Page 1 of Finding Hope

1

JACK

Nobody ever said life was fair.

It’s not.

Life is a horrible bitter bitch that likes to hurt the best kind of people. For every bad person’s life that ends, the world likes to snatch away a handful of the good kind, too.

A drunk driver hits a minivan hauling its young family home from vacation; the drunk dies, but so does the mom and the two small children in the back, leaving a distraught father with no surviving family, a father who would eventually drink himself to death or take too many pills to silence his misery.

A junkie dies from a dirty batch she bought with her child welfare payments, but that child also starves in her crib because the mom has alienated everyone for so long, no one thought to come looking until it was too late.

It seems the universe likes to mess with me.

Specifically,me.

My mom died when I was a toddler, and although the general consensus says she was a grade-A abusive bitch, a kid still wants his mom.

Then my dad died when I was fifteen. Hewasn’tan abusive man. He was one of the good ones. He was the best dad anyone could ask for.

That’s two down, but at least I still had my sister. No matter what life tried to sling at me, I still had my sister. I was competing with my mom in the Grade-A category, I treated Kit like shit, but she stuck with meanyway. She never gave up on my punk ass, and she never beat me with a stick – though I know shereallywanted to.

She stuck it out and stayed.

Until someone tried to take her, too.

Already an orphan, I had one single living relative left, one whotrulyloved me, even when I was a fucking asshole. She saved my life a million different ways when I was a teenager, but that universe, that bitter harpy, she wasn’t done with me yet.

I almost lost Kit, too.

But though the universe can be so fucking horrible, sometimes it likes to flip the other way. Sometimes it can be amazing, too.

Even someone like me can be looked down upon and gifted with the greatest treasures of the whole world.

My family was down to one. Kit and I sat on a perilous edge that was set to tip in a single strong wind, an edge that Kit kept balanced all on her own, since I was so set on tipping us over.

But somewhere along the way, we found our feet. My sister married, and I was rewarded with a brand-new family.

Not even a shitty family that we have to visit for obligatory Christmas lunches.

Despite my asshole behavior, my orphaned ass was thrust into anamazingfamily and I found myself with four new brothers overnight.

Then sisters.

Then nieces and nephews.

Life was good. Lifeisgood.

At twenty years old, I was one of the youngest fighters toeverwin the world heavyweight title. At twenty-one, I defended and retained my title. At twenty-two through to twenty-five, I’ve gone back time and time again and I’ve fought and kept my title.

No one can beat me.

They line up, they try, they crave the media coverage they receive even if they lose. And they do lose. Every single time.

I can’t be beat.

I’m too big. Too fast. Too strong.

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