Page 100 of Sacrifice
Ever stirs and stretches. I stand and climb into her bed, careful not to disturb her cords. She shivers and I cover her with a blanket, wishing I could do something. That’s the hardest part, not being able to use your hands to fix it, to make it better. It’s beyond difficult to put your trust in people and poison.
I hear my phone ring and I glance at the clock.Crew.Every day on his lunch break, he calls. I grab it off the bedside table
“Hey,” I whisper, trying not to wake Ever.
“Hey, love. What’s goin’ on over there?”
I smile at the term of endearment he’s started using for me. I sigh and climb back out of bed and curl up on the couch beneath the window. “She’s still in a lot of pain. They gave her more meds an hour or so ago and she’s sleeping now.”
“I wish I could be there,” he says, and I know he means it. He managed to swing by last night after training. I’m not sure how he keeps going. I’m in awe of him.
“Me, too. I miss you.”
I know he’s smiling. I know he’s shaking his head, maybe even running a hand across his scalp.
“I miss you both.”
There’s a long pause. I imagine his face, his full lips, his gorgeous eyes. I miss him so much. He’s quickly become the light in my life, my lifeline in this disaster.
“Do you need anything? Will gets off early today. I can send him by.”
“All I need is you. So if that can’t happen . . .” I’m only teasing, but I know he took it wrong. “Crew, I didn’t mean that like that.”
“I know. I need you, too.” He shifts the phone, the line going fuzzy. “I gotta train tonight and Sal wants to talk about the media bullshit for the fight.”
“What’s that mean?”
“There will have to be a couple interviews and shit to drive sales. This is a pay-per-view event. So we have to do a few things for them to get people to wanna buy it.”
This is all new to me. I don’t know a lot about fighting, I don’t know a lot about this fight Crew has taken on, as I haven’t had time to deal with it. Crew doesn’t want to discuss it when I do bring it up. I feel like in some ways, we’re living in two separate worlds in order to live in the same one half the time. It’s frustrating and isolating.
“I see. Well, do what you have to do.”
“I miss you,” he says softly. “If this wasn’t the only way out of this mess, I’d never leave your side. You know that, right?”
“And if this wasn’t the only way out of this mess, I’d never let you leave my side. You know that, right?”
“I hope so.” He clears his throat. “My break is about over. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Crew?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For what, love?”
I shrug. “For everything. For proving me wrong about you. For not giving up on me. For fighting for us, in every sense of the word.”
“Always.”
FORTY-ONE
CREW
“Get your head outta there, boy!”
I jerk my head out of Victor’s hold, drive around him, dodging a punch, and throw him to the mat. My neck’s still giving me problems but it isn’t hurting as bad as it was. I’m icing it a lot and alternating it with a heating pad and lots of Ibuprofen. I just need it to hold up a while longer then it can go to shit for all I care. I can deal with the pain for the rest of my life as long as it gets me through those rounds.
