Sometimes endurance is coming home from war and learning how to sit through Thanksgiving dinner while everyone asks if you “ever killed anybody.”
Derek threw a right cross.
I parried.
His elbow opened.
I could
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.
