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Lucky. That’s what the medic had said after poking, hard, at her ribs.
“You’re lucky. Any stronger of a spear, and you’d be looking at a break. Or, at least, a crack or two.”
To Sol’s right, Zaria was pacing frenetically. It was becoming something of a habit, this scene. Sol on the table, tired, aching, and Zaria on the side, worried, guilty. It was becoming exhausting, too.
“Okay, but they’re not broken, right?” Zaria asked. “Her ribs? She’s okay?”
Sol spared a glance at her partner, felt the ghost of sympathy for the furrow in her brow, the mess she was making of her thumb’s cuticle, caught between her teeth.
“Well, of course, okay is relative,” the medic said, which was not helpful; Sol reached for Zaria, placed a hand on her arm, stilled her next round of back and forth. Zaria stepped closer, her presence warm and solid at Sol’s shoulder. “But I do believe they’re just bruised.”
It was good news, overall. Zaria’s face still crumpled. Sol wished she hadn’t seen it.
It was always hard to look at Zaria in the aftermath of these moments. These slip-ups in the ring. Sol can never quite manage it for long. Tonight, especially. She did the best she could. Meaning, she still let Zaria step in and help her down from the table. She didn’t flinch when Zaria took up her weight and supported her down the hall.
She didn’t fight when Zaria insisted on carrying all the bags to the car, nor did she try to insist upon driving. She’d learned from previous instances that this would only prolong their night. She’d learned that Zaria worked through it best if she could be of service. Even if Sol tried to tell her it was okay. It was an accident.
Of course, that was a harder sell when it kept happening. It was almost like she could see the guilt digging its claws in deeper and Zaria starting to spiral further.
She wanted to do something, anything, to make her feel better about it, but she didn’t know where to begin. Because an accident wasn’t any less frustrating, or painful, and it didn’t make the situation suck any less.
So, Sol feels far from lucky as she and Zaria trudge their way up to their hotel room, silent and probably looking like sore losers. Literally. Sol’s entire body feels as if it’s been pulled apart at the seams and haphazardly sewn back together. Each step she takes, she expects her legs to give out and is surprised when they don’t.
Three matches in forty-eight hours is the most demanding turnaround she’s ever dealt with, and though two out of three of those matches were victories, to have lost on the biggest pay-per-view she’s ever participated in, to have lost with her partner—to have, arguably, lost because of her partner—it’s gut-wrenching. It took the wind right out of her sails. Right out of her lungs.
Zaria’s spears always do. Sol doesn’t know how it’s become a pattern. She doesn’t know how they seem to have lost their rhythm. She doesn’t know how she keeps winding up on the wrong end of Zaria’s attacks, but it’s starting to take its toll.
She’s starting to find herself fighting off doubts more often than she expected. Doubts she can’t voice, doesn’t even give the time of day in her own head, because they’re ridiculous, they’re traitorous. It’s always the pain talking, insecurity talking. Fear talking. It’s just the fear. This business feeds so well off fear. Sol refuses to let it feast. She tries not to.
Her head throbs terribly as she shuffles into the quiet of their room. Each breath sends a sharp pang through her chest and torso.
She’s ready to just collapse into the mattress but knows she’ll feel worse if she doesn’t brush her teeth and wash her face. Is happy she powered through a shower and change of clothes while the adrenaline was still fresh post-match.
She makes quick work of it, every movement a tug at her ribs, and when she emerges from the bathroom, she finds the pillows have been arranged for her to sleep up-right. Zaria is standing with her back to her, going through her bag on the single couch, so she doesn’t see Sol shut her eyes and steel herself for the discomfort of the night. For just a moment.
She’s glad for that.
She moves to the small desk and chair, the mirror in front of it, and flicks the light on. She goes about applying her moisturizer and her under-eye masks, and she’s just placing a little blue star patch on a stubborn acne head when Zaria appears in the mirror behind her with a tied-off plastic bag.
Sol’s eyes flick up to look at her, but Zaria’s don’t meet hers. She just holds up the bag.
“Ice,” she says, her voice quiet, nearly drowned by the hum of the air conditioning unit under the window.
Her makeup is finally gone, now, too. She hadn’t taken the time to remove it before, even when Sol insisted upon showering before seeing the medic. Too wound up, too worried to consider it. And, even if she had, it’s her armor. Sol has long since figured that out.
It never really fails to do something to Sol’s heart, to squeeze something in her stomach, to see Zaria without it.
Most nights, Sol will smile at her and summon her closer. Kiss her where the paint was only moments before. See if she can leave a mark of her own. Some nights, she helps Zaria remove it with careful, reverent hands.
