Part 4 (1/2)
”Searching?” It came out sounding like a question.
He met her gaze again, and something about the intense way she was looking at him, as if she were trying to see inside him, made the truth spill out.
”I started hanging out with these older kids. Part of me knew they were no good, but they were tough, and that was intriguing to me. Well, that lasted about ten minutes. My father came home one weekend and caught me mouthing off to our neighbor. It's embarra.s.sing to think about now, but at thirteen, what did I know? Anyway, my father's got this way of seeing right through people, and he knew exactly what I needed. He dragged my b.u.t.t down to the local fight club and handed me over to Roach.”
”Roach?”
”Manny Roach Regan. He's been my trainer forever, but it didn't start out that way. My father took me to a fight club and told Roach to show me what it meant to be respectful, and then he walked out the door.”
”He left you at the fight club?” Her eyes widened. ”When you were thirteen?” Her fingers inched across the sand and covered his.
”Yeah,” he said with a smile, because looking back, he knew his father realized exactly what he was doing. ”That one afternoon changed the course of my life. Roach is a no-bulls.h.i.+t guy. He was in his twenties, and he was ma.s.sive. He had me taking out the trash, cleaning the gym, and working the bags.”
”And you didn't hate your dad for leaving you there?” She sat up, and he could see the tension in her shoulders. ”Weren't you scared?”
”Scared s.h.i.+tless. I thought I was tough, and then suddenly this monster of a guy is looming over me. Roach is intimidating to adults, so at thirteen...” He shook his head with the memory. ”Let me tell you, I didn't feel so tough after about two minutes with the guy. But I was a quick study, and something about his toughness spoke to me. I went back the next day, and the next. And eventually I got over my frustration and anger at my father for dumping me off on Roach, because really, he was saving my life.”
”And now you fight.” Her eyes moved over his face, and she shook her head, as if she couldn't make sense of what she saw.
”Yes. I'm a fighter. It's who I am.” He paused, thinking about that statement, and changed his mind. ”Actually, it really isn't who I am, Sky. It's what I do. And Roach? He became my mentor and one of my best buddies. He taught me to respect everyone and everything, and part of respect is knowing when it's okay to fight. When two people agree to the rules and engage in a safe environment-in the ring-that's cool. Street fighting or bullying is not.”
”But...” Her brows knitted together. ”How can you punch some guy in the head? I don't watch boxing, obviously, but I've seen clips on television. It's so violent.”
”That's how most people see it. A lot of people correlate boxing to Mike Tyson and the whole ear-biting fiasco-all that nonsense and hype that surrounded him in the years following that fight. But you've just spent hours with me. Do I seem like an aggressive media seeker to you?”
She shook her head, and a genuine smile lifted her lips as she reached up and touched his cheek. He leaned in to her touch.
”No. I can't imagine someone punching this face. In fact, it's hard to put the idea of you boxing together with the man that I've just gotten to know and the man I saw singing at open mic night. You're either really good at pretending to be someone you're not, or you've managed to divide and conquer your inner self.”
”Divide and conquer my inner self? That's the perfect way to say it.” Her hand slipped from his cheek. ”When I was younger, all my mother wanted for me was to be true to myself. I loved music, and she signed me up for guitar and piano lessons. I'm surprised I didn't end up a boxer and a professional musician, quite honestly.”
”Well, you do write songs and sing them in bars. How does your mom feel about your fighting?”
A breeze swept off the water, causing goose b.u.mps to rise on Sky's arms. Sawyer pulled her in close, loving the feel of her against him.
”She won't come to my fights, but she supports me. She came to a few when I was younger, but it was too hard for her to watch her little boy punch and be punched.”
”I can only imagine.” Sky sank down to her back again.
He leaned over her and asked, ”Is this too much for you?”
She shrugged like it was no big deal, but the look in her eyes and her wrinkled brow told him that it was a very big deal. ”I think I'm with your mom. I don't think I could watch you fight, but I guess I won't really know unless I try at some point. When do you fight?”
”Well, right now I'm training for a t.i.tle fight.”
”A t.i.tle fight? Is that a big deal?”
He smiled at the question. ”Really big. I'm the East Coast Boxing Federation cruiserweight t.i.tleholder, and ranked number three in the Northeast Boxing a.s.sociation.” He couldn't keep the pride from his tone.
”Cruiserweight? t.i.tle fight? I'm sorry, I don't know the lingo.”
”Cruiserweight is the weight cla.s.s, usually 176 to 200 pounds. I hold steady between 198 and 200. And holding the t.i.tle means you're the champion in that division. A t.i.tle fight is a fight for the t.i.tle, or to become the champion.”
”So...you'll fight the best in the division and try to win the t.i.tle from him?”
