Sick Heart: A Dark MMA Fighter Romance

So why not? Why not just make her last days happy?

I start flipping pieces over, separating the edges from the middle pieces. Anya does the same and soon enough we have two piles. Then she keeps going, separating them into black, and white, and shades of gray.

I work on a few edge pieces and watch her busily building a section of city behind and to the right of the Eiffel Tower. That’s kind of interesting. Most people would do the famous landmark first, but she is concentrating on some random group of buildings in the background.

I continue with the outer edges and eventually both of us are standing up, taking this stupid puzzle seriously.

I finish the edges and she still hasn’t touched the tower. So I go for that next. We work quickly and efficiently and pretty soon she’s grabbing the pieces I’ve put together and fitting them into the big picture.

Even though the puzzle is five hundred pieces, it doesn’t take us long to finish. And, astonishingly, none of the pieces are missing.

Anya looks down at the completed picture and smiles. Has she been to Paris? Is she having a memory right now?

I’ve been to Paris a few times myself. Though none of those memories are anything I’d ever want to remember. They were all for fights. In the early days, when the stakes were smaller, and the rings were just gyms, and not helipads on massive billion-dollar ships.

When I look up, Anya is watching me. She points to the puzzle, to the spot she was concentrating on in the beginning. I squint my eyes and lean down to see it better. It’s blurry, not meant to really be seen close up. Just something you put together from a distance.

What is it? I sign.

She places the back of one hand on top of her other palm, then presses them to her heart. It’s not a real sign, but I think I get her meaning.

Home? I ask.

She smiles. No teeth, just upturned lips and bright eyes.

You come from Paris? I stare at the puzzle, missing her response.

Interesting. Both that she remembers where she came from and that she can pick out the building on a random puzzle in the middle of the ocean.

When I look back up at her, she’s watching me expectantly, wondering what we will do next. I hadn’t really planned anything after the puzzle. I figured it would take forever. But I don’t think we’ve been here for more than an hour or two. So it’s not even lunchtime.

I point to the shelf, then flash signs at Anya, giving her permission to make a decision.

She looks delighted, a spring in her step as she gets up and makes her way over to the shelf, carefully going through the other puzzles. But then she looks at the books and scoots down to pull one out, sitting back on her butt to page through it. It’s nothing I recognize, but it looks like something a pre-teen girl would read.

The Country Club Girls. Never heard of it.

But I get up, walk over to Anya, pull the book from her hands, and toss it over my shoulder. She looks up, startled.

She can read that some other time. We need to do something together, I sign. We’re not going to read. Especially not that book, I don’t add. Pick a game.

She looks back over to the shelf, then crawls over there and pulls out Hungry, Hungry Hippos.

When she looks up at me, she’s… smirking.

Seriously, I sign.

She makes motions with her hands, like she’s actually making real signs, except she’s not, and then gets up and takes the game over to another table and sits down.

Hungry. Hungry. Hippos.

I have never played this game, but I know it’s annoying. Because the kids love it. They fight over that game. I’m secretly hoping that the marbles are missing, but I should know better. Five-hundred-piece puzzle and not a single missing piece, so no. All the marbles are there and Anya dumps them in the middle of the hippos, still smirking, but having enough manners to not gloat in my direction. She pushes the game towards the middle of the table and points to the chair across from her.

Bossy. I sit.

Anya has one hand over the marbles and the other already on the lever of the green hippo, ready to make its mouth open and gobble up a win.

Fine. She wants to play? I’ll play.

She lifts her hand away from the marbles and then she’s flipping the lever on the green hippo. But there are four hippos to play with here, and only two people. So I flip the levers on the other three, my large hands and long fingers reaching round to make it work.

Anya squeals at my cheating, swatting my hand off the pink one and taking over.