Chapter 15

Everybody gets knocked down,
Everybody gets knocked down,
How quick are you gonna' get up?
Just how are you gonna' get up? Like Ali in the jungle —Ali in the Jungle, The Hours

Jacob

The loud, ricocheting cheers that hung in the arena sounded muffled and far away. Droplets of sweat ran down my hair, stinging my eyes and salting my lips and taste buds as it trickled down my face, splattering against the canvas when I slid my leg between the ropes to climb out of the ring. Drenched from head to toe, I was dead tired with aching ribs and weak, numb, Gumby legs.

I slapped the hands of unfamiliar spectators, telling me "good fight" as I made my way to the long, cold corridor and back to the locker rooms.

My Chemawa boxing coach, Garrett, met me inside. "That was a hell of a fight you put on out there, Jake. I'm proud of you."

Nodding, I wiped the sweat from my face with a towel. After he left, I unlaced my shoes, peeled off my soggy trunks and the tank top, stepped into the shower stall, and turned on the cool water. Hurt lifted from the pit of my weak stomach. I closed my eyes and let tears of disappointment blend in with the crisp, pressurized water that gently battered my fatigued body.

I lost! My most important fight to date and I lost, blowing the first chance I ever got of going to Nationals. It hurt. I rarely lost, and it hurt bad—emotionally, more than any amount of physical pain I ever experienced in the ring.

From the time I was eight years old and fighting exhibition bouts, I had looked forward to taking a National Golden Gloves title. I couldn't wait to turn sixteen just to take part at that level. There was nothing more important to me; taking Nationals was always on my mind. I never thought about anything else as much. Aside from Bella.

I took the State Golden Gloves easy enough. I'd been doing it for years in Silver Gloves. Silver Gloves was for boxers fifteen and under. My competition was always the same guys. So, if they'd boxed as long as me, I knew who they were and either fought them before or saw them fight before. Silver Gloves only went as far as State, though. Golden Gloves could take you all the way to the Olympics.

An Olympic medal was the only way to prove to yourself that you were one of the best in the world—pound for pound—just like Oscar De La Hoya, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Muhammad Ali, to name a few. True. There were also famous championship boxers, talents who didn't compete at the Olympics level at all, or earn a National title. They turned professional too soon, for the money, more than likely.

Me? I aimed to beat the best in the country and the world, first. And I'd stay amateur until I did. If I wasn't good enough to take Nationals, then I wouldn't be good enough to turn professional.

Seems I wasn't even good enough to take Regionals.

Only the State Champions went to Regionals. In my weight class, that was me. The Golden Gloves competition was a lot harder than any Silver Gloves tournament I'd ever took part in because they based the fights purely on weight. So, the guys I had to box ranged anywhere from sixteen years of age to thirty-five.

I never fought so hard in my life.

I felt sick about losing, so sick it brought me to tears. It was a long time since I cried about anything. The last time I remembered crying was when my mom left. I was ten years old then, and I had no reason to cry since.

When I came out of the shower room, my La Push coach, Old Benjamin, was waiting in the locker room for me. He had hopped on a plane when he heard I made it to the championship bout. He flew all the way to Mesquite, Nevada, and had to watch me lose. What a waste of his time and money. Ben knew me well enough to know how badly the loss would affect me. I was sure he was there to give me a picker-upper speech I wasn't ready to hear.

"Good job." He patted my shoulder.

I gulped down my hurt. "Not good enough." Trying to smile, I blew out a mouth full of defeated air and dropped on the bench to put my shoes on.

"That fight could have gone either way. It was that close, Jake. You've got nothing to be ashamed of. That guy was ten years your senior. That's a whole hell of a lot of experience over you. He got the decision because he had a little more power behind his punches than you. That's the only reason he got the decision."

Feeling dismal, all I could