“Maybe you’re not meant to run from it,” Ryland adds.
Ashton puts his full weight on me, stealing my breath. I stop fighting, mainly because I can’t physically move at the moment. “Listen, you have to work on strengthening your mindset. Once you do, you’ll get out of your own way and quit self-sabotaging. You need to witness your pain, allow yourself to feel it, and then learn to release it.”
He pushes himself away from me, taking a few steps back, giving me a moment to catch my breath. “That’s why we’re boxing. It has helped me to release it. I’m just trying to help,” he adds.
“Really?” I wheeze, embarrassed at my lack of strength today. “This is how you’re helping me?”
Ryland leans against the edge of the ring. “So what, you messed up. Don’t we all? But she’ll forgive you. I’m sure of it.”
Ryland is the only person I’ve talked to about Olivia and me. I’m sure the others found out through the ever-growinggrapevine that always seems to know everything about everyone in this small town.
“What if I can’t forgive myself?” I grunt, rolling over to my knees and attempting to lift myself up, but exhaustion is finally hitting me.
“You have to,” Zane adds, stepping up to Ryland and turning off his music. Thankfully, the crowd behind them is starting to dissipate now that the fight seems to be over.
“What if the past repeats itself? I’ll lose her…”
Ashton cuts me off, “You’ll lose her if youdon’tlet thisgo.”
I didn’t notice Ryland getting into the ring, but he’s standing in front of me now, reaching a hand out for me to take, and helps lift me onto my feet. “What will you choose? Stay living in the past, or finally have a future with the love of your life?”
I can see the hidden truth behind Ryland’s eyes. He’s lived through this before. His past mistakes ended his relationship with Raine, and he lost her for ten years. Witnessing Raine and Ryland today, happily together despite their complicated and painful past, reawakens some hope in me.
If Raine and Ryland can overcome the past and give each other a second chance, so can Olivia and I. I just need to get out of my own way.
“You have to accept the fact that there are things that will never go back to how they used to be. In this case, it could be a good thing for both of you,” Ashton adds, picking up his gloves and exiting the boxing ring.
I give the three of them a nod, silently thanking them for this…very odd…pep talk. Ryland slings an arm around my shoulder and tugs me closer to him.
“Pray about it.”
“I will,” I say, knowing he’s right and that I’m not alone in thisfight. I never was.
An hour later, I’m walking into my small cabin, tossing my gym bag onto the floor. This old place doesn’t feel much like a home. It never has.
I reach into the fridge and pull out an Ale-8-One before crashing onto my couch. I reach for the remote to turn on a show I’ll more than likely ignore when my phone rings. I slide my hand into my pocket and see that it’s my grandmother calling me.
“Hey, Nonni,” I greet her, pulling the bottle to my lips and taking a sip of the ginger-citrus carbonated liquid.
“Luke,” her voice trembles with my name, making me sit up straight, preparing for what she’s about to say. “Your father passed away late last night. I’m so sorry for waiting to call you, but it’s been…a lot.”
The second she says the words, everything inside me goes still, as if someone hit pause on the world and forgot to press play again.
Dad is gone.
It isn’t a surprise. I knew it was coming. The cancer had made that part cruelly certain, but knowing it was inevitable doesn’t make it hurt any less. If anything, it makes everything feel worse because now I can’t pretend there is more time. That we’d have another conversation, another chance at mending everything that was broken with us.
There's this strange, heavy ache in my chest. A simmering unfairness that keeps tightening in my throat.
Why now?
Why after we’d finally started to figure it out?
Why couldn’t he have had a little more time?
I’m not sure what to feel, or maybe I’m feeling too much atonce. Sadness. Regret. Anger. Guilt. Confusion. They all blur together until I can’t seem to separate one from the other.
I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to rewind the clock. Our time was cut short, and it’s unfair.
