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tonight all that orbits dina is this ring, this bout, this girl.
the lights are heavy and unbearably warm; time collapses around her. charged with this insurmountable static; it clings to the skin and coats the room. ellie feels tendrils of blood blooming from her nose and gums.
dina is somewhere at the foot of the crowd, her mouth full of encouragement that doesn’t leave the helm of her tongue. she watches restlessly, her breath caught between her teeth and throat. the sound of glove against skin and shoes against canvas fill her ears.
ellie’s been pushed off center and feels it down to her marrow. in an attempt to gain some composure she throws her weight into her jesse’s torso and holds on like he is her last chance for redemption. the ref shouts something that blurs in ellie’s ears.
the ref puts a firm hand on each of their shoulders and shoves them apart.
“put em up!” he shouts over the announcer’s voice, melting back into the corner of the ring.
ellie could swear that behind the noise of the crowd, jesse is telling her to stand up straight; to guard her chin. but her ears are ringing and she wants to reach out and hold onto him. she feels like a child, full of viscous anger but her movements come out slow.
she’s boxed him before; he used to be an easy win, with the way that he leaves his ribs undefended and the wide movements he makes. but that feels like a lifetime ago. he’s been training for this and it shows in the weight behind his fists. he’s not 16 anymore.
he shoves her away from him - HARD - and the ref gives a glare but allows it.
“c’mon boston,” he shouts and before ellie can respond his right hook connects with the side of her head - a wake-up call. she’s angry at him but can’t verbalize it. can’t even feel it fully because she knows.
jesse is noble, jesse is good. jesse is the one who tends to ellie’s wounds when dina can’t bear to look. and sometimes ellie feels like hardly half the person jesse is. but dina still wants HER. dina still chooses HER.
tonight the spatter of blood beneath her split lip is a dull displacement of what she thought was the only thing she’s good for. this: the pain of devotion echoing. and devotion is all she’s got tonight, not even the kiss she gives the canvas before every fight can save her now.
in the crowd dina feels tears well in her eyes at the sight of crimson red blood seeping from ellie’s lip and nose. after so many matches and so many hits, dina’s heart is tender to the dull ache of seeing her girl hurt.
but ellie growls, spits the blood just beside him, and throws a jab into the right of his ribcage - his liver.
“not the time,” she yells, increasingly frustrated, before landing a left hook to his head.
he stumbles back and smiles. his hands go up to protect his chin, his elbows protect his organs.
they cross into the last round. the bell sounds and they melt into their respective neutral corners.
her corner man immediately jumps into the ring, and takes a good long look at her.
“c’mon kiddo, you’re better than this,” joel says, wiping the blood from her lip as tommy squeezes water into her slack mouth.
ellie nods dumbly and spits the water into the bucket joel is holding up for her.
“that boy don’t got nothing you don’t,” he continues as he wipes the sweat from her forehead.
“you’re the strongest person i ever met,” he says, holding her face in his hands, “you can do this.”
the bell rings once more and joel softly taps her face, “c’mon babygirl, let’s go.” and with that, he exits the ring.
dina watches ellie and knows she can feel it as the ref displays on his finger that they’re in the 12th round. ellie’s ears are ringing again. she looks like horus, eyes all full of moonlight and gold.
dina is ellie’s center of gravity, taking care of her in ways ellie can’t invent language for. and she’d die half full if she didn’t feel that just once.
all three meet in the center of the ring. the ref touches their gloves and recedes into the corner.
ellie and jesse circle one another like titan and saturn and gravity becomes heavier in this ring. ellie feels it right down to the meat of her bones.
jesse throws a sluggish punch and ellie blocks it hastily. she takes the opportunity to throw a jab into his ribs that doesn’t seem to faze him.
ellie carries her fists in front of her face and punches hard, though there’s not much weight behind it.
he stumbles back and drops his arms momentarily - just long enough for ellie’s fist to connect to his jaw before she assumes the defense position again.
