"Are you in trouble?"
I laugh under my breath without any humor in it.
"I wouldn’t even know where to start explaining it to you. Honestly, all I want right now is for the whole world to leave me the hell alone."
Suddenly more people start heading in my direction, and at this point all I feel is exhaustion and frustration. But I guess everyone’s curious about my bad performance, so I'm forced to make even more awkward conversation with people who simply can’t comprehend how I could lose.
Then I'm out.
Marlow is already waiting in the lobby, where a crowd of better-known fighters is doing interviews and signing autographs.
I stick close to the wall like always, already having enough of the attention, just hoping to leave without anyone stopping me. My brother waits by the restroom doors, right where we said we’d meet.
And here comes the same question again.
"What happened there?" Marlow starts, watching me with a similar expression to the one Ennio had, desperately trying to understand.
I squeeze my eyes shut, furious that I have to explain this one more time.
"You were just a step away from fighting Mike Tarantona, a title shot in your division, and you just threw that away?"
"You’d do the same for half a mil," I shoot back, my teeth clenched tight.
Marlow swears under his breath.
"Damn… you really sold out?"
I turn on my heel and head for the exit, my hood pulled low over my eyes like I can somehow hide from all this.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Everything you’ve been doing lately is a disaster. You’re all over the place, and your whole life’s falling apart," Marlow mutters gloomily.
"No shit!" I snap, my voice cracking, because I’m so done with all of it and all I want is to get away, mostly from my own stupid decisions.
"This is about him, isn’t it?"
Not this, not this convo!
"Tell me, Gabe! Are you that crazy? The guy doesn’t care about you, he just uses you!"
I halt mid-step, wincing.
"If you want to know, I left the organization. Marcel made it clear there’s no coming back, and after the shit he pulled, I’m starting to question all of it."
I catch that flicker of doubt on Marlow’s face before he mutters,
"You said the exact same thing six months ago after you caught Marcel making out with David at that party, then hooking up with Tom later that same week, remember? And what about one month ago, when Marcel had your little activist group block traffic and there was a pregnant omega stuck in one of the cars, in excruciating pain? You said that he crossed a line, that it went too far even for you. And what happened then?"
I turn away and resume walking.
"You crawled right back to that bastard!"
I mutter a curse and pick up my pace, but he keeps right up with me, since the club’s only about a twenty-minute walk from campus, so we’re heading that way anyway.
Marlow’s footsteps follow me.
Feeling fucking miserable, I lengthen my stride. I don’t want to talk about this, not now, not ever.
He wouldn’t get it. Yeah, I tried to walk away from Marcel a few times when things started going way past what I could accept, but Marcel always knew exactly how to pull me back in, showing up out of nowhere, sitting close, talking to me, taking my hand, and suddenly everything felt easier, simpler, almost sweet. My boundaries would stretch just a little more every time.
