“He’s kicking ass,” Ally said from beside me.
“I know. I hope it stays this way,” I said. My leg was now bouncing out of control. It was a nervous habit of mine.
The bell rang, and they touched gloves again.
“How many rounds are there?” Ally asked me.
I shrugged. “I think there’s supposed to be three? Or maybe it’s five.” I really had no clue.
We turned our attention back to the fight. Justin hit the guy in the ribs, and that must have been the last straw for his opponent. He picked Justin up and threw him on the ground and immediately had a hold of him. His arm was pinned in a weird way, and he seemed to be struggling to break free. Just as I thought he was about to tap out, he rolled out of it and got up. I watched him closely. Something wasn’t right. He was moving his arm weird, and I could tell from where I was sitting that he injured his shoulder.
“Justin!!” I yelled and jumped up from my seat. I tried to rush to the cage to see him. I wanted to make sure he was okay, but I was yanked back by Ally.
“Stop! You can’t go up there,” he said.
“I have to know he’s okay.” I pleaded with her.
“He’s fine right now. He’s up and moving around. You need to chill and sit down,” she said.
I sat back down. At that point, I felt a little defeated. My nerves were totally shot, and there was no calming me down. I was worried about Justin. He was obviously hurt, and I couldn’t help him. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down.
I watched as Justin started hitting the guy in the face. Left, right, left, right, right. And then he hit him in the ribs. He hit him one more time in the face, and the guy fell to the ground.
I watched the ref rush over. “KO’d!” he yelled.
The crowd went wild. Justin won. I wanted to calm down and feel happy, but there was no way I was going to until I found out if he was okay or not.
He smiled and nodded his head at me as he passed our row to go into the back room. I jumped down and ran after him. I told Ally to wait for me out there and that I’d be back soon.
When I reached the room, Artie let me in, and I embraced Justin. He hugged me back.
“How is your shoulder?” I asked him.
“You could see that?”
“Yeah. It looked like you hurt it pretty bad,” I said, and before I could stop myself, I was crying. I couldn’t control any of my emotions at that point.
“It’s not that bad. Anna, what’s wrong?” he asked as he held me.
“I, I don’t think I can do this…”
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Artie said and left the room.
“Do what?” Justin asked.
“This, whatever it is. I just can’t. It’s too much for me. Watching you go through this.”
Justin looked a little hurt. “You have to, Anna; I need you. You can do this.”
I felt the butterflies when he said he needed me, but it still didn’t change my mind. I was an emotional wreck after watching that fight, and I didn’t think I could go through it all again.
“There has to be another way. There has to be some other way for you to pay back Markie,” I said.
“Anna, there isn’t. I made my bed, and now I have to lay in it. It’s only one more fight.” He looked scared, and I wasn’t sure why.
“Justin, I don’t know if you realize how hard this is on me.” The tears were still streaming down my face, but I didn’t care. I was too focused on arguing with Justin. I wanted him to quit fighting. I wanted him to get out now before it was too late and something really bad happened to him.
“It’s hard on me too, Anna,” he said.