Page 190 of The Clinch
Hands shove a pregnant woman into a table.
I’m on my feet before I realize I moved.
The bench skids over the concrete.
I brace both palms on the locker and breathe through the first ugly wave that hits.
Not rage.
Worse.
Helplessness.
I can fight men. I can hurt them. I can stop them.
I cannot go back and put myself between her body and his hands on the night she needed it.
I drop my head. A bad part of me wants to go after her anyway.
Not to claim. Just to put eyes on her. Hear her voice. Make sure she got home. Make sure she isn’t folded in on herself somewhere, carrying all of this alone because that’s what she does when the pain gets too close to the bone.
My fingers tighten on the locker door.
No.
That’s for me.
Not for her.
She left that room furious with him.
And furious with me.
I knew what I was doing when I set this up. I knew why I did it. I would do it again.
None of that changes the fact that I made a decision about her life without her in the room.
Protected her by managing the risk.
Again.
The word lands exactly the way it should. I push away from the locker and sit back down slowly. My pulse evens out for the wrong reason—the part of me that would run after her is being strangled quiet by something harder.
Discipline.
No.
Respect.
She does not owe me softness because I handled him.
She does not owe me gratitude because we got what we needed on camera.
She does not owe me another chance because now I know the worst part.
She owes me nothing.
If she comes back, it has to be because she wants to.