Tonight, she says, “Thanks.”
Zaria nods, stiff. Her gaze darts up, briefly, and she shuffles her feet, unsure where to put the bag. Sol gives her an out and slightly lifts her elbow on her worse side, and Zaria takes it for what it is. She steps forward and gently, painstakingly, presses the bag to Sol’s ribs.
Sol still feels the bruise of it all. She tries to bite down on it. Nothing but her jaw clenches. Of course, Zaria sees it anyway. She’s watching Sol too closely. She always is.
“I’m sorry,” she says, lightening the pressure to nearly nonexistent.
“I know,” Sol says.
“No,” Zaria says. “I’m sorry, Sol.”
And what is Sol supposed to say, when they’ve done this before? When Sol knows? When Zaria’s already said it, over and over, just this time already?
There’s nothing new to be added, nothing new to be done, and Sol is just tired. She just wants to go to bed.
“I know, Zaria,” she sighs.
A beat, the silence thick and heavy. Sol can nearly feel Zaria’s eyes, now, on the top of her head. Her shoulders are radiating ache, they’re so tense.
When Zaria speaks again, her voice is soft, tentative.
“I… Do you believe me?” she asks.
“Yes,” Sol says back, and it’s too sharp, too short, more frustrated than she’s ever let herself sound.
“Okay,” Zaria says. Cautious. Terribly cautious. If Zaria is anything, it’s not cautious. It only puts Sol further on edge. “But you are mad at me.”
“No,” Sol says. Her fingers curl into fists and then relax. She inhales slow, exhales the same. “No, I’m not mad, Zaria. I just—I don’t know what you want me to say. I know you’re sorry. You’re sorry this time. You were sorry last time. You’ll be sorry next time. And I’ll believe you. I do believe you, okay? They were accidents, and I know that. I’m just tired, and I want to go to bed.”
Sol both watches and feels Zaria flinch back. The bag of ice disappears, and Sol goes with its momentum, turning the chair so that she can look up at Zaria standing beside her, rather than in the mirror.
Zaria looks at her from under deeply furrowed brows. Her eyes are terribly blue. Terribly hurt. Sol’s chest twinges. Her eyebrows furrow too.
“Z—”
“Next time,” Zaria says, and her voice is level, smooth, but it’s colored with pain. Sol freezes, comes to as if ice water was just poured over her. “You think I’m going to hurt you again.”
Sol winces, and it has nothing to do with her ribs, or her head, or any of her tender-to-the-touch bruises. She shakes her head, reaches for Zaria’s hands.
“No,” she says. “No. I—I just mean, of course, we’re going to get hurt and fumble in the ring, Z.” She smiles weakly. “I stepped on your toes in training the other day, remember?”
“Yeah,” Zaria says. “But that’s not how you meant it, Sol.”
A harsh, horrible panic is starting to seep through Sol’s limbs, hot and heady, hard to blink through. Zaria blurs at the edges. Sol swallows.
“Baby,” she tries.
“Do you trust me?” Zaria asks, and Sol’s entire world swoops beneath her.
Yes, she thinks, immediately.
Of course, she thinks. With my life.
Fear grips her. Feasts on her. Darkness she hasn’t let see light creeps like a creature, its claws squeezing her throat, choking her. Holding her hostage. Because it’s just been waiting for its moment. Because she hasn’t let herself think it, but it’s been in her dreams, her nightmares.
Zaria, spearing her, spearing her. Zaria, her eyes emotionless, gripping Sol’s hair, wrenching her head back, slamming her against the ramp. Zaria, asking, didn’t you see this coming?
Sol doesn’t speak. Not fast enough. Two seconds pass. A heartbeat. A breath. She can’t make her tongue move.
Something in Zaria’s eyes breaks open. It seeps across her face in slow motion. She nods, she shouldn’t be nodding, there’s nothing to understand, nothing to accept, Sol is trying, she is.
“Of course,” Sol finally says, finally powers through, standing too. “Zaria, of course. We’re just going through a rough patch. Off with our timing. It’s both of us, Z—”
“Except it’s not,” Zaria says. “It’s not. It’s just me, messing up in the ring, hurting you. Right?” Sol opens her mouth; no sound comes out. Zaria’s eyes shine, all emotion. “Right.”
Zaria moves towards the couch, her bag. She never really unpacks, not in the way Sol does. She’s always ready to go at a moment’s notice, really, something Sol has admired before. Something Sol dreads, suddenly, viciously.
“Wait, what are you doing?” she asks.
