Sick Heart: A Dark MMA Fighter Romance

Sometime around noon I take her over to the bag and show her the punches I want her to work on. The padding I put over her knuckles will keep her from bleeding through the gauze and tape, but she will split those wounds open again today. She won’t know it until I take her wraps off though. That’s the important part.

Perception is ninety percent of reality. Thinking it’s true makes it true. And if she thinks that padding is protecting her, then it is.

Her real test will come tomorrow when she knows better. But for today, she is blissfully unaware. The pain she feels when she punches the bag will be attributed to her prior wounds.

When I lead her over to the middle of the mat in the late afternoon her face is red, and sweaty, and she has been breathing like an asthmatic for several hours now.

But I don’t care. We started this day with a lesson she failed. So she’s going to get over that before we stop.

As soon as we’re in the middle, I turn on her. My fingertips have slapped her cheek before she even knows what’s happening.

But she reacts this time. A full day of focus has prepped her for this.

I reach out again, but this time she blocks me. It’s a sloppy block that I could easily penetrate, but I’m not really trying to slap her. I just need to teach her that first girl lesson. Men will hit you in the face. There is nothing you can do about that. All you can do is mitigate.

I strike again, but her block is better this time. I bounce from foot to foot, dancing a circle around her. She’s not light on her feet—there is no bouncing—but she hops a little, mimicking her bad form with the jump rope, as she tries to keep up with me.

I strike again, but this time she surprises me with an attempted left hook as she blocks. She doesn’t connect, not even close, but I pause and smile down at her. Then close my eyes, bow, and straighten up.

She’s scowling at me when I open my eyes again. I make a gesture of, Your turn.

She thinks about that for a moment, then gives me something between a nod and a head bow.

It’s pathetic, but I’ll take it. I close the distance between us with my hands at my sides, then clap her on the back, place both hands firmly on her shoulders, and turn her towards the stairs. But instead of going up, I direct her to go down.

She balks, probably thinking back to her punishment. But I just go first and make her follow me.

It was almost unbearably hot today, but I can’t get Anya used to a daily shower. We’ll run out of water, and unlike food, fresh water isn’t something we can replace without a lot of effort to collect rainwater and I don’t feel like collecting rainwater this time around. Salt water, on the other hand, is plentiful.

Anya follows me, her footsteps tentative at first, and when I pass the level where I locked her up, she pauses on the landing near the gate, unsure if she wants to follow me down. I look over my shoulder and wink, which makes her frown at me, her brows furrowed together in a look of confusion. Then I beckon her with a crooked finger and leave it at that.

Hey, if she wants to go to sleep tonight dripping with sweaty grime, that’s her choice, I guess. But not me. I’ll take a dip in the ocean over nothing any day.

I go all the way down the steps until I’m standing on a long, narrow landing about twenty feet above the water. Everything down here is slick with algae and when the tide is low, you can get a peek at what’s underneath the surface. But it’s not low now so all I can see is the thick tendrils of dark green algae waving at me, inviting me to jump in.

Anya comes up behind me and when I turn, I just barely manage to grab her arm before her bare feet slip on the slick surface and she goes down. She grabs onto me, gripping my forearm as she scrambles her feet, trying to get her balance.

I don’t need to study her eyes for long before I realize she’s afraid. What’s that about? Me? Does she think I brought her down here to kill her? If that’s it, she’s just dumb. So what is it? She can’t swim? She’s afraid of heights? Maybe a little bit of all of the above?

All of this is very bad news for poor Anya here. But this day started with face-slapping. I gotta round it all out with an equally impactful lesson. Something for her to ponder as she lies under the moon tonight. Something for her to chew on. Something for her to learn from.