Sick Heart: A Dark MMA Fighter Romance

So I just… sigh. And stay where I am. Staring at her blotchy face as she wipes her cheeks and works her way through her silent breakdown.

I understand some of it. I do. I’ve been through the same shit. I was a house boy for a little while, so I get that part. It’s all very traumatic. But she’s old now. It’s over. She’s here, she’s being fed and cared for—what more does she want from me?

Why did I even bring her here in the first place? Why? I don’t even like her.

I mean, maybe I could like her. If she wasn’t such a stupid girl. If she would just do what I tell her without comment. Her silence isn’t really silence, anyway. It’s filled with all kinds of judgment and expectations.

And who the fuck is she to judge me?

Her eyes dart up to mine. She lets out a hitched breath, then reaches for her fork and begins to eat.

She eats slowly and takes small bites. I know she has to be hungry. She did go two days without food. I refuse to feel bad about that. It was punishment for being a brat. I have a pre-schooler who is better behaved than Anya. All I wanted her to do was jump some fucking rope. Just keep busy so I could concentrate on myself.

Why is she so dramatic?

She doesn’t look at me again, just continues to eat her food. And I should just get up and go out to the training mats. Just get on with my day and leave her here.

But if she’s not going to train today—and I don’t think it’s a good idea, not with the head wound—then what can she do?

Leaving her alone isn’t an option. Most people have a hard time with solitude, especially out here in the middle of the ocean. She needs to be kept busy. I learned this a long time ago when I first started taking kids into my camp. They’re OK if you keep them busy. You have to take their mind off the past. They need to forget where they came from and only think about the present. That’s the only way you get through this shit.

But they are mostly boys, and they are all fighters, and Anya is not only a girl, she’s a weak girl. I don’t know how she’s made it this far, to be honest. She would’ve been knocked out of my world by the time she was six.

Girls don’t last long in the gym. There is no female league in the ring. You fight whoever they put in front of you. And sure, chances are you’re going to get a girl or two. Even I’ve fought three of them over the years. So if you’re a little girl in a training camp you got there for one reason and one reason only. You’re not pretty enough or compliant enough to be a slave and you’re worth too much for them to kill you without seeing if they can make their money back first.

And if you’re a girl in a training camp and you make it to your tenth birthday, you got that far for another reason. The early years are mostly about following directions. But of course, you have skills. At least the beginnings of them. You can take a punch and deliver one back. You’ve had more black eyes than you can count, two of your ribs always scream when you take a deep breath, you don’t smile much, if ever, and your thoughts are mostly consumed with revenge plans that will never pan out.

If you’re a girl in a training camp and you make it to sixteen—and I have one that age at my camp—you are a certified badass. You forgot all about your sex. There is no difference between you and the boys you train with on the mat. This is your life and you either like it, or at the very least accept it. You have killed at least ten people to get to this point. And you have no regrets. You dream of making it all the way.

But if you do make it all the way—age twenty or so—you are cold, and demanding, and jaded, and I use them as teachers to keep the little ones in line.

I have three over the age of twenty. We all came up together. Me, Rainer, Maart, Cintia, Ling, and Sissy. That’s the only reason they’re still alive. We fought for them. And we fought hard. And their loyalty to us is absolute.

But I don’t feel too sorry for the girls, because they have it easy compared to us. If you make it to twenty and you’re a boy, they are just a younger version of me.

They are out fighting for their own camps. Trying to live long enough to buy their way out, just like I did. But no one makes it. That goalpost is so high and so far away, I can’t recall a single fighter in my lifetime who has actually bought their way out.