Wait For You

Chapter 16: Wishing You The Worst/ No Names, No Love

𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐲𝐧𝐧 𝐀𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐫𝐨𝐞

But at five a.m. he's still not back. I'm checking the internet like crazy and have the local news playing on TV, fearing the worst. I hear a door and raise my head, my heart pulsing in my throat when I see Duke. Instantly I jump from the couch to my feet. "Adonis? Where is he? What did he do?"

He won't look at my face, just walks directly into the master bedroom and searches the closet. "He's at the ER."

An awful tension stretches from one end of my spine to the other, and suddenly I feel whipped in the tail and charge determinedly after him. "What did he do? Let me go get my things. I need to see him."

Duke grabs his toothbrush, and his razor, and tosses everything into a small leather bag. "It's better if you wait here. It's just some stitches." He then gets his boxing shoes and outfit for the match. "They're not disqualified. Neither one of them is telling. The fight goes on tonight, or shall we say? Continues. Tonight."

The acids in my stomach start to bubble uncomfortably. I lack the testosterone for all this. It used to be sexy in movies when a guy fights for a girl but this is my guy, fighting because of me, and I feel about as awful as possible and more than a little desperate to go and nurture and protect him.

"What ER is he in?" Following him through the bedroom, I snatch up a pair of jeans and slide them under Remy's black t-shirt—the one I sometimes sleep with.

Pivoting on his heel when he reaches the door, he stays me back with both hands. "Please don't, for the love of god, show up, Gracelynn, Neither Manny nor I want him to see you. Please, Gracelynn. Just listen to me."

"But how is he..." I blink at him, my eyes blurring as my voice breaks. "Just tell me how he is."

"He's pissed off. They sedated him at the hospital. Honestly, I don't know how we can expect him to fight tonight. But at least he's angry."

I scowl at the slamming door and am left staring after him. I feel angry too, but I also feel eaten inside. The urge to see him is acute, but I don't know if I would help or hinder him, I just don't know anything about this. Using his laptop, I Google bipolarism and come across tons of articles describing a manic episode as the person being in either an extremely happy or an extremely irritable mood; who also engages in an excess of pleasurable activities, sex, gambling, alcohol, and sometimes experiences hallucinations; feeling rested after zero or no sleep, acting recklessly or violent; and such episode is often followed by a depressive episode when the person can barely get out of bed. I'm sure Adonis is manic right now, and I'd already seen he was speedy all these nights of hard sex. I remember him telling me the night he told me about being bipolar and how I'm going to leave if it gets steep, and I'm doubly resolved not to be a chicken shit and stick it out with him.

But I wonder how he's coping right now after he tussled with that damned reptile man.

God, please, please, don't let me ruin his fight tonight.

That's all I think of as I grab my sneakers, my knee brace, and head into the hotel gym, grab a treadmill, and pound it for two hours. I focus on planning what to do when I see him. I want to say I'm sorry that I felt it necessary not to tell him about me visiting my sister, but I had to talk to her and didn't want to worry him. I want to kiss him and forget all this ever went down, but unfortunately, the morning goes by, and I don't see him at noon, or even at one, or at two, or at three.

I don't see him until the fight.

And by then, I'm, positively, a mass of quaking nerves. I hadn't seen Manny in all this time either, only Coach and Duke, who both ushered me to my seat when I tried winding my way backstage to see him. "Please just let him get into the zone," Duke says.