I struck first because I thought I was defending myself.
And Brooke retaliated because from her side, I attacked unprovoked.
And we destroyed each other over a lie that an eighteen-year-old kid with a crush fed me in a hallway between classes and I swallowed whole.
Mexico City is next week and Brooke will be there, covering the fight, standing on the other side of all this history with her own version of events that I now know is closer to the truth than mine ever was.
I have no idea what I’m going to say to her, or if there are even words for this kind of reckoning, for the moment you realize the person you blamed for burning everything down was only ever holding the match you lit first.
I pick up my beer and take a long drink and don’t taste a thing.
CHAPTER 20
Brooke
I grab my bag off the counter at my local bodega, waving goodnight to Yusuf, the owner, who has seen me come through this place in every possible state of human existence: cocktail dresses at midnight after galas, press credentials and coffee-stained blazers during deadline crunches, sweatpants and no bra at eleven PM buying ice cream and cheap wine after particularly brutal days. He might just be my longest relationship in New York, actually, because it’s been over a decade of bodega transactions and that’s more consistent than any man I’ve dated.
The early November air feels fresh on my face as I push through the door and join the stream of pedestrians heading west, grocery bag hooked over my arm. I walk down the block, mentally assembling dinner from what I bought, debating whether the leftover chicken in my fridge has crossed from edible into biohazard territory. My phone rings in my coat pocket. I shift the grocery bag to my other arm, pull it out, and check the screen.
Miles Webb.
I stare at the name. It’s been weeks since I left him a voicemail, rambling and awkward, and I’ve been certain ever since that I’d never hear back. Why would I? I wrote the article that ended his fighting career. I step out of the flow of foot traffic and press my back against the brick wall of the dry cleaner’s next door.
“Miles. Hi. Thanks for calling me back.” I press the phone to my ear, trying to sound professional and calm and not like someone whose heart is suddenly pounding.
The line is silent on the other end. I wait, shifting my weight from foot to foot, watching a cab cut off a delivery truck at the intersection while the driver leans on his horn.
“Yeah, well. I almost didn’t.” His voice is flat and hard, and for a moment I’m a young reporter again, sitting across from a younger version of this man in a sweaty gym office, interviewing a fighter on the brink of a huge career. He’d been cocky then, sure of himself, dismissive of my questions in a way that made me work twice as hard to get anything useful out of him.
He sounds nothing like that now. He sounds tired.
“I wouldn’t have blamed you,” I say. “I know I’m not exactly your favorite person.” I leave out the part where he was a dirty fighter who kind of deserved the article, since that doesn’t feel productive to getting the answers I need.
“Good. Because honestly I sat here staring at your voicemail trying to figure out why the hell I’d ever want to talk to you.” He lets out a small, humorless laugh. “And then I figured, fuck it. I’ve been sober for eight years and my sponsor keeps telling me I need to stop avoiding the hard stuff. So congratulations, you’re my homework.”
I swallow. This should be interesting. “Congratulations on being sober, Miles. I didn’t realize you’d been through all that.”
“Yeah, well, I’d always been a drinker. Someone who celebrates, you know? Big win, let’s party. Bad loss, let’s drinkabout it. And after everything blew up...” He trails off. “It just got away from me. Anyway.” He clears his throat, clearly not interested in going down that road with me. “You said this isn’t for a story.”
“It’s not,” I say. “Completely off the record. I’m not recording, I’m not taking notes, and nothing you say ends up in print.”
“Then what do you want?” The bite is back in his voice, defensive and sharp.
I sigh, tipping my head back against the brick and staring up at the narrow strip of sky visible between the buildings. “I want to know about Dominic. Whether he knew about the PEDs.” I pause, then add, “I need to hear it from you.”
The line goes quiet. I can hear background noise on his end, kids shouting somewhere, the distant sound of a TV. And I wonder how many kids he has now, what kind of life he built after everything fell apart. Whether he thinks about the career he lost, or if he’s found peace with how things turned out.
“Why now?” he asks, and the edge is gone from his voice, replaced by something that sounds closer to exhaustion. “It’s been fifteen years. Why does this matter now?”
Because I slept with him twice recently and it cracked open every certainty I’ve been carrying since I was twenty-seven years old.
Because I watched him coach Roman in New York and saw a man who builds things instead of tearing them down.
Because I’m starting to suspect I’ve been wrong about him for a very long time, and the weight of that possibility is keeping me up at night, staring at my ceiling and replaying every argument we’ve ever had.
“I just need to know the truth,” I say instead, because the real answer is too complicated and too personal and none of his business. “For myself.”
The line goes quiet again. A cab lays on its horn somewhere up the block, one long sustained blare of frustration. A woman pushes past me on the sidewalk with a stroller, shooting me an annoyed look for taking up space in the alcove. I stand there with my back against the brick and my groceries going warm against my hip and wait.
