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“The fighting is…” He searched for the words, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “It’s helping. Somehow. It’s feeding a part of me that hasn’t…” He blew out a breath. “I can’t explain it, Chloe. In the ring, it’s quiet. My head. I know what to do. There’s an opponent, and there’s me, and there’s nothing else. No nursery. No…everything.”

His voice cracked on the last word.

My chest ached. “You really think that’s helping?” I asked. “Because from here it looks a lot like self-harm with betting.”

His mouth twisted. “I thought you’d be the first one in line to applaud if I found something that actually helped,” he said, frustration bleeding through. “If this was therapy or yoga or some shit that led to me being less of a wreck, you’d be standing there with pom-poms.”

He wasn’t wrong.

“I would,” I said. “I would be obnoxiously supportive. I would buy you the expensive yoga pants. The kind with the butt thong.”

He snorted.

“But this?” I gestured at his jaw, at his sleeves. “I don’t see this taking away your pain and bringing back the man I’ve always known and loved. I see it grinding you down into someone I don’t recognize.”

His eyes flashed. “I’ll never be that man again.” His voice fierce. “You know that. Are you the same woman you were before the miscarriages?”

The question landed like a fist to my sternum.

I opened my mouth to snap back, to deflect with a joke, and nothing came out. Just air and hurt.

I thought of the doctor’s office. The sterile smell. The way the OB had folded her hands and said the words “nonviable” and “scar tissue” and “you will never be able to carry a pregnancy to term” in such a kind voice that killed.

I thought of how I’d nodded and smiled and walked out of there, then thrown up as soon as I was home.

I thought of how I’d never told him. How I’d let him keep believing our future kids were a question of if, not a door that had already slammed shut.

“I know I’m not the same woman I thought I was when we got married,” I said quietly.

The first tear slid down before I could blink it back.

His whole body went still.

Then he moved.

Two long strides and I was in his arms, my face pressed against his chest, his hand coming up to cradle the back of my head like he used to when the nightmares got bad.

“Hey,” he murmured, voice rough. “Hey, no. Don’t— This isn’t—” He swore under his breath, the sound vibrating against my cheek. “I have loved you since you were seven and stomped on my foot at the creek because I wouldn’t let you jump off the big rock.”

A wet laugh escaped me, half sob.

“I loved you when you were twenty-one and playing candy crush under your covers,” he went on, words tumbling out like he’d been holding them back for too long. “I loved you when you couldn’t look in a mirror. I loved you when you fell apart and when you started putting yourself back together. I have loved you every day of our marriage, even when I was too far up my own ass to show it.”

His arms tightened around me.

“I think you are the strongest woman I know,” he said fiercely. “I love you desperately. Nothing that’s happened has changed that. Not a single thing.”

I clung to the fabric of his shirt, breathing him in—soap, smoke, something metallic under it all. “I love you desperately too,” I whispered. “That’s…kind of the problem. I don’t know how to stand here and watch you bleed for strangers while you tell yourself it’s healing.”

He let out a shaky breath, his fingers curling into the back of my shirt like he was anchoring himself. I could feel his heartbeat against my cheek—fast, solid.

“Zarek, can’t there be another way?” I asked, pulling back just enough to see his face. My fingers came up to gently trace the fresh bruise along his jaw. “Some way for you to work through all of this that doesn’t involve someone trying to knock you unconscious?”

His eyes met mine. Up close, I could see how exhausted he was, but there was something else there too. Something that hadn’t been there in a long time.

Hope? Maybe. No, that wasn’t it.

I stroked his cheek, my thumb brushing the corner of his mouth. My lips parted on a breath I couldn’t quite catch.