Chapter 24
Near the end of the afternoon, Marcy found me beside the old heavy bags.
“You remember the night you came here?”
“I try not to.”
“Eddie told me you scared everybody.”
“Eddie exaggerates.”
“He said you announced that you’d trained three thousand Marines.”
“I may have mentioned it.”
She smiled.
“You know what’s funny?”
“What?”
“I spent months thinking I needed someone strong enough to protect me.”
I felt a familiar ache.
“You don’t?”
“I need people I can trust.”
She glanced around the room.
“You. Mom. Claire. Eddie. Dustin, if he keeps earning it.”
I appreciated the phrasing.
“And myself.”
She looked back at me.
“That’s the part I had to learn.”
I nodded.
“So did I.”
“You?”
“I spent most of my life thinking protecting people meant standing between them and danger.”
“Very dramatic.”
“I was a Marine.”
“Fair.”
“But sometimes you stand beside them.”
She smiled.
“Look at you.”
“What?”
“Growing.”
“Don’t spread that around.”
She laughed.
That laugh.
The one that had disappeared months before.
Clear.
Unburdened.
Her own.
A year after the night I walked into Dustin’s gym, Marcy called to say she was moving again.
This time I did not panic.
Much.
She had accepted a senior position in Chicago.
The new apartment was bigger.
And, according to Linda, possessed “respectable sidewalks.”
Dustin had decided to move too.
Not into Marcy’s apartment.
Into one nearby.
That had apparently been her condition.
“We’re going to see what everyday life feels like again,” she explained.
“Smart.”
“Are you agreeing with me?”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Dustin had been offered a coaching position at a respected gym in Chicago.
He was still competing occasionally, but competition no longer seemed to define him.
Before leaving, he came to my workshop one final time.
“I need advice.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“How do you know when you’re ready to marry somebody?”
I stared at him.
His face turned red.
“I didn’t say I was proposing tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“Forget I asked.”
“No.”
I leaned against the bench.
May you like
“You don’t know.”
“That’s your advice?”
