I make my way to the scale—toward Matt and Don. I look at Matt first, who stands proudly in his expensive black suit, smiling at me like I’m his favorite person on the planet. I give him a subtle nod before looking at Don who, to my surprise, has no cockiness in his face anymore. His brows are furrowed, his eyes dark and punishing. He’s taking this seriously? For once in his life he means business? I smirk at him. Finally.
I step onto the scale and keep my eyes down as it teeters between okay and overweight. One kilo difference is all I have. When the commissioners stop tapping the bar, it sits square on one hundred and ninety pounds. That’s an all right number for a light heavyweight fighter and I didn’t even have to get naked. The crowd erupts again and more photos ensue. After I stand there for my allocated fifty extra seconds, I step off and stroll back to Darryl and Jackson, who hand me clothes. I manage to only slip on my jeans before Matt grabs my arm, making me drop my shirt on the floor. He leads me back over to the Don’s side.
“Photos, really?” I complain under my breath, but Matt ignores me.
The photo op… the one thing I wanted to avoid more than Don himself.
I stop directly in front of Don and bring my fists up. He follows my lead, bringing up his own gigantic hands. Our faces are only six inches apart and I grin at him as his big, brute face contorts into a sneer.
“She doesn’t know, does she?” he mutters and my whole body tenses, my grin falling from my face.
“Who doesn’t know?” Matt chimes in.
I flick my stare to him, smiling politely for the cameras. Realization lights up his face and he beams at me. “Olivia doesn’t know what you did? Fucking hell, you better pray she doesn’t find out.”
“Whether she knows or not is none of your fucking business,” I growl, inching closer to him. My fingers twitch with the urge to drive my fists into his stomach—the both of them. But I don’t. If I act out, it’ll only draw more attention and more questions. I can’t risk Olivia finding out before I tell her. I have to be the one to tell her. I have a better chance at redemption that way.
“It’d be a shame if someone were to tell her,” Don says, and without thought… I react.
I shove his chest so hard I hear air being forced from his lungs. He stumbles backwards two steps before growling and launching forward. I plant my feet and brace for impact, but Matt Somers quickly throws himself in Don’s path, pressing his hands flat against Don’s stomach. Don stops immediately, having no balls to push through his employer. If it were me, I’d have flattened Matt Somers where he stood. That’s the difference between Don and I. I do what I want and he does what he’s told. A firm slap on my back tells me Jackson is close by in case anything goes down. Not that I need his help to destroy either of the men before me.
“Tension is good, fighting is bad,” Matt barks at me. He looks at Don. “Grab the rest of your clothes and get the hell out.”
I watch as Don’s coach hands him his shirt and he slips it on over his head. He waves to the cheering crowd before disembarking from the stage. I keep my eyes on him as he strolls along the front, chatting to people as he passes. Matt is in my ear, chastising me for something, but I choose not to hear him. All of my attention is on Don, who draws closer and closer to Olivia. I relax a little as he steps past her without a glance in her direction until a reporter calls him out and pulls him back so he’s standing right next to her. She folds her arms and inches away from him—so does Selena. He doesn’t notice Selena at first, until Selena takes Olivia by the arm and tries to get her to move. It’s then I see the huge smile spread over Don’s lips. I turn and push through Jackson and Darryl to make my way over to them.
“Seth?” I hear Darryl call, but I keep moving.
I watch and walk as Don casually fishes his phone from his pocket while he chats to the reporter. From her document bag, the female reporter –with the long black hair and big eyes only for Don—produces a newspaper.
“Don!” I shout, thundering down the stairs. His lips twitch, but he doesn’t look at me. He hands the newspaper to Olivia and I already know what’s on the front page. She reaches out for it, but Selena snatches it out of the way, screwing it up against her chest. Olivia frowns at her and then at me before rolling her eyes at Don. As she turns away, Don grabs her arm and pulls her back in, shoving his phone in her face. I glare at his flesh on hers and I feel sick to my stomach. She watches whatever is on the screen and all of her features draw together. I stop a few feet out from them and Selena slowly backs away, nervously twisting the newspaper in her hands. The entire minute she watches the video on the screen feels like an eternity. Every time she flinches or cringes, my heart squeezes in my chest… and then finally her green eyes flick to mine and I see her heart break.
