Promise

Chapter 5

Ethan's p.o.v

As I parked my car in front of the gym I've been training at for over a year now, I saw coach Gomez shaking hands with some girl. The girl wore black Nike shorts, a white t-shirt, and her dark brown, curly hair up in a messy bun. She carried a red gym bag on her right shoulder and a bottle of water in the left hand. I quickly turned off my car, eager to meet the only girl ever to set foot at this MMA & Boxing gym. 

 "No, I just feel it's smart to learn self-defense and stay fit. Nothing else." I heard the smoothe voice of Amber replying to whatever Coach Gomez's question was. I stopped in my tracks as I realized my plan to avoid Amber was never actually going to work. She turned around at the same time Coach looked at me and she, too, froze. She arched her right brow and sighed in disbelief before walking right past me and heading towards her car. A white Honda. 

 Was Amber the one who had called Melina a bitch? Or was someone else in the car with her? Why does it even matter anymmore? Why did she look so angry when she saw me? Was it something I said? Wait, I didn't even speak. Snap. Snap.

"Ethan!" I blinked my thoughts away and focused on the figure standing impatiently in front of me. 

"Sorry. Should we get straight to the point?" I asked Coach in a rushed manner causing him to furrow his brown eyebrows. Instead of responding to my question he swiftly turned and walked into the gym, motioning for me to follow him. I followed him in calm steps and set my gym bag on a black metal bench pushed against the wall. I openned my bag and grabbed my white hand bands.

 "There's something awfully strange about that girl." Coach Gomez said in a confused tone, more to himself than to me. 

 "She's an honor student at Monroe High, I doubt she can be strange." I told Coach who just gave me an annoyed look.

 "You know what she asked after our warm ups? She asked what she could do if someone is strangling her."

 "Maybe she wants to just learn to kick ass. Maybe she wants to be like Nikita. Can we question the fact why she would come here in the first place? She's a girl. Unless she's acutally a boy who got a sex cha-"

 "Ethan, shut your mouth. From now on we'll need to train you 5 days a week instead of four. You're already a fantastic boxer, but if you can do saturday's that would be great. Thomas Peronni is the guy you'll need to beat at the tournament. He's won the Golden Glove's two years in a row;he expects nothing but failure from his oponents. No win, no moving up to the next level. Now, how's your leg?" Coach nodded towards my left leg. Last week I pulled a muscle during a kick boxing session and wasn't able to train for 3 days. 

 "It's gotten much better. No pain, no gain right?" I asked, sort of cocky. 

 "You're not a kick boxer Ethan. Get your head out of the clouds. Get yourself in the ring now and let's get started." I nodded and climbed into the boxing ring that had four black posts and four parallel rows of dark red ropes. I jumped up and down to let my energy flow through my system and jabbed into an imaginary punching bag. Coach held up his hands which were hiding under two black and white punching mitts, and advanced towards me. I jabbed here and there, planting some left hooks and upper cuts, which Coach did a great job at blocking. I moved foward and stepped backwards, skitted to the right and to the left, ducked and dodged, and barred myself with my two arms in a shield position. 

 "Left! Left! Left! Right! Duck! Right! Right! Right! Right hook! Good! Keep it up!" I concentrated only on Coach's instructions and stopped only when he allowed it. At some point I had to jab left and right for a full minute before finally being able to catch my breath.  When I would lose focus, he'd manage to get a hit at the side of my head or even my shoulders. Sweat dripped from my forehead and trickled down my nose and under my chin.