Page 160 of Finding Hope

“You’ve got a really busy couple weeks coming up.” She turns to Bobby, “Right? Two weeks to go?” She turns back to me. “You need to concentrate, train, do the promotional stuff.”

“You’re walking?” My fucking voice breaks. I’m so pathetic.

“No.” She squeezes my bicep. Such gentle hands. Such painful dismissal. “I’m just going home to get some work done. I’ll call you tonight. We’re all really tired today. None of us slept much last night, and we’re not communicating very well because of it. I just need to go home and work and probably have a nap. I’ll call you later.”

“Bambie–”

“Two weeks until the circus leaves town. We’ll be okay.”

I snatch her hand before she escapes. “I’m asking you to stay. It’ll take an hour to move my shit to the new house. We’ll order in a pizza, then we can just hang out. Just the two of us. Things are always better when it’s just the two of us.” I’m practically begging her, and if she asked, I’d get down on my knees.

But she doesn’t ask. She simply shakes her head.

“This isn’t a big deal, Jack. You’re making it into something it’s not.”

“I’m not!”

“Stop being so damn demanding!” she snaps back. Stopping, shaking her head, she draws a deep breath. “I’ll call you.”

34

BRITT

TIMEOUT

Self-preservation.

That’s all this is.

Survival.

Sanity.

Four days of texting, but no touching. Four days of constant excuses about why I can’t come over to hang out. Four days of being semi-broken up, and neither of us knowing how or why it happened.

My not-so-new bracelet sits on my wrist and reflects the late afternoon sunlight as I swing on my front porch and try not to think too deeply about the fact I went to the cemetery today to talk to Steph, but Jack’s Mustang was parked on the street.

I know he still sees her.

Hell, I know he stilllovesher, but I don’t want to think about it. I definitely don’t want to see it.

I’ve been by to see Steph weekly for months. Today’smyday, but he took it. He’s there when he isn’t normally there on a Thursday, and now I’m lost at sea, bereft with no place to go and no one to see.

I sip at my glass of tea and hum under my breath. I sing music that my brother wrote, songs that I know word for word, and I use it to distract myself from glancing at my phone for the millionth time today.

My phone brings me pain; either with Jack’s constant missed calls and texts, or worse yet, the internet.

With the fight only a week away, it’s not unexpected that Jack has hisown trending hashtag. There are a million articles about him at the moment.

He’s big news.

He was on an amazing winning streak for many years. Then he went ahead and handed his belt back last year, which set the world on fire. Everyone has their money on him winning next week; easily,early, first round knockout.

Of course, with such a successful career, comes fame. Everyone knows him. And by extension, they knew his girlfriend, too. When Steph died, when he was so publicly falling apart, the media lapped it up and turned him and Steph into a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.

Well, just Juliet.

I’m not even surprised that she’s everywhere in the media right now –oh, what a legacy, to still be known, even in death, as his.But what Ididn’texpect, was to have my own trending hashtag and magazine covers.

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