***
Olivia
I take Don’s phone in my hands and continue to watch the video. I can’t let Don get one over me. I won’t. I fake a smile that threatens to break my foundations. Seth didn’t have sex with anyone else… but he kissed a random girl and shared a kiss—two kisses—with Selena? My chest tightens a little bit more. Seth looks at me, his face void of any emotion and for the first time in a very long time, I want to punch him in his beautiful, betraying mouth. I clear my throat and look at Don, who smiles cruelly down at me.
“You think I didn’t know about this?” I lie, feeling my soul being crushed deep inside me. “Of course I know.”
The faltering smile on Don’s face is the only thing that keeps me level headed. I glance at Selena and Seth and the sight of them and their wide, scared eyes grip my heart. How could they? How could Selena not tell me?
“I knew, right?”
They both nod, never taking their eyes from mine.
“Right,” Seth states, his sorrowful eyes finally dropping to the floor.
I let Don’s phone slip from my fingers and it smashes against the concrete, covering my low pink heels in pieces of plastic and glass.
“Oops,” I smile, turning and heading towards the corridor.
I need to get out of here. If I don’t, I think I’m going to cry in front of all these people—in front of Don—and look as stupid as I feel. As I march, I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth to stop the familiar feeling, the feeling of the impending burst of tears. I expected something like this from Seth, I knew the thing he was going to tell me had to be something like this… but I had no idea it would involve Selena. I think that’s what hurts me the most. She’s my best friend, the girl who used to tell me everything. The girl who accidentally told Blade I wasn’t dating Seth when I told him I was, the girl who told my mother I was pregnant without my permission, and the girl who tells everybody about my private life, but can’t confess to something as serious as making out with my husband. Have we really drifted that far apart? I feel like I don’t even know her anymore, and after this, can I really call her my best friend? A best friend would have told me the second it happened—and so would a husband—but at least Seth promised to tell me.
I push open the door to Seth’s room and slam it behind me. When I’m alone inside, it all crashes down on me and I have no fucking idea what to do. I want my dad… I want my dad to hold me and tell me that it’s going to be all right—that it’s all part of the MMAC and that it’s nothing to get so worked up about. While I was throwing up all alone, Seth was at the Aria casino making out with Selena to get to Don. No wonder the two have been tense the past week, they’ve been keeping a secret from me. I crouch low, covering my face with my hands… but I can’t cry. I feel like crying, but the tears refuse to fall. I feel broken and betrayed, but my body refuses to cry. It’s familiar with this feeling and I’ve trained myself not to make a big deal out of these situations. Is that how fucked up I am? I’ve been betrayed so many times I can’t even cry about it? I jump as the door opens and Seth steps in, quickly shutting the door behind him and locking it. He gives me a pointed look. One that says; ‘I’m not going to let you leave me.’ I see his intense brown eyes first and my heart stutters. Stupid girl. You’ve forgiven him already. I ignore the reasonable words floating around my skull and stand up straight. Seth eyes me curiously, visibly wondering why I’m not crying.
I laugh once, nervously, and he cringes. “So… Selena, huh? I can’t say I saw that coming.”
“I know how it looks, but I had to do something on a large scale to get Matt to leave me alone. I did it for us so we could be together in peace.”
“Together in peace?” I scoff. “I can’t say I’ve heard that excuse before.”
He takes forceful steps forward, forcing me back until I’m pressed hard against the wall. His strong arms lean against the concrete on either side of my head and his knee nudges between my legs. “It’s not an excuse. I make no excuses for what I did.”
“But you want forgiveness?”
