The Boxing Champion Called Me His Caregiver Chapter 08

The Boxing Champion Called Me His Caregiver Chapter 08

Logan had lost a lot of weight.

He looked worn down. Hollow-eyed.

He had been standing outside the school gates in the cold for a long time.

Across the street, he stared at me without moving.

His eyes slowly reddened.

Cameron Hale stepped out of the classroom behind me.

He ran Northstar Institute for Adaptive Sports.

He was also the man who had posted my bail and gotten me out of police custody.

Cameron and I had known each other for years.

When Logan was paralyzed, I had contacted Cameron to discuss his case.

After that, I sent him every rehabilitation journal and training breakdown I put together.

When he saw the reports about the championship gala back home, he reached out to me first.

Cameron took the handles of Nina’s wheelchair.

Then he took the canvas bag stuffed with rehabilitation materials from my

shoulder.

He didn’t ask who the hollow-eyed man across the street was.

He simply stood slightly behind me.

Close enough to support me.

Never close enough to crowd me.

Logan’s gaze dropped to Cameron’s hand holding my bag.

His face went pale.

He crossed the street and stopped in front of me.

Then he held out the deed, now back in my name.

“Tess, the childhood home has been restored to the way it was.”

His voice was raw.

Careful.

Almost pleading.

“I had the backyard wall repainted, and I restored the height marks your grandfather carved into

it.”

“I found the old wicker chair at a scrapyard.”

“I cleaned it and put it back where it used to be.”

His eyes locked on mine.

“I don’t want anything else.”

“I just want to spend the rest of my life giving you the life you wanted.”

I looked at the deed packet in his hands.

I didn’t take it.

“Logan.”

My voice stayed calm.

“Why did you have to lose everything before you remembered that I needed someone beside me

too?”

His shoulders sagged.

Tears streamed down his face.

“Because I was arrogant.”

His broken voice disappeared into the wind.

“After I lost you, I went back to that empty house.”

“That’s when I finally understood.”

“A home was never just a house.”

“It was you.”

“Wherever you were, that was home.”

His hands trembled as he mentioned the night I was taken into police custody.

“Tess, I swear, I only wanted you to stay quiet and stop making trouble before my fight.”

“I didn’t know you were hurt.”

“I didn’t know you’d leave the next day.”

I looked at the pain on his face.

I felt nothing.

“But I knew.”

I spoke each word slowly.

“You made me understand exactly what I meant to you while I stayed by your side.”

Logan fell apart.

He reached for my wrist.

I stepped back on instinct.

Cameron didn’t speak for me.

He didn’t step between us or act possessive.

He quietly wheeled Nina a little farther away, giving me all the space I needed.

Logan stared at the space I had put between us.

His hand hung in the air.

Then, inch by inch, he lowered it.

Before, all he had to do was reach out.

I would run to him.

Take his hand.

Wrap both arms around his waist.

Terrified he might fall.

Now he stood straight and steady in the sunlight.

His hand was right there.

And I didn’t want to move a single step closer.

Logan didn’t leave England.

He rented a place near the school.

Every day, he watched me arrive for class.

Every afternoon, he watched me leave.

He never dared come closer.

I kept teaching Nina how to box.

I also began rebuilding the original rehabilitation notes Alyssa’s assistant had shredded.

Cameron stayed after class every day to help.

He never asked what had happened to me.

He never asked what those torn scraps meant.

He simply sat across from me with glue and tweezers.

Piece by piece, he sorted the scraps by date and fitted them back together.

One afternoon, Nina held up one of the restored pages.

Her small face scrunched up in confusion.

“Coach Monroe, why are there so many raised, dark spots on this paper?”

I fell silent.

They were dried blood.

Back then, I had spent night after night drawing training diagrams until blisters formed and burst

across my fingers.

I had broken them open and kept working.

The blood and blister fluid had seeped into the paper, dried, and hardened into dark, raised patches.

“Because someone once believed…”

I brushed a hand over Nina’s hair.

“…that the longer she endured and the more blood and sweat she poured into it, the more she would

be treasured.”

Nina shook her head.

Her voice was clear and certain.

“That’s not right.”

“Coach Monroe taught me that when a technique is wrong, you adjust it.”

“If you lose a match, you train and try again.”

“But when you hurt someone, you can’t just promise to do better next time and pretend it never

happened.”

I looked at the eleven-year-old girl.

My eyes burned.

Even a child understood respect.

Logan had spent eight years without ever learning it.