“You can’t say you trust me, Sol,” Zaria says, and, here, there’s a fray in her voice. “Not really. But you can say I’m going to hurt you again.” Zaria zips her suitcase and pockets her phone. “What do you think I’m doing?”
“Zaria, don’t,” Sol says. “Please. I don’t—I don’t want to fight.”
“It’s not a fight,” Zaria says. “I’m not mad.” She inhales a breath, and it shakes in a way Sol loathes. “I think we just need space.”
Sol shakes her head again. This is all happening too fast. Her head is hurting too bad. Whatever concussion, or half-concussion, or brain injury she’s surely gotten from all her matches over the weekend is the reason she’s fumbled this conversation so badly. Because, no, no, Zaria can’t leave thinking she’s the problem. Zaria can’t leave.
Sol didn’t mean for this to happen. Those times, those accidents; she knows it was Charlotte, pulling Alexa out of the way. It was Tatum, tackling Izzi out of the way. She and Zaria just need to take that move out of their repertoire until they can tweak it. They need to work on not getting distracted by things outside of the ring during matches. That’s all. That’s it. It’s nothing they can’t work through.
The fear is a liar. It’s a traitor. And it’s going to cost her everything.
“Zaria, no,” Sol says. “Okay, wait.” She catches Zaria by the waist and pulls her back, wraps her arms around Zaria’s stomach and presses her chin into Zaria’s shoulder. She hides her flinch in the pressure. “Just—wait.”
Zaria is rigid in her hold. Sol turns her face into her hair, her nose against her cheek. The pain an afterthought of an afterthought.
“Stay,” she says. “Stay. Don’t go. Please.”
She slips her fingers under the hem of Zaria’s shirt, presses into the warmth of Zaria’s skin, feels the muscles of Zaria’s stomach contract in surprise beneath her touch.
“Sol,” Zaria says.
“Stay,” Sol says, brushing a kiss along Zaria’s jaw. “Baby. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any of it like that. I swear. My head’s just all over the place right now.”
Zaria tilts her head back, sighing, reluctant, but giving way. Sol applies pressure to her hips to get her to turn, and she goes. She doesn’t meet Sol’s eyes, though. She keeps her chin ducked close to her chest. Sol presses their foreheads together.
“We’re tired,” Sol says. “We’re hurting. We need sleep. We can talk tomorrow, figure it all out. For now, just be with me.”
Zaria shakes her head, faintly.
“I shouldn't—”
Sol tightens her grip on Zaria’s hips.
“Be with me,” she says.
She pulls back and catches Zaria’s gaze. Zaria inhales a slow breath through her nose. She reaches up and takes Sol’s chin in her hand gently. For a few moments, she just looks at her. Searches her face for something; Sol doesn’t know what. Her eyes, so blue, so dark under furrowed brows, are so torn, and Sol wants to take it all back. Start the night over. She can fix it. She can.
Because when Zaria leans in and kisses her, it doesn’t feel like it should. It’s as tender as Sol has come to know Zaria is. It’s slow and reverent and careful. It’s too careful. Like Zaria is scared she’ll break her.
Sol presses back twice as firm to make up for it. A promise of sorts. As much as she can give in the moment, tired and worn. The rest of her energy and her heart, really.
“C’mon,” Zaria says, softly, upon pulling back. “You need sleep.”
She brushes hair from Sol’s face then lowers her hands, makes to step sideways, but Sol can’t bring herself to move. Finds a different, deeper fear has frozen her feet, her body, in place.
Because it doesn’t feel like she’s made anything okay. Like anything’s resolved. Even with her hands tight around what she cherishes most, her grip slips.
She says it before she means to.
“Zaria, I love you.”
Zaria blinks at her. Startled. Eyes wide enough to be the deer and the headlights.
They haven’t said it yet. No matter how intrinsic it’s been in all their movements and motions, every promise and promo; they haven’t said it. Not so plainly.
Sol would’ve. It’s been on the tip of her tongue from the beginning. But, then, so has the fear. Of being too much, too overbearing, too clingy. She’s never wanted to scare Zaria away.
So, she’s tried to hold back. Tried to play it cool. As cool as she can. But, now, she can’t. She won’t. Not if it means the difference between Zaria staying or going. Zaria guessing or knowing.
She’d lay herself bare, open, vulnerable if that was what it took. She’d take any number of chair shots or cheap shots if it meant Zaria understanding the magnitude of her feelings. The way that those feelings have altered her logic. How sometimes that logic is thrown out of the window entirely. How sometimes it makes her say and do stupid things, the wrong things, because she’s scared, so scared, of losing her. Always losing her.