He nodded, remembering the doctor's warning, and his smile slipped away.
”Yes, that's right.”
”Do you like it? Fighting, I mean?”
He lay on his back beside her again, wanting to avoid her gaze while he thought over his answer.
Sky reached for his hand. ”It's okay if you don't want to tell me. Sometimes we don't know what we really feel.”
He looked at her then and felt even more drawn to her than he had all evening. He didn't want to hold back, but revealing the truth would burn like an open wound, and once she realized how much he loved boxing, she might run the other way. She smiled and he realized how quickly their connection had developed. Better to find out now than after they'd spent even more time together.
”For the first few years, boxing was an outlet and obsession. I loved the adrenaline rush as much as the power of knowing I had succeeded at what I set out to do-to win. Then it became my pa.s.sion. It was what I lived for, and then, after my father became ill, boxing took on a new meaning. In addition to being something I love, it became something I needed to succeed at to secure his future.”
”I'm sorry, Sawyer. I didn't realize-”
He squeezed her hand, then pushed up on his elbow again, missing the connection he felt when he gazed into her eyes.
”He was in the Vietnam War, and like too many other veterans, he fell prey to the aftereffects of Agent Orange. Parkinson's. .h.i.t him a few years ago. He's in stage three, still able to function for the most part, with deficits in speech, walking, facial expressions, and...” His chest tightened as he rattled off the parts of his father that were quickly slipping away. He inhaled a breath and felt the urge to move. Sitting still made him feel like he wasn't doing anything to help his father, and that, he realized as he stood and reached for Sky's hand, was just one of the painful realities of his father's illness. There was nothing he could do for his parents but help financially and provide emotional support.
They walked up the beach as he described what his parents' life had become-the slowness of his father's gait, his endless tremors, and his need to rely on others, which he knew his father disliked.
”I can't imagine the sense of loss your whole family must feel. My mom's death was a shock. It was unexpected and treacherous, but I can't imagine watching her deteriorate because of a disease.” She squeezed his hand. ”How does his health tie into how you feel about boxing?”
”I've always fought regionally because I wanted to be close by in case my parents needed me, but regional fighters don't earn as much as national fighters. And then I won my t.i.tles and finally began earning big. Big enough that four years ago I was able to purchase a house that had been in our family for generations but my parents had given up nearly fifteen years earlier because they needed money.”
”That's incredibly generous, and so meaningful, to bring that family history back into your lives.”
He stopped walking and looked toward Commercial Street, thinking about the last few years and how much had changed-and how much hadn't. His father's health had changed, which had taken a toll on both of his parents, and his fighting had progressed to higher levels, but he felt like he was treading the same water he'd been over many times before.
”The house was all my father talked about when I was growing up, and bringing it back into the family felt like the biggest achievement of my life. Even bigger than the t.i.tles I'd won. I'm renovating it this summer, adding wheelchair ramps and making it easier for him to get around so he can still spend time there as his disease progresses. You asked about how my father's illness fits into my boxing. The more I learned about Parkinson's, the more I realized what he'd need in terms of care as the disease progressed and how much his care would cost. The military covers a good deal of his medical expenses, but he'd never want to be put in a health-care facility full-time, despite the fact that there'll come a time when his care will be too burdensome for my mother.”
Sky's eyes filled with compa.s.sion.
”He's the only man my mother has ever loved, and although she says she'll care for him...” He shook his head. ”It'll be too much for her. It would be too much for anyone. I've finally made it to a point where a t.i.tle fight would mean enough money to cover in-home, professional medical care for the rest of his life.” And now the doctor says another blow to my head could leave me brain damaged. He pushed that awful thought down deep and said, ”I'm going to win this t.i.tle fight for him, and then I'll think about retiring.”
”Sawyer.” She reached for his other hand, holding both as she gazed into his eyes like she was seeing him for the first time. ”You're fighting to provide for your father? That's admirable. Your parents must be very proud of you.”
He couldn't confirm that as easily as he would like to, because his parents didn't know about the doctor's recent warning-if they did, he knew his father would tell him not to fight. Sawyer had one last chance to pay his father back for seeing enough in him, for believing in him enough to redirect and center him. Sawyer had had years to think about that day his father had handed him over to Roach, and there was no doubt in his mind that his father had saved him from teenage years filled with trouble. Who knew what he might have done, or where he might have ended up? His father might not have been around much, but he cared. He cared enough to risk his son being p.i.s.sed off for weeks on end.
Come h.e.l.l or high water, Sawyer was going to win this fight. He dropped his gaze to the sand, then s.h.i.+fted it to the parking lot, and watched a group of people laughing as they walked toward the lights of Commercial Street.