Page 154 of The Monster and the Masochist

Jerry nodded, but barely looked at me as he settled heavily behind his desk to start working on my drill plan.

I bristled slightly, annoyed that he was clearly pissed with me about something.

It wasn’t really in my nature to push people to open up to me, but I couldn’t really afford to have my coach give me the silent treatment with a fight this big coming up. I needed him to help me make sure I was at the top of my game, and I couldn’t do that if he wouldn’t talk to me.

“Alright, old man. Fucking spill. Why’ve you been acting like you have a stiff pole up your ass these last few weeks?” I tried to make it sound like a joke, but even to me, I just sounded hurt.

I’d never say it out loud, but my relationship with Jerry was more to me than just a coach/trainee relationship.

I loved the old man. He was gruff and rough around the edges, but he clearly cared about me, and I cared about him. We’d been working together for years. It bothered me more than I cared to admit that he was icing me out.

Jerry glanced up at me finally, and his lips pursed. I stood there, waiting impatiently for him to say something. A part of me worried for a second that he was going to brush me off again, but after a long, tense moment, he finally spoke.

“Didn’t really appreciate being accused by yer girl of taking ya out to get shitfaced before that fight with DeLuca, kid. Especially not considerin’ I’ve been sober for over ten years. Not tah mention I would never put yer safety on the line like that. Been weeks and ya still haven’t even said shit tuh me about it or apologized.”

My eyebrows rose in surprise, and my heart sank to my stomach at his words.

With everything that had happened since that night, I’d almost forgotten Cass had reamed Jerry out for the drunken lie I’d apparently told her when I’d crawled back to the condo completely blackout.

“Jeeze, Jer…” I mumbled, rubbing the back of my neck awkwardly as I tried to come up with something to say that didn’t make me look like even more of a dickhead than I already was.

“I’m, uh–yeah, I’m really sorry about that. To be honest, I don’t even remember telling her that. I was… pretty wasted. And I didn’t know you were sober or whatever, man. My bad…”

He scowled at me, and I winced.

Shit. He was really mad at me.

“Ya never asked.”

“Uhm…” My face was burning, and even though Vox was probably going to show up at the arena any minute to pick me up for the range, I slipped my bag off my shoulder and settled back into one of the folding chairs in front of Jerry’s desk.

“Alright, I’m asking now. You wanna, I don’t know… talk about it or some shit?” I mumbled, trying to ignore the frantic feeling in my chest that was telling me to run as far away from this conversation as I possibly could.

Jerry reached into the pocket of his ratty track jacket and pulled out a thick gold coin. He put it on the table in front of him and jerked his head at it, telling me he wanted me to take it.

I picked up the coin and ran my thumb over the embossed ‘X’ on the front. Around the rim, it said ‘To thy own self be true’ with the word Recovery stamped under the X, which was clearly meant to be the Roman numeral for the number ten.

“Wow, Jer… congratulations?” I said hesitantly, feeling unsure of what the appropriate response was to someone handing you what was clearly an AA recovery coin.

He scoffed and rolled his eyes before leaning back in his chair and eyeing me warily.

“Why do you think I’m showin’ ya that, kid? Ya think I’m lookin’ for yer congratulations?”

My face flushed a deeper shade of red, and I found myself putting the coin back on his desk and shoving my hands in my pockets.

“I don’t know, Jer. I feel awkward as fuck right now.”

“Why? I’m not ashamed of it. So I had a problem. At least I admitted it and did somethin’ about it. Which is more than I can say for you.”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut, and my mouth dropped open in surprise.

“What the fuck? I’m not an alcoholic, Jerry. I haven’t had a drink in weeks.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, and the awkwardness I was feeling was quickly turning to defensiveness.

“Yeah. I didn’t think I was an alcoholic either, kid. Told myself an alcoholic wouldn’t be able to get up and go to work every day. An alcoholic wouldn’t be able to keep a job or maintain a healthy marriage. Alcoholics beat their wives and kids. I wasn’t like that at all. I loved the shit out of my family. Provided for ‘em. I was nothing like my daddy, who drank himself stupid and beat on me and my ma all the time… so the fact that I was putting back a fifth of bourbon every other day wasn’t a problem, right?”

“I’m not drinking that much every day.”