Looking at Zaria, now, though, Sol thinks she gets fear. Her own version of it. The same version Sol's seen shades of. Shaky, uncertain, like Zaria's tiptoeing on uneven ground, a minefield that might come back around to do irreparable damage. Like she thinks it’ll all be her fault in the end.
It’s why Sol has played it cool. As cool as she can.
“You don’t have to say it back,” she says, softly. Just because she understands doesn’t mean it doesn’t ache. “I just needed you to know, Z.” She reaches up and frames Zaria’s face. She doesn’t even flinch this time. “I needed you to hear me.”
Zaria’s eyes shine in the dim glow of the lamplight, and Sol has never been so fond of blue as she is now. Right now. It’s the same every time Zaria looks at her.
She already has the urge to say it again, to spill I love yous until there’s no more air left in the room.
Instead, she manages to restrain herself to a tender smile before withdrawing toward the bed. She’s only a step away when a hand wraps around her wrist and pulls her back carefully.
She’s drawn into Zaria’s arms at the same pace that she’s turned around. Tucked into place like it’s where she belongs anyway. Some of the tension flees her body at the feeling, Zaria holding her close, Zaria wrapped around her, protective, like she’s something precious.
Sol tucks her face into Zaria’s neck, shuts her eyes. She inhales deeply, the vanilla and amber scent of Zaria’s perfume slowing her heart rate.
“I love you too.”
Sol smiles so wide she feels the ache in her ears. Her heart jumpstarts, Frankenstein reanimated. Her arms tighten around Zaria’s waist. She pushes closer, like she can fuse them together, can guarantee forever, if she just tries hard enough.
Zaria’s hold remains sure but soft, refusing to squeeze her too hard, too tight, and Sol loves her, loves her, wouldn’t mind if it meant some sort of brand, the sear of Zaria’s shape around her, marking her as Zaria’s.
She lifts her left hand to Zaria’s head, presses kiss after kiss after kiss to Zaria's opposite cheek, her hair, her ear.
“I love you,” she says again, quietly. She kisses Zaria’s cheekbone. “I’m sorry.” Their noses brush. “I trust you.” Zaria swallows, and Sol feels her lips move the faintest of centimeters, the air between them disturbed, the air between them nonexistent. “I trust you more than anyone else.”
Zaria has a tight furrow to her eyebrows, and a little frown to her lips, like all she wants is to believe her. It tugs something awful at Sol’s heart, makes her ribs smart, makes her breathless.
“Baby,” Sol says, brushing gentle, reverent thumbs along Zaria’s cheekbones. “Look at me. Really look.”
So Zaria does. And Sol lets her. She doesn’t try to play it cool. She doesn’t try to duck away. She shoves the fighting haze of the concussion, and the creeping claws of exhaustion out of the way, and she lets all of the affection and all of the truth that is always bubbling beneath her skin flow up to where Zaria can see it. To where Zaria can, hopefully, read it.
Because she’s tried for restrained, for cool, and she still hasn’t made it very far. She’s still been so far gone everyone in a thousand mile radius or with access to a screen knows her weakness to target.
She’s tried for level-headed, good-sported competition, because only one of them can really be unleashed at a time. But where has that gotten her? In a hotel room, clinging to the one she would come unglued without.
Fuck cool, and level-headed, and good sportsmanship. She loves with the power and potency of a champion, fierce and fighting and with the intent of forever. And it seems Zaria’s needed to see that, to know she isn’t going to run at the first sign of trouble.
When she feels Zaria’s jaw relax beneath her fingers, relief floods through her. Zaria’s shoulders lower, almost imperceptibly.
She sniffs, and Sol thumbs at the crease between her eyebrows until it smooths over.
“I’m sorry,” Zaria says, and Sol nods. “I really didn’t mean to. I wouldn’t—not to you.”
“I know,” Sol says, but it’s gentler, now, than before. “It’s okay, honey. I promise.”
Zaria nods too, and she doesn’t look totally convinced. Not against Sol’s conviction, but mostly, just, in general. Just like she’ll have to fight guilt no matter what.
“You really should lie down,” Zaria says, suddenly, noticing Sol shift on her feet; Sol didn’t even notice she was doing it.
Sol opens her mouth to say something else, but a yawn breaks through and compromises her. Zaria, the menace, doesn’t even catch it as a contagion. She just smiles at her, something small and fond and a bit of I-told-you-so. Sol scrunches up her nose at her, and Zaria chuckles.
It rumbles through Sol’s chest, and she thinks, I love you.
“Stay?” she asks instead.
She thinks she sees it in Zaria’s eyes, the same feeling.
“Always,” Zaria says, by way of answer.