Love You More_ A Novel - Lisa Gardner [27]
He didn’t even try to hit me. He just ran straight at me and knocked me flat on my ass. I went down like a ton of bricks, remembering once more that line drive to my chest as I struggled to regain my breath.
The instructor blew his whistle. Chuck offered me a hand up, and we tried again.
This time, I was aware of my fellow recruits watching. I registered my instructor’s scowl at my disappointing performance. I fixated on the fact this was supposed to be my new life. If I couldn’t defend myself, if I couldn’t do this, I couldn’t become a trooper. Then what would I do? How would I earn enough money for Sophie and me to live? How would I provide for my daughter? What would happen to us?
Chuck rushed. This time, I stepped to the side and slammed my pogo stick into his gut. I had approximately half a second to feel good about myself. Then two hundred and forty pounds of Chuck straightened, laughed, and came back at me.
It got ugly after that. To this day, I don’t recall it all. I remember starting to feel genuinely panicked. That I was blocking and moving, and putting my shoulder behind the blow, and still Chuck kept coming and Chuck kept coming. Two hundred and forty pounds of linebacker against my one hundred and twenty pounds of desperate new motherhood.
The padded end of his pogo stick connecting with my face. My head snapped back as my nose absorbed the blow. I staggered, eyes flooding with instant tears, off balance, half-blinded, wanting to fall, but realizing frantically that I couldn’t go down. He’d kill me. That’s how it felt. Couldn’t go down or I’d be dead.
Then, at the last second, I did fall, into a tight little ball that I then sprang out of, straight into the towering giant’s legs. I caught him at the knees, jerked sideways, and toppled him like a redwood.
The instructor blew the whistle. My classmates cheered.
I staggered to standing, touching gingerly at my nose.
“That’s gonna leave a mark,” my instructor informed me cheerfully.
I crossed to Chuck, offered him a hand up.
He accepted gratefully enough. “Sorry ’bout the face,” he said, looking sheepish. Poor big guy, having to take on the girl.
I assured him it was all right. We were all doing what we had to do. Then we got to square off against new partners and do it all over again.
Later that night, curled up alone in my dorm room, I finally cradled my nose with my hand and cried. Because I didn’t know if I could go through that again. Because I wasn’t sure if I was really prepared for a new life where I had to hit and be hit. Where I might honestly have to fight for my life.
At that moment, I didn’t want to be a trooper anymore. I just wanted to go home to my baby girl. I wanted to hold Sophie and inhale the scent of her shampoo. I wanted to feel her chubby little hands pressed against my neck. I wanted to feel my ten-month-old daughter’s unconditional love.
Instead, I got pummeled the next day, and the day after that. I endured bruised ribs, whacked shins, and aching wrists. I learned to take a blow. I learned to deliver in kind. Until by the end of the twenty-five-week course, I came out of the gate swinging with the best of them, covered in purple welts but ready to rumble.
Tiny, fast, and tough.
Giant Killer, my fellow recruits called me, and I was proud of the nickname.
I remembered those days now, as the doctor examined the results from the CT scan, then gently probed the mass of swollen purple flesh around my eye.
“Fracture of the zygomatic bone,” he murmured, adding for my benefit: “Your cheek is broken.”
More perusing of film images, more inspection of my skull. “No sign of hematoma or contusion of the brain. Nausea? Headache?”
I murmured yes to both.
“Name and date.”
I managed my name, blanked on the date.
Doctor’s turn to nod. “Given the clear CT scan, it would seem you have only a concussion to go with your fractured zygomatic. And what happened here?” He finished with my head, moving to my torso, where the yellow and green remnants of a fading bruise covered half my ribs.
I didn’t answer,