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As I take the exit into St. Louis, I reach out and gently nudge him awake.
He opens his eyes and glances out the window.
“Hey, almost home,” I say as he sits up, and rubs his forehead. “Headache?”
“Kind of,” he mutters, adjusting in his seat.
He doesn’t say anything else as I take us through St. Louis, towards his place.
But as we get closer to his apartment, I glance at him again. “You got the win, you know. He was disqualified, so it goes to you.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbles.
I sigh, knowing exactly how he’s feeling. I’d be feeling the same way. A win isn’t a win unless you earn it yourself. But, he did.
“It does matter. You really did win that fight, Ty. You were close to submitting him, and even if he didn’t, you had the points-”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says again with a slight shake of his head as he stares out the window.
“It does.” I nod as I turn into his neighborhood.
“Not if I can’t fight.”
The dread I’ve been fighting since yesterday settles in the pit of my stomach at that thought. But I’ve been pushing it away since then, and I’ll continue to do so.
“You don’t know that.” I shrug one shoulder. “You could be back to training next week for all you know. You’ll get checked out by the doctor this week and then you’ll know-”
“If my life is over or not.” Ty nods. “I’ll know if everything I’ve worked for was taken away in one second because of some fucking asshole.”
I sigh. “You could be fine. You might just need a little bit of time off, but then you’ll get right back into it.”
“And if I do need time off, then I won’t be going to LFA.” He scoffs. “And it’s fucking stupid not to consider all possible outcomes and only think of the positives. Some fighters get hit like this and never fight again.” He’s quiet for a moment. “That could happen.”
The dread settles even deeper, and it’s getting harder to push it away.
I pull into the parking lot of his building and put my Jeep in park. I turn to him, but he doesn’t look at me. “We don’t know that yet. Yes, we can consider every possible outcome, but what good does that do? Just wait, and it might not even-”
“Just stop.”
“Stop what?” I ask, annoyance starting to take over. “Being reasonable?”
“No, I’m being reasonable.” He turns to face me. “You’re trying to tell me everything will be ok when it might not be.”
“Yeah, might not be.”
“Just shut the fuck up, Luca.” Ty closes his eyes and sighs, turning away from me again. “Just fucking stop.”
I bite my tongue so I don’t say anything else, even though I’m fucking pissed now. I know this isn’t him. I know he’s angry, upset and hurt… I would be too. I get it. But fuck. He’s also being arrogant, closed minded and choosing to focus on the negative when I could fucking help him.
So I can’t stay quiet.
“Fine.” I shrug. “Spiral for all I fucking care. But, when you realize that you have people here to help you, who care about you, you know where to find us.”
Ty doesn’t even look at me as he gets out of the Jeep. He walks around to the back, opens the door and pulls his bag out. He then slams it and walks into his building.
I sit and watch, knowing I should probably go with him. But I also know he doesn’t want me to.
I’m mad, he’s mad, and he feels like his whole world is falling apart.
