I can't breathe properly until we're in Sarah's car.
The cold night air hits my face as we burst out of the gym's back entrance, and I'm gasping like I've been underwater, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard it hurts. Sarah is talking. She's been talking since we started up those stairs, a steady stream of *oh my god did you see that* and *holy shit he's even scarier when he's fighting* and *are you okay*, but I can't process the words. I can only hear the sound of fist hitting flesh. The grunt of pain. The roar of the crowd.
The moment his eyes found mine across that basement.
"Chloe. Chloe, are you okay?"
Sarah's hand is on my arm. We're in her car now.
"I'm fine," I manage.
"You don't look fine. You look like you're about to pass out."
"I'm not going to pass out."
"Do you need to sit down? Do you need water? I have water in the car—"
"Sarah." I grab her hand, squeeze it. "I'm fine. Really. I just… I wasn't expecting that."
That's the understatement of my entire life.
I wasn't expecting any of it. When Sarah texted me yesterday asking if I wanted to go to some underground fights in Blackwater Falls, I said yes because I've been trying to say yes to more things, to be less of a hermit, to prove to myself that I'm not letting my ex control my life just because he won't stop texting me. I said yes because Sarah is my closest friend and she's been trying to get me out of my apartment for weeks.
I said yes because I had no idea the fights were at Steele's Gym.
I had no idea Cole would be fighting.
I had no idea what he would look like in that ring.
"I'll drive you home." Sarah says.
She pulls out of the parking lot and I lean my head against the window, closing my eyes, trying to calm my racing heart. It doesn't work. Every time I close my eyes, I see him. Shirtless. Sweat dripping down his chest, his arms, gleaming on his skin under the dim lights. The way he moved, fluid and brutal and completely controlled until that moment when he looked at me and the other guy's fist connected with his face.
He got hit because of me.
He was looking at me and he got hit.
I don't know what to do with that information.
"So," Sarah starts. "That was intense."
"Yeah."
"That guy, Rampage, he's incredible. Did you see the way he just—" She makes a gesture with her hand that I think is supposed to represent violence. "I mean, terrifying, obviously, but also kind of hot? Is that wrong? That feels wrong."
It's not wrong.
That's the problem.
He is terrifying. I watched him beat a man unconscious with his bare hands. I watched the way his face changed when he was fighting, something cold and distant and utterly merciless settling over his features. I watched violence happen three feet in front of me and I should be horrified, should be scared, should be reconsidering every decision that led me to that basement.
Instead, I'm soaking wet.
Again.
Still.
The same way I was after my lesson on Tuesday, except worse now, because now I've seen what his body looks like without a shirt. Now I know exactly how broad his chest is, how his muscles shift when he moves, how sweat drips down his abdomen and disappears into the waistband of his shorts. Now I've seen his hands wrapped in tape and covered in blood. Not his blood, the other guy's blood, and my brain is doing something deeply fucked up where it's connecting that image to the memory of those same hands on my hips.
