Page 68 of Sucker Punch Drunk Love

***

I'd spent the whole nightfightingfalling asleep, but succumbing to uncomfortable naps. When someone finally shook me awake, it was finally visiting hours.

Mónica looked so sweet sleeping, as I couldn't stop the tears from falling, seeing that she was okay.” I'm sorry, baby. For not being there when you needed me. If I can help it, I'mnevergonna leave your side.”

Sondra knocked on the threshold of the room, surprising me that she'd been still been here. “Sierra, can we talk?”

“Okay.” I stood, following her in the hallway.”

“God only knows how guilty I feel right now. I understand if you're mad at me?—”

“Sondra, Iamunderstandably upset. I’m upset with myself more than anything, because if I had been the kind of mother I wanted to be, you wouldn’t even have been burdened with this. So, I don’t want you to think of me as ungrateful, because the help you’ve given me has really helped me find my way. Especially given how much I know you love your son?—”

“Mamá, as a mother, Idolove my son. But babying him was my biggest failure with him. He needed a man to show him what he should have been. Just because I love him doesn't mean I agree with what he put you through. Or the fact he put his hands on you.”

“I’m not trying to live in the past, Sondra. I just want to move forward. And I have some real money saved up. I would appreciate if you were honest and could admit Mónica is too much for you.”

“It’s never about being too much. I offered to take her, becauseIdidn’t have support. No one came and offered to help me raise Kelvin. I was doing it all by myself, so Igetit. No one tells you how hard it is, and I may not have raised him to be the type of man he was to you, but he had no example of how to be better. And I may not have given him the best life, but that ain’t have shit to do with Mónica. She doesn’t deserve all this. I was helping because I know that you were what’s best for her,” she admitted.

“I can probably afford a hotel until I can find a place. I’d take anything if they let me pay upfront, if I can alleviate the burden from you—” I promised, only for her to have a counter offer.

“Sierra, you could stay with me. But it wouldn’t be permanent. You’dhaveto be actively looking. I trust that you would be, so I don’t mind you staying until you got back on yourfeet. But you won’t be able to hide your lack of trying in my household, and I promised I wouldn’t give you a fight if I saw you were ready. Are you ready, Sierra?”

“Yes,” I admitted through tears of relief.

“We'll go down to family court and go from there.”

“Thank you, Sondra?—”

“Don'tthankme. Just be with what Mónica needs.” I planned be that and then some. Through the crappy sleep and chaos, I realized I hadn't checked my phone. I’d been rather harsh to Josue, so I half expected a text claiming he would hate me for the rest of my life being his last attempt at contacting me.

There’d been a final text, but all it said was, "Good luck, kid.” But after that, was a money transfer underneath.

Josue Mendez has sent you $20,000.

* Ripe plantains

* Enchanted-it’s like saying nice to meet you, but formally

* The pleasure is mine

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Josue

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months. Guess the time I saw her last had really been the end of it. That was the thing about quiet goodbyes. They felt easier, but they weighed more. No resolutions, just loose ends. Perhaps the kid finally outgrew the cage. Her only goal had been getting her daughter back. Maybe she had managed that, and then some.

Nothing made her light up more than the idea of it, and if she wasn't fighting, I had to assume she no longer had a reason to. What more could I do but support her from afar and wish for her health and happiness. The only thing I regret was, I wanted so bad to get her a title. With her talent and crowd-loving persona, had she kept at it, there would have been no doubt that she could have scored one. Ever since her last victory, any and every phone call I got, they'd asked about her.

When she'd fight next. Who'd she be up against? Would she be up to sponsoring so and so brand? There was nothing I could tell anyone, because truthfully, I just didn't know. The woman had dropped off the face of the earth, with no presence on social media, no address, not even a working phone with the many times I tried getting in contact with her.

The upside to her triumph was, that the same fighters in the past that I tried to recruit, were the other frequent calls I got, their interest in my training piquing after seeing what I was able to do with Sierra.

Medina had brought real eyes to theHouse of Beast, and where months ago we struggled to collect dues, now we were turning away business with all the memberships enrolling. Filled-up classes, booked training sessions, and it was all due to the Medina and DaCosta fight.

There are a few hopefuls who weren’t too raw to pass up, but the ones who drew me in the most were the ones who weren't just after my help when I was up. The beasts I wanted were the vicious ones.

The ones looking for transformation and not just easy wins. I wanted leaders, alphas, warriors with some discipline. Who the fuck was I kidding? What I wanted was another Loba?*, someone who believed I could get them there when no one else believed in me. That kind of setup would be hard to find. But on the business side of things, I was proud to say that Héctor and I had doubled our staff, and we even started renovations on building a women’s locker room for the huge flood of female fighters coming in. The space was feeling livelier, but the atmosphere? It just wasn’t the same without Sierra's smiling face. That girl…she really knew how to light up a room with her energy, and apparently Héctor had a different reason to why he missed her.