Lightweight

Chapter Fourteen

Annie was at practice and was going through her usual warm-up match against Natasha. She wasn't paying any attention whatsoever as she aimed for the red pads that adorned Natasha's waiting hands for her to punch and block with a variety of combinations and techniques that she was supposed to work on honing; she was zoned out thinking about Niall. What was he doing? Probably eating. Since she introduced him to the kitchen staff at the Mexican restaurant next to the hotel, he had been taking advantage of the unlimited supply of food with sheer delight and not gaining a single ounce like a normal person would with the amount of food he consumed.

Scouring the internet was also a strong possibility. He had been getting into the habit of monitoring the things being said on the internet about her and Annie didn't like it, she was used to ignoring what people said about her boxing and since the first night when the fans found out about her and all the mean things they said, she never wanted to type her name into Google again. But Niall kept her informed. Against the many attempts of Niall's management team to water down the Niall and Annie rumors, a few fans were seeing through their attempts and spreading the evidence of their relationship like wildfire. Many of the trending topics on twitter were of how cute they were together or demanding that she get a twitter or the two of them do a twitcam.

"You're a total mystery to them, to everyone, even your boxing fans," Niall told her.

"That's sort of my image," Annie replied.

"The fans want to get to know you," he tried to convince her to do a twitcam with him. Ever since the whole relationship denial plan Niall had been forced to participate in, he, and the rest of the boys, had been hell bent on pissing off the suits in any way they could.

"No," Annie said finally, and walked away. There was no way she was doing a twitcam or whatever it was, or getting a twitter for that matter. Her image was the mysterious scary boxer that nobody really knew about. She just went into the ring, kicked the girl's butt and left. The audience loved it, she actually had a huge fan base, mostly guys (which Niall didn't like very much) and that was how it was going to remain.

A hard punch from Natasha slammed against Annie's face, knocking her back into reality. "Fuck!" Natasha yelled at her, "Start paying attention and stop thinking about Niall! Is this what you are going to be like in the ring? If so, just forfeit now because if you are going to fight like this then it will just embarrass me."

"I'm sorry!" Annie yelled back. That punch really took her for a spin. She couldn't remember the last time she had a full meal and she was feeling dizzy. Annie started to wobble and Natasha had to help her to the floor before she fainted. Natasha poured water into Annie's mouth which helped a little but not enough; her ears rang and her mind swirled with dizziness.

"You're doing it again?" Natasha demanded, anger and desperation flashing through her big blue eyes as she bore down at Annie's crumpled figure.

"Doing what?" Annie asked with an obvious face of false unawareness.

"You know fucking what," Natasha said, she was so frustrated; "You're not eating again, aren't you?"

"I'm eating," Annie lied again, unable to make eye contact with her best friend as she begged for the truth.

"That's bullshit. You can lie to everybody else but you can't lie to me. Forget about the boxing and everything. What you're doing, you're going to kill yourself. Do you realize that? This isn't healthy," Natasha exclaimed. She cared so much about Annie; she was such a beautiful girl inside and out. It killed Natasha seeing her like this. Not only that, but it was hurting her fighting now. "How much do you weigh now? Are you even in the same weight class anymore? They will cancel the fight if you aren't you know that?"