Dirty Fighter: A Bad Boy MMA Romance Read Online Free PDF

self-defense,” she didn’t sound too sure of her plan, but I was in no position to argue with her. I wasn’t willing to go to jail for Adam.
    Standing up, she went to her suitcase and pulled out her wallet, pulling out more one hundred dollar bills than I’d seen in my entire life, and handed me all of her money. She looked uncomfortable standing in front of me, like she was unsure of what to do.
    “There’s more on top of the fridge in the breadbox,” she offered. I didn’t want to tell her I’d already given it away. “I only ever wanted the best for you,” she said softly, combing her fingers through my hair in what was almost a caress.
    “I know,” I lied. If she wanted to go to jail for me, I was going to fucking let her.
    As she bought my ticket and handed me the information, she hugged me and sobbed. None of this felt real. She sat on my bed with me as I filled a suitcase and backpack with anything and everything I thought I would need. It felt just like it had when I was a kid and I’d leave for sleep-overs, my mom would school me the entire time on how to act and what to say so people would like me.
    How to be as agreeable as possible.
    She called Jo and told her there was an emergency and I was on my way, and that she should pick me up from JFK first thing in the morning. I could tell that Jo was concerned on the phone, but I also knew it wasn’t completely sincere. My aunt had been trying to talk my mom out of her relationship with my father since before I was born. Not because my mom was abused, but because my aunt got a thrill out of whatever drama she could surround herself with.
    I finished packing, and with a bus ticket to take me off into the night, I sat on the bed beside her and let her paint my face with the same camouflage she’d always worn. The makeup perfectly blended and devoured the bruises blossoming around my nose and under my eyes from the slap and fall.
    I tried not to think of the possible outcomes she could face from implicating herself. I never thought she would do anything for me, I never thought she actually cared this much. I kissed her forehead and let her cry; her shuddering breath rocked the bed and made my uneasy stomach worse.
    “I need you to know I love you,” she said softly. “And that I’m sorry,” she didn’t mean it in any way for me to actually feel better. She was easing her own guilt, feeding into her own needs, and I completely understood that. All the same, her throwing herself under the bus wasn’t going to just make me forgive her. She had planned on leaving me to die.
    “I know,” I said gently, not feeling completely up to saying it back. I sat there quietly after that, listening to her breathing fill the room with sound.
    When I finally left I didn’t look back past the stairs to the hallway, I didn’t pause to think of the fact that I had just been laid out on that floor. I didn’t even hug my mother goodbye. I ignored that I could have been the corpse in the house.
    It was dark out, and I let myself slip away into its warmth like a warm cocoon preparing me for a rebirth.

6
    Adam
    I t was getting dark out . I had been standing on the corner of Ash and Gladstone, my backpack stuffed to the brim, for almost an hour at that point. My bag had been packed before I even left for Brooklyn’s home, but she didn’t need to know that. The summer air was full of the smell of honeysuckle and fresh cut grass, fireflies orbed through the air like little ghosts. It was too peaceful, too normal for what I had just done and for what I had confirmed about Brooklyn.
    It’s not like I was glad I was right, I wouldn’t have wished what we’d been through on anyone else, but I was somehow relieved to be able to say I was correct. That Brooklyn wasn’t a monster. That she was like me and understood me as well as I did her. As I stood there, awkwardly shuffling my feet, I felt at peace with her, even if I knew she didn’t actually know me. I wasn’t even