“To ask for forgiveness for something I chose to do behind your back would be selfish of me. If I wanted you to be okay with it, I would have asked your permission before it went down. I don’t want you to ever forgive me for what I did.”
But I do already… “Forgiving you is easy, Seth. I forgave you the second I saw the clip.”
He frowns and I continue.
“You want to know what the worst part of this is for me?”
Seth nods. “Tell me so I can fix it.”
“I want to cry, but I can’t. I can feel it building and constricting my throat, but nothing is happening. My body is registering this as a normal occurrence. It’s almost unfazed by this entire situation.”
“Maybe your body knows what I did was business… maybe your heart knows you still have me.”
“Maybe my heart is a fucking idiot.” I exhale, closing my eyes for a long second. “What am I supposed to do? What do you want?”
“What I’ve always wanted… just you.” He kisses the corner of my mouth. “I wanted you the second I saw you, I wanted you the night you threw yourself at me, I wanted you when I asked you to marry me and I’ve wanted you every second since.”
I’m hooked on his words, a mesmerized little girl hanging off every sweet, sugary word that falls from his pink lips.
“Even when you—”
“Especially then.” He cuts me off, hearing my words before I speak them. “I wanted you more than ever that day. I wanted to tell you—and I was going to when I got home, but you told me you were pregnant and it all seemed to escalate so quickly. I flipped out. I shouldn’t have, but I did.” His hands slide from the concrete and grip my face. He leaves no room for me to move my head. “It felt mechanical, Olivia. I felt nothing when I kissed those girls.” Seth pushes his hands up my face and into my hair. He pulls on it and my breath hitches in my throat. “You know I prefer brunettes and your rack is much better than both of theirs combined.”
Despite his obnoxiousness, I giggle and press my hands against his tight stomach. Cutting the giggle short, I swallow it deep. This isn’t about whether he’s more attracted to me than anyone else. This isn’t even about what I have and they don’t. This is about respect and love… This is about trusting one another and always telling the truth—no matter what. I need reassurance that Seth holds what we have above everything else.
“I’m going to quit all of this, O. For you. For us.” He lowers his hands and presses them gingerly against my belly. “I’d never want to intentionally jeopardize this. You and the baby are my life now. I don’t care about anything else.”
“Let’s say we manage to move on from this… where do we go from here?”
His lips twitch, warming my heart. “Anywhere you want. I hear Paris is beautiful this time of year.”
I laugh and he presses his forehead to mine. It occurs to me then that just like that, he wins the fight. And as my mom always says; if someone can bring light into a dark situation, never let them go.
“Tahiti?” I ask. “I prefer pineapples to snails.”
Seth chuckles and nods as he presses his mouth to my cheek. “Done.”
Finally, I lift my arms and wrap them around him. He doesn’t feel different. My entire body relaxes into him at the realization. I was worried if I touched him, he wouldn’t feel like mine anymore. I pull him harder against me. He feels the same. He still feels like mine.
He drops his head, tucking his face into my hair. His breath warms my ear and travels each strand of hair on my head, making me feel dizzy.
“I love you, baby. Only you, forever,” he whispers, kissing my earlobe. “Forever, only you.”
He holds me still and we don’t talk. He doesn’t squeeze me tighter or loosen his grip. We just exist, appreciating the fact that (quite quickly) we’ve come out the other end of something that destroys relationships. There’s no internal struggle between ‘yes’ and ‘no’. I forgive him—and forgiving someone isn’t about being stupid or weak. I learned that with Blade. To put things behind you and forgive someone for hurting you is strength in its rawest form. Forgiving someone is something not everyone can do and I know that for a fact. Not everyone has the strength to let themselves be happy—to give something a second shot. A lot of people say they don’t make the same mistakes twice, but if you fall off your bike you get back on it, don’t you? You better yourself, you wear in the bike until you find your groove even though you know you’re going to fall off again. It might not be today or next week, but eventually you will and you know in your heart that you’re still going to ride it.