Sick Heart: A Dark MMA Fighter Romance

Funny though, Irina brought me chicken and rice.

She’s judging me, I think.

These rules I’ve had in place for nearly a decade suddenly seem very stupid. Why not let them talk? Why not let them laugh? Why not let them cry?

It’s only one month a year where all those rules are strictly enforced, but still. A month of life is a month of life when you only get so many.

Why do I deprive them? Maybe I should’ve spent my time making them happy instead? Feeding them the best food, taking them nice places, letting them enjoy themselves.

But then Udulf would’ve closed my camp and they’d all just end up with someone else. With someone like Pavo.

I sit down on the concrete and lean my bare back against the hot cinder brick wall of the old machine building, closing my eyes and enjoying the last rays of sunshine before the darkness comes. Four albatrosses immediately start crowding me. This is kind of an evening ritual with the older ones, the ones who have been around a while, the ones who think of me as family.

Just thinking that word hurts a little.

Ainsey wriggles around until she’s facing forward, at first reaching for the birds, who tolerate her and don’t bite. But she knows they aren’t pets and her attention soon turns to watching all the kids playing their games and talking with their hands.

She doesn’t get up and join them. She doesn’t belong here.

Why did I bring her in the first place?

It’s a stupid question. In two months, I will abandon her to Udulf. And even though I keep telling myself I can live with that, I can’t live with that.

God, Cort. You need to pull yourself together.

There is no way to save her. I can’t risk another fight. I can’t wait six or eight months to get it scheduled and train for it.

I can’t do it.

Ainsey snuggles into my chest. She has no idea she is my daughter. No one has ever told her and no one ever will. She just loves me for some reason.

I hate that.

I hate that she loves me without knowing why when I will be the one to sentence her to death after I walk away.

A little while later Anya and Irina come up and lay their mats down over near the corner where Maart likes to sleep. Neither of them looks at me as they chat in sign language. They are not that far apart in age. Irina is only thirteen, and I still don’t know how old Anya is. She could be sixteen for all I know. But I think it’s more likely she is eighteen or nineteen. She’s just kinda small, not that much taller than Irina, so I do see the logic behind Maart’s decision to pair them up for that fight. But size has almost nothing to do with the kind of fighting we do. Anya could train for the rest of her life and she would still never be as dangerous as Irina.

Because every time Irina walks out onto the mat she is fighting for her life.

I’m sure Anya has done plenty of fighting in her own way. But she has never known that moment of fear when the only way to not be dead in ten minutes is to kill the person in front of you.

Budi walks over to us, holding out two mats. I nod and he sets them down beside me. Then he lays his mat down just a little bit to the left of the birds. They are warning him not to get to close, and he takes that warning seriously. Budi is not in my group, he’s with Rainer because he’s nearly nine now. But in month two on the Rock, they are allowed to sleep anywhere they want. And I guess he wants to sleep by me.

He lies back with a sigh, then folds his hands on top of his stomach and stares up at the darkening sky. The sliver of a moon is already rising and pretty soon all the kids will look up there and point to it, signing the number for ‘three.’

Month two, day three.

A few other kids walk over and put their mats next to Budi’s. And soon, I’ve got myself a collection of twelve little disciples. I feel like a cult leader. Like I’m leading these kids to their glorious demise.

It’s not that far off the truth, either. That’s the part that sticks with me. I am this bigger-than-life man with skulls on his body and a sick heart inside his chest.

I fall asleep to that thought, Ainsey tucked up next to me like a pillow.

And I think, as I drift off, that I’m not Sick Heart. I am heartsick. Just like Anya said. And I have always been heartsick. I just got the words mixed up back in the moment when it counted.