Page 97 of Ours to Lose
With each memory came a sharp stab, deeper and more painful than anything my shoulder had brought.
It was like I’d been running from it all since she’d died, the despair and the grief and the reminders she was really gone, and now it was all crashing on top of me, burying me under its weight.
Mom was gone.
Boxing was gone.
What did I have left?
Aubrey’s face flashed across my mind. Her big hazel eyes and bigger, sweeter smile.
God, I’d wanted her with me last night. Had wanted to cradle my arm to my chest, curl against her body, and stop time so I could stay there forever. Just her and me, and nothing else in the world.
But the idea of her seeing me like this, for her to witness my failure up close—I couldn’t stand to see the pity in her eyes.
Or worse, the pain.
Evan was right—it would hurt her to watch me fight like this. Hurt her to know that even now, for all the agony I was in and as pathetic a showing as it would be, if they let me, I’d still fight. Her pain wouldn’t be enough to stop me, which told me everything I needed to know about me. Everything I already knew.
She was better off without me.
“You going to stick around for a bit?” Diego asked. “I can introduce you to some people if you want. You can capitalize on all that talk you’ve been getting.”
I squeezed my eyes shut a few more seconds before I gazed up at my old friend, amazed my head would lift. It was like my energy had been sapped from me, my body practically sinking into the chair. “No. I should probably go to the hospital.”
“You need a ride? I can find someone to take you.”
It was a good question. One I should have been able to answer. Yet even that decision felt like too much.
“I can drive him.”
A tall Black man I hadn’t noticed in my misery stepped away from the wall to join Diego. He had a shaved head and trimmed beard, and the way he carried his broad build told me he’d thrown around in the ring before.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, then addressed me. “I was hoping to chat for a bit. I’m happy to drive you to the hospital if you’re willing to hear me out on the way.”
I glanced at Diego, who shook his head. This wasn’t one of his contacts.
My brain itched like I’d seen him before. His plain white polo and black pants did nothing to clue me in.
“I’m sorry, but who are you?” I asked.
If he was offended, he didn’t show it. Just gave an amused smirk. “We didn’t get to meet at selection camp. I’m Joe Dotson, head coach of the US Olympic boxing team. I wondered if you might be interested in a job.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Aubrey
The first pieceof cooking advice Nana ever gave me was to always use a bigger mixing bowl than you think you’ll need. As I got older, I began applying that advice to life.
Give yourself more time than you think you’ll need. More space. More patience. More rest. No sense in creating a mess of things by trying to force it when giving yourself a little more of what you need from the start could avoid the headache.
And if you didn’t have a bigger bowl, it probably meant you needed to cut the recipe or whatever else you were trying to manage in half.
This morning at the arena, when Gabe’s promoter friend came out of the back room and told us an Olympic coach had offered Gabe a job, I realized I’d used too small a bowl for my feelings.
After New Year’s, I’d thought I could contain those feelings to the same volume they’d been in high school—more of the idea of love than anything tangible or sticky.
But this recipe was far more complex than any I’d contemplated back then. Here I was with my feelings overflowing the rim, dripping down the sides and pooling on the counter, because not only was Gabe not able to fight in the tournament—he was probably leaving again. For good.
