Fight For Me 18+ || VH

3

I slip on the gloves I'd stolen from one of the trainers last year, they're beaten up but they still do their job. I throw punches at the practice dummy, I'm right handed but my left hook is stronger than my right. I've been telling people the bruises on my knuckles are from cheer practice and no one cares to ask any more questions. I throw another jab at the dummy and it jolts backwards earning me a twinge of satisfaction.

I was angry at the world I didn't know why. Perhaps it was because I'd never been given a choice to be my own person and make my own decisions for the better of me, perhaps it was because my parents were always too busy for me and barely knew that their precious little girl was long gone, perhaps it was because after years of asking father to train me he chose some random kid from the wrong side of the tracks over his own blood.

The ring is no place for a lady, he'd always say, it's dangerous and I've seen what happens to pretty faces like yours in there. I don't want to be just another pretty face, I want to fight, I want to be great like him. I thew another le

I make my way reluctantly downstairs and place all my books on the kitchen counter, I have a lot of reading to do ahead of my first semester at Harvard this fall. I know better than to go against my father on this one thing, and it's a privilege to have gotten in and it wasn't on his merit but my own. I forbade him to help me with the entry, I would be successful by myself.

Sometimes it feels like my parents will never let me grow up and become my own person, it's almost as though in their mind I'm still a little kid. I'm turning eighteen in a few weeks and they still coddle me like I'm five, and perhaps a part of me too is scared to let them take off the training wheels. Because what if I don't know how to be on my own, what if I fall and there's no one there to catch me?

My father Luciano Archer is a retired world renown boxer, the name alone is enough to bring back fond memories to everyone it's spoken to and reminds them of his glory days. He met my mother in high school and they've been together since they were sixteen, she was his manager and knows him better than anyone in the world and is quite frankly the only person who can put him in his place.

My mother Aurora was born in Mexico and was the oldest of a really big family, she's used to having to be the bigger person and take care of everyone else. So when she moved to the USA for school and started her career in sports management it never really felt like work to her. Over time her and father built their empire side by side, sometimes I wonder what it's like to have that with someone.

My parents are a lot of things but if it's one thing I've always held close to my heart it's that they do love each other, more than even I can comprehend.

Just as I'm five minutes into my study session I can hear a ruckus coming from downstairs, I thought training hours were over, they usually are by this hour and father promised that these would be my quiet hours for my work. I shut my book in frustration and make my way upstairs to find father but he's nowhere to be seen, I which makes me even angrier at the situation.

Sometimes I get angry, really angry and I lose myself. When I was a girl I would write on the walls in bright red sharpie whenever I didn't get my way, or I would pour my potted paints all over my mother's sofas and rugs, I was a very discontent child and I didn't know why. My parents tried everything, sending me to therapy, changing their disciplinary methods but nothing on God's green earth could soothe their little girl.

And nothing still can, there's this fire inside me that burns far more furiously than anything else and I refuse to allow it to be extinguished.

I decide to take matters into my own hands and make my way downstairs and into the left wing basement where the noise was coming from, it was a training hall with two boxing rings and piles of equipment and seats. At first I could only see Milo (red eye) one of my father's trainers but that was when I saw him for the first time you see.

He had thick curls of dark blonde hair which was highlighted with streaks of brunette, it was tied up in a messy bun away from his face. He had a perfectly sculpted jawline, it was almost as though he was a Roman statue carved by the gods themselves. He had full rosy bee stung lips and his eyes, his eyes were the deepest shade of brown I'd ever seen, he was beautiful and there was no denying it. Everything about him was fire incarnate and I wanted more than anything to burn for him.

I switched off all the lights except for the stage light so I could watch him fight more clearly, his right hook was clean and I wondered how someone so young could've mastered the art so effortlessly. I walked down the stairway and down to where the ring was before slowly clapping my hands which got their attention, they stopped boxing and faced me standing up on the podium.

"Who the hell are you?" I ask almost speechless,

"Hacker," he speaks, with a voice like melting honey and a gaze that strips me bare, "Vinnie Hacker."