I choose me.

Part 21: Life as it goes one day at a time

One day at a time was her focus now. She forced herself to eat even though it was painful, her body still threw up half of what she consumed sometimes. With the impending move she kept double and triple checking the care of the gym and getting the house ready for Kiki to take over, and packing, then she was training much harder than she should have been.

Crawford got there on the 28th of March, she and Andrew picked him up from the airport, he tried to hide his look of concern when he saw her, but she caught it.

"I'll be back later to help you pack!" He waved and sped off, they went upstairs to stacks of boxes everywhere. He set his bags in the bedroom and sat on the bed.

"Been going bad?"

"Just the usual, had a pretty nasty confrontation with Benny when I got back—just a lot of stress." Olivia twisted her hand in the material of his t-shirt and buried her face in his neck, soaking in his warmth and the sunshine he smelled of.

"What was nasty about it? I can go-"

She shook her head, "I kneed him in the gut." and he smirked. "Kiki is going to take you to get the U-Haul after lunch and I have one more session with Mulligan and Murphy."

"Did you eat today?" He asked.

"No." He stood up and set her on the bed and then went into the kitchen and peered around, moving things in the cupboards until he pulled out a protein cookie and halved it, Olivia shrugged. He spread peanut butter on it and handed half to her.

"Is everything you're taking ready?" Crawford looked around her small apartment while he ate the cookie.

"Just need to take the bed apart and move that shelf." She took a small bite.

"Great, mind if I photograph you training?"

"I guess so, I look like hell."

"Just a few more days and you'll wake up on the beach." That made her smile.

She went downstairs and warmed up.

"I got a few names of some gyms and people over there since I'm not coming to that hippy city with you." Mulligan slapped a crumbled piece of paper on the counter. She looked at him with adoration, he'd lost ten pounds and his face was so much brighter since he'd been taking better care of himself. "Thanks."

"You need to take this boy down today, hurt him, act like you're fighting for real! Use your anger, use that fight you and old knucklehead had." Her head popped up from her stretch. "You two were hollering for twenty minutes, they heard you all the way down town." She put on her wraps and mouth guard, then her and Murphy went at it. She held her own better than she had been. She tried to do what Mulligan said and harness everything into fighting power. He knocked the wind out of her a few times, but she got him down a few times herself. After an hour he cried uncle. "That's better!" Mulligan clapped. "See, you don't piss her off or that will be you." He said to Crawford who was scrolling through his pictures. "Yes sir."

Olivia bumped knuckles with Murphy.

She took over the gym and Kiki took Crawford to U-Haul, she got a smaller truck because she didn't have a lot of stuff and only a few big things. She started getting anxious when the truck pulled up out in front of the gym. After fixing a hissing treadmill, they began packing when Andrew showed up. Between the three of them it was pretty fast work, taking the bed apart is what took the longest, all that was left was the mattress. Then she took an empty box and walked around, throwing little knick knacks and odds and ends, lastly putting in the shoe box with her pictures and birth certificate.