered across his forehead. The fluorescent lights cast his chiseled features in harsh shadows, made harsher by his fists curled at his sides.
Guess he was pissed at me. No surprise there.
My voice came out hollow. “Here to yell at me again? What did I do wrong this time?”
“Let’s see.” His words dripped with hostility. “You were careless enough to enter into a boxing tournament when you haven’t trained in two years, thanks to a career-ending injury. And now when that injury is back and probably worse than it was the first time, you’re willing to risk permanent damage, for what? A few bucks?”
I forced the fingers on my left hand to move, ignoring the ache in my shoulder and growing rage in my gut. “You don’t get it.”
“What don’t I get? That boxing is all that matters to you? That you’ll choose it over everyone and everything time and time again? Trust me, I get it. I just didn’t think you were stupid enough to choose it over your own well-being.”
A few months ago, I would have agreed with him. Welcomed his scorn.
Not now. Not with my muscles still buzzing with too much adrenaline and my mind muddled with pain as my shoulder screamed like someone had run it through with a red-hot poker and left it there to burn. My tolerance hit its limit.
