Worth the fight

went on, going through the motions every day, but I was dead too.  I grieved for the loss of the man, and the loss of who I was.  For a whole year.  A year of my life that I can’t get back. But it wasn’t until today that I realized I even lost it.”
    Nico pauses and I hold my breath as I watch his head slowly rise.  His eyes find mine instantly, just like every other time.  Everything else in the room disappears and it’s as if we’re the only two in a long tunnel, sitting on opposites ends, but inexplicably drawn to each other. 
    “ Then today I was given a gift.  A gift by an amazing woman.  She gave me the gift of forgiveness because I thought that was what I needed to move on.  But I was wrong.  No one was keeping me from moving on, only me.  She taught me more about fighting for what you want than I’d learned spending half my life in the cage. I finally get it…what makes us move on is to accept what we feel and share it.”
    Nico’s voice becomes shaky and I fight the urge to go comfort him, but I can’t hold back the stream of tears that fall from my face silently.
    “ Today I made peace with it, Babe.  And you gave that to me.  I only wish there was something I could give you back that meant as much as what you did for me.  But there isn’t one thing big enough to call it even.  So if you’ll have me, I want to spend the next fifty or sixty years trying to repay you…saying thank you every day.  Because you, lady, are all I need.”
    My feet can’t get to him fast enough.  I almost knock over two rows of folding chairs in front of me, trying to make my way.  But when I finally do, he holds me so tight that everything else fades away and I know we’re going to be okay.  As long as we have each other.

Epilogue
     
    Six months later
    Elle
    It’s almost one on Saturday afternoon when I leave the office.  Nico asked me to come to the gym to help him with something.  He’s being elusive, won’t tell me what it’s all about.  There’s a bit of a knot in my stomach as I drive, hoping I’m not going to be hearing bad news.  The last six months have been the happiest time in my life.  I hadn’t even realized what I’d been missing till I met Nico Hunter.  But he has another fight coming up soon and I worry he may have heard news that could push him back.  We’ve made such progress, individually and as a couple.  Both of us finally putting our past in its place and moving forward…together.  We don’t try to drown it out anymore, like it or not, our past is our own, and it’s made us who we are today.  Accept and move on.
    I’m surprised when I find the gym almost empty.  Usually on Saturdays the place is filled with guys with no necks.  Sal’s at the front desk and tells me Nico’s waiting for me in the storage room.  The storage room is a big open space, almost half the size of the gym, only it’s unfinished and bare, with a few metal shelves lining the walls and some decade-old file cabinets.  Nico must be filing paperwork, something he dreads and lets pile up for way too long.
    The storage room is dark when I open the door and I’m just about to pull the door shut when a nameplate on the door catches my eye.  The Women’s Annex .  I don’t recall ever seeing it before and certainly I would have remembered anything that has to do with women in this macho male gym.
    Curiosity gets the best of me, so I reach in and switch on the light, stunned at the vision I find before my eyes as they adjust from the darkness.  What once looked like an oversized garage is now completely refinished.  The walls are painted a pale pink, there’s rubber matting on the floor, similar to the black ones in the gym, but these are light grey, less obtrusive.  Pictures hang on the walls, most of women in gym clothes exercising and kickboxing. To my right, there’s a wall lined with exercise equipment, all sparkling chrome, shiny and new.  Large mirrors cover the walls behind the equipment and movement in its reflection catches my eye and startles me for a second.  I turn to my left following the reflection and find Nico standing in the doorway of a room, a room that wasn’t even there the last time I was in here to grab some supplies.
    “Confused?”  Nico grins at me, he looks pleased to find that I am.
    “When did you do all this?   And why didn’t you mention you were getting work done?”
    “Because I wanted it to be a surprise.”
    “It’s