An Iron-Body Fighter Told Single Mom "Your Punches Are Useless" — She Was Down, 6 Seconds Later He Regretted!
Chapter 11
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"Comes with age, honey." Opal smiles, but there's something else behind it—something considering. She looks at Callie a moment longer than the conversation calls for. "You remind me of someone. Can't quite place who.""I get that a lot," Callie says. It's true, though she's never been sure what people mean by it.Opal doesn't press further; she pats Callie's hand once, gentle, and goes back to wiping down the counter, humming something old under her breath. It's a small moment, easy to let slip by, but like the moment with Silas that morning, it lingers a little longer than it should.Before Callie clocks out, Opal calls her back to the counter one more time. "Friday," she says. "You're not working here Friday night. I already crossed you off the schedule.""Opal, I need the hours.""You need to be at that memorial, sitting where Everett's people can see you're taken care of. That's what you need." Opal's voice doesn't leave much room for argument. "This diner will survive one Friday without you; Mill Haven's memory of that man won't survive you not showing up."Callie doesn't fight her on it; there isn't much use fighting Opal on anything.By the time Callie's shift ends, it's almost 9:00. She drives home through streets gone quiet: past the fire station, Everett's name on the plaque out front; past the church with the leaning steeple; past houses with porch lights on and lives inside them she'll never fully know.Her apartment is small and warm; it smells faintly of the candles she burns to cover the smell of bleach that never quite leaves her clothes. It's quiet at this hour—the kind of quiet that used to feel unbearable and now just feels like Tuesday. There's a photograph on the kitchen shelf: Everett in his dress uniform, grinning like the camera had just told him a joke. She looks at it most nights—habit more than grief these days, though some nights it's both.This is why she doesn't fight back: not because she can't, because every ounce of anger she has, she's decided to spend on keeping the small, steady life she's built exactly the way it is—safe, quiet, untouched by the noise of men like Bronson Voss. She's the only thing standing between the life she has now and the life that falls apart if she loses her temper in front of the wrong person. Being a single mother doesn't leave much room for pride; it leaves even less room for a scene.She sits at the kitchen table a while, not doing much of anything. Then she goes to bed, but sleep doesn't come easy that night. She lies awake, staring at the ceiling. Her mind keeps drifting back to the gym—not to Bronson, not even to Gordon Aldridge and his five-day deadline, to her own hands: to the way they moved without her permission when Bronson raised his fists and mocked her; to the muscle memory that surfaced for half a second before she buried it back down, the way she's buried it every day for years.