Derek’s glove cracked against my cheekbone, snapping my head sideways beneath the fluorescent lights of Apex Predator Martial Arts.
The crowd erupted.
Someone whistled.
Someone else yelled, “Welcome to the real world, old man!”
I tasted blood where my molar had cut the inside of my cheek.
Across the blue mats, Claire stood with her arms folded beneath her chest, watching the man she had been married to for fourteen years get punched by the twenty-eight-year-old man she had been sleeping with.
She didn’t look frightened.
She looked relieved.
As if Derek’s fist had confirmed something she had been telling herself for months.
That I was weak.
That I was finished.
That whatever man she had married was gone.
Derek bounced backward, grinning through his mouthguard.
“Come on, HVAC,” he said.
Laughter rolled through the gym.
My left knee throbbed where his kick had landed seconds earlier.
That knee had
