Not slammed.
Guided.
The humiliation made him furious.
“What are you doing?” he hissed.
“Surviving.”
He shoved away.
Claire yelled, “Derek, finish him!”
That one landed harder than his punches.
I looked toward her.
She froze.
For fourteen years, I had slept beside that woman.
Held her through her mother’s funeral.
Built shelves in the nursery we never got to use after our second miscarriage.
Learned to make the ridiculous lemon cake she loved because a bakery had stopped selling it.
And now she was screaming for another man to knock me unconscious.
Something inside me finally stopped hurting.
Not healed.
Stopped.
Those are different things.
Healing comes later.
Sometimes indifference arrives first.
Derek saw me glance at Claire and rushed me.
He threw a hook.
I ducked.
Then came the move I had been waiting for.
His right knee rose high.
His hands dropped slightly.
My body remembered before my mind needed to.
I stepped outside.
Captured the leg.
Turned my hips.
Derek crashed onto the mat.
I followed him down.
One arm around his neck.
My chest against his shoulder.
My weight distributed so my damaged knee did almost nothing.
A rear naked choke was available.
Easy.
Instead, I whispered against his ear.
“Where did the hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars go?”
His entire body stiffened.
That was the confirmation.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
Derek jerked violently.
“What?”
I loosened my position just enough.
“Claire stole seventy-two thousand from our savings and forged my name on a sixty-five-thousand-dollar equity line.”
His breathing changed.
Tiny detail.
Most people wouldn’t notice.
I did.
“Let go of me.”
“Where did it go?”
“You’re crazy.”
The clock showed 1:47.
Derek tried to roll.
I followed.
He elbowed backward.
His glove clipped my brow.
I shifted.
“You knew,” I said.
“Go to hell.”
“Probably eventually.”
Then Derek did something strange.
He looked toward Claire.
Not for encouragement.
For instruction.
Claire’s face had gone pale.
There.
That was the moment.
The affair wasn’t the whole story.
I released Derek and stood.
The crowd booed.
Derek sprang up, furious.
“You scared?”
“No.”
He came at me swinging.
I didn’t hurt him.
That disappointed everyone.
I blocked.
Redirected.
Moved.
He grew sloppier with every second.
Thirty seconds.
Twenty.
Ten.
Derek threw one final desperate kick.
I stepped back.
His heel sliced through empty air.
The buzzer sounded.
Five minutes.
The gym went silent.