“knew you had it in you,” jesse says just loud enough for ellie to hear.
they’re pushed up against the ropes and while jesse is smiling like he’s secure, they both know who’s more likely to win.
jesse wraps his arms around the ropes like he’s pulled a trick out of his sleeve.
ellie uppercuts his stomach and immediately he regrets the decision. she lands several punches to his torso before he keels.
he coughs and headbutts her in the diaphragm - an illegal move - adding 10 seconds to the round.
she doubles over and wheezes as the ref rushes over to seperate them.
dina’s breath catches in her throat as she watches ellie struggling to breathe and stand up straight. she can’t bear to watch anymore; she tells joel to let ellie know she’ll be waiting back at their apartment.
the ref centers them to the ring and touches their gloves as he administers a warning.
there’s thirty seconds left in the round and ellie’s sure she’ll win but it feels bitter in her throat.
ellie begins to swing left half a beat before jesse does. she squats to put the strength in her legs behind the punch. jesse’s fist passes above her head. hers connects square to his chin.
he falls back but catches himself on his knee and gets up promptly. he looks like icarus, his brown eyes looking up at ellie all proud like that.
ellie shoves him again. he tries to throw a blow to ellie’s ribs but she moves back and punches down into his cheek with all her force.
he falls on his side, slack.
the ref walks over and ellie steps into the corner while he counts to 10. jesse looks like icarus, face down on the canvas. melted into a pool of wings and blood.
“8, 9, 10, K.O.,” shouts the ref as he meets her in the center and raises her sore arm in the air in victory.
“and that’s that, ladies and gents! ellie williams, undefeated lightweight champion!” declares the announcer as joel and tommy rush to her side.
she looks into the crowd for dina and joel knows that face.
“she’s waitin’ at home for you,” joel explained, ushering her out of the ring. tommy wraps the robe around her.
//
“you’re trembling,” notes dina as she peels the clothes from ellie’s lithe form.
ellie sits on a chair tommy gifted them for their housewarming party. dina is sat on the edge of their bathtub.
their apartment is tucked into the upper east side of jackson where it begins to soften into the wyoming landscape but damn, it was cheap.
“yeah,” comes ellie’s response, though it’s half buried in her throat. it closes around her words and here their bathroom feels too small and too warm.
“i won, y’know,” she says, almost like an afterthought. the cloth dina brings to the blood stained against ellie’s ribs is wet and cold. it feels like fresh moonlight but she still winces.
“yeah, sure seems like it,” dina says humorlessly, before adding, “sit still.”
her freckled skin is marred by bruises and cuts. she looks like prometheus, torn apart for invoking light. dina looks like she’s been stretched to the point of translucency.
“you know why i do this,” ellie says, though it’s devoid of venom as she stiffens against dina’s light hands.
“if i win the next few matches, i promise we can save it up and i’ll look for work somewhere else.”
the room is quiet for a moment as dina douses the dry side of the cloth in lavender oil. she presses the liquid to ellie’s bruises and the tenderness aches.
“we both know that’s not going to happen,” the words come encapsulated in a short breath and dina’s gaze hardens but her face is open.
dina is so good to her, too. she pulls the special balm she makes for ellie’s wounds from the cabinet and applies a thin layer over the cuts. it stings earnestly.
the care in dina’s actions almost hurt more than the blows she received in the ring. almost.
“baby…” ellie softens, reaching to hold a palm over dina’s thigh, “it doesn’t hurt that bad, i swear.”
“that’s not the point,” dina caves and ellie hears the sound of running water, “i can’t watch you tear yourself open for me anymore.”
“it’s not like i have any other choice,” ellie sighs as dina helps her to her feet. ellie leans into her as she’d led into the fake porcelain of the tub. the water is warm but her wounds ache against it nonetheless.
‘we can’t live off of the money you make at the bakery; and you’re already working yourself to the bone trying to sell your art,” ellie says, mostly to herself.
