Blowing Smoke (Harry Styles)

Chapter 52

The cheap motel bed with springs poking into the material of the mattress had caused a large knot to form between my shoulder blades. Rolling out of the lousy bed the following morning, the heel of my foot had landed on a metal button from a pair of my denim shorts, making me curse and cry out. I had hardly slept due to the terrible quality of the bed, causing my mind to process at an incredibly slow pace and bags to inflate beneath my eyes. The awful convenience store brand food didn’t settle in my stomach properly and caused me to vomit on multiple occasions. Bruises had just begun to form on the ivory flesh of my face and abdomen and ached incredibly at the most minor of contact. To say the least, my mind and body was not ready for the boxing match. And maybe that was the reason that I had lost the fight, or maybe those were just a series of excuses to hide the fact that my talent did not compare whatsoever to Ross’.

But despite the unfortunate events that occurred in a repetitive series with no adjournment, I showed up for the match. The crowds surged and seemed much louder than the prior night, which was because the attendance was so great that it had broken a record for the building. With the large crowd adding onto my nerves, I took a couple of painkillers prior to the match to ease myself in the slightest bit. And maybe that was another reason for my loss.

But excuses aside, I still fought the best that I felt I could to fight for the gold, but I knew that putting complete full effort into the match would be a false hope. My chances were slim to nothing, making me think, “Why bother?” But despite my better judgment, I fought the best goddamn fight of my life to keep some little dignity that I had left.

The fight began with the long list of excuses for my poor performance swirling in my head before the bell had even sounded. I stared down Ross with intensity, but not with nearly as much as she watched me with, her dark eyes piercing my skin through her two black eyes.

Once the bell sounded and rang through my bones like a jolt of electricity that spiked me up with energy, Ross approached me with her jaw clenched tight in a form of aggravation. This was her comeuppance against me, and I wasn’t going to let her just punch the shit out of me until she was satisfied, but she never would be.

So once Ross threw the first punch, I dodged it as best I could, making it just graze the skin of my ribs. Within that split second, I threw two punches to her manly-sculpted face. Both punches seemed to have no effect on her, as if absorbed by her flesh.

Ross immediately tossed three punches to my body easily before I was able to throw one decent punch at her. Her punches were strong and caused damage to my already slightly injured torso. The blows caused me to cringe and gasp in a breath lightly before I quickly recovered and then quickly focused back on my positioning for another expected blow.

My best hit to Ross during the first wound caused her to wince slightly when my glove collided with her nose with a slight crunch of my knuckles from the impact. But it hardly did any damage to her compared to what she was inflicting upon me.

Round one ended soon after it began, I was exhausted and well beaten down. I downed my water, letting it cascade down my throat with a refreshing ease.

Another reason that my nerves were still high, even after the first round, was because of the encounter that Ross and I had prior to the match. On my way to the convenience store from my motel room, Ross walked past me and stopped my journey with a strong hand to my shoulder.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Ross snarled at me.

“Celine L-Lebel.” I had answered simply to make her feel dumb. And I had succeeded.

She scoffed. “What makes you think you have a right to come here and tell me what to do and what not to do?”

“Listen, I j-just stand up for what is r-right.” I admitted, raising my hands defensively. “So d-don’t get all m-mad at m-me because you’re embarrassed that I b-beat you up in f-front of all those p-people because you were m-making fun of someone f-for not being as s-strong as you. Well g-guess what, I’m a h-hell of a lot better than you at f-fighting so does that m-mean that I should m-make fun of you?”