Olivia gave her a small smile and lowered her head, her own hand keeping Tegan’s in place. Tegan shook again with more emotion not at the absurdity of it but at how badly she wanted it to work in spite of it. Wanted this little pendant, so warm in her hand, to be the saviour Olivia mentioned. All would be revealed tomorrow. Had the doctors been successful? Would someone watching over her, hell even if it was a woman in armour, save her?
18
Tegan woketo find Olivia had gone. She wasn’t as surprised to see Robert at the foot of her bed as she was to see Fiona with him, not Owen.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“We need to talk to you, babe, if you’re feeling up to it.”
“Is it Owen?”
“Yes,” Robert said. “You’re the only one he’ll listen to. We need you to talk him out of this fight.”
Robert calmly told her of the situation with Owen. The fact he wasn’t training. Or wasn’t training right. Diaz. His manager. The press in the carpark. The delayed results. Someone that wanted Owen out of the fight game had pulled a dirty trick. All of this was smelling of a set up and Owen was walking straight into it.
“So, you see, we need your help.”
Tegan looked at Fiona, who seemed more forlorn than Tegan could ever remember. “What do you say?”
“You know I love fighting, but this is suicide,” Fiona said. “We can’t go to the papers as there’s no proof anything underhanded has happened. No one will believe us.”
“Unless a miracle happens and someone rolls over on these people, snitches on them, we haven’t got a hope of nailing him,” Robert said.
“You want me to tell him to stop? To quit?” Tegan asked.
“You’re the only one he’ll listen to. We want you to help us save him. If he goes in like this, he’ll be killed. He’s not ready.”
“Excuse me,” came a voice from the doorway. A doctor came in carrying a folder. “Tegan? I have your results here...”
Tegan leant back into her pillow, looking left to right at all the faces in the room, thinking of all the things she could say or do. In the end, she uttered the only thing that felt completely right as Fiona nestled herself beside her and held her hand, “I’m ready.”
* * *
Tegan led the way into the gym, flanked by the others. It was dark and deliberately so. The only light was a small speck of sunlight streaking through the window onto the main floor. Owen sat with his back to the wall, his leg caught in the ray.
“Owen...” she whispered.
He leant forward. “Are you OK?”
Tegan walked forward and sat down opposite him, cross legged. “Forget about me,” she replied softly. “What’s going on?”
“I’m surprised you don’t know...” he said, indicating the others standing behind her. “I just... I don’t know if I want this anymore.”
“Is that the truth? Or are you just hurt by what I asked you to do?” His silence told her all she needed to know. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard, but I thought you understood.”
“Well I don’t, but maybe I’m not supposed to. I tried. I don’t know what it’s like for you to have to deal with this. But you’ve gotta understand that this doesn’t just affect you. You aren’t the only one that suffers. It’s impossible for me to spend time away from you after that. Any day could be it. Do you get that? You’re like a ticking time bomb, and here I am following what I thought was my dream.”
“This is your dream, Owen.”
“The only dream I have is looking at me, and I feel like you’re slipping away. I never had fear before. I could’ve lost, I could’ve gotten bashed. I didn’t care. Now, all I can think about is every minute I’m away from you could be the minute I get the phone call no one wants to get. And yesterday you asked me to do the hardest thing in the world. Make it easier for that very thing to happen.”
His hand gestures were getting more and more forceful, and Tegan caught both his hands and gently held them. “Baby, stop. Don’t do this to yourself. This isn’t what I wanted, not at all. I want you to be happy. I want us to be happy. I just don’t want to live wallowing away in a hospital. I’m not giving up. I’m drawing a line in the sand. I’m deciding how I get to live. That’s what you need to do; decide that you’re not going to let life tell you how to live. Who do you want to be? Not what, but who.”
Owen swallowed and brought her hands to his mouth, pressing his quivering lips to them. “I can’t lose you... maybe I don’t know who I am anymore.”
Tegan brought herself closer to him, and swallowing a bunch of tears, gave him a soft kiss. “You’re the man I love, and you’re a fighter. So, do what you do best: fight. Win. But not for me. Do it for you. Before I was in your life, you would’ve trained like a madman and gone in and kicked this prick’s cunt in. I know that.”
“But you are in my life now.”