“i can handle it,” she promises, sinking into the bathtub as dina takes a seat in the chair, “you don’t have to watch if it hurts to.”
the nights after ellie’s matches always end like this: firmness all gone and seeping out the edges of their nails. ellie wishes she could quit like she says she will, but working the homestead doesn’t pay like boxing does.
outside the plethoric sounds of a city reborn bathe the houses in an overwhelming grey lacquer.
“okay,” dina says like she’s focusing all her energy so that her voice doesn’t break over the words. she exits like she doesn’t wanna kiss ellie; like she doesn’t want to sit in her chest and thank her just for being alive.
dina is ellie’s center of gravity, keeping her feet planted securely against earthly soil. she takes every affection dina gives on bended knee and worships it. but she has to do this.
ellie soaks in the warm water in a bathroom left and up of wyoming.
she doesn’t have half a mind to do anything else.
//
later that night, ellie has slipped into a pair of boxers and an old hand-me-down from joel. the air smells cold from where it oozes in like one of ellie’s gooey wounds. it settles in the corners of dina’s shape as ellie moves into the covers.
and truthfully there’s no beautiful way to describe all that sadness, just estimations and made up words. dina is curled around her knees on the bed, folded in pain and dipped in blood.
she carries the weight of ellie’s love and her dissension in the palm of her hands and in the meat of her bones. it’s disarming in some blood-chilling sort of way.
her heart aches around it. ellie wishes she could coax all that pain from her, but dina won’t look at her.
“i’m giving up art,” dina says softly, curled around her knees.
“what?” ellie says, sitting up and facing her, “dina…”
“no one buys my stuff anymore, el,” she sighs, turning over to face ellie, but their eyes don’t meet. dina simply stares at the space where she’d like ellie to be, “i’ll try my best to sell the ones i’ve already done, but there won’t be any after. maybe that will get people to buy them.”
“i don’t want you to have to do that,” ellie admits. she sounds like a child. not in a petulant way. “i can pick up more fights. i won this last one… i won’t have to rest as long this time-”
“ellie,” dina says firmly, looking up at ellie now. “i don’t have any other choice.” the way she echoes ellie’s words from earlier reverberate within ellie’s head.
“you can do commissions,” ellie says, though it sounds less like a suggestions and more like a plea, “people love when you draw them or their pets.”
“you know no one pays well for those,” dina sighs and sits up to be level with ellie, “i’m not gonna give it up forever. we just can’t afford for me to be focusing on it when i could be spending that time picking up hours at the bakery.”
ellie nods once in a half-hearted sort of acceptance, though it feels like failure. “i just wish i could give you the life you deserve,” she says so softly, dina thinks she imagined it.
“you are my brightest joy, ellie,” dina kisses the words into ellie’s worried temple, “and yeah, we’re not in the best situation right now… but i wouldn’t want to be in it with anyone else.” dina holds ellie’s fallen face in her palms and ellie closes her eyes earnestly. truthfully, the words cry out harder than her wounds.
“you were made for bigger bones, דינה,” ellie says defeatedly and her tongue can’t curl properly around hebrew but it tastes sweet in her mouth. dina distantly remembers when ellie brought jars of honey to her mother, adah, in hopes that she might teach her some of the language. “you deserve a world of joy.”
“we could talk for lifetimes about ‘deserve’ but what i see, what i have in you, is tucked between the lines of my palms where i can keep it safe. i don’t care about ‘deserve’; there is no word more cruel than ‘deserve’... i want you, ellie. i CHOOSE you. and i would choose you in whatever variation of life g-d could put me through. through rain and shine and time-stopping snowfall, i will never want anything but you.”
dina pulls her in slowly, knowing that the wounds still ache, and presses a kiss to her trembling lips; blurred by exhaustion and blood. it feels like she’s just met ellie and watched her die in the same breath and the feeling echoes out.
ellie feels the weight of dina’s words in her chest and makes an altar to them. the warmth of dina’s hands against her cheeks tastes like relief. she relishes in the softness before she returns the kiss, praising her just for being alive.
dina is ellie’s center of gravity: first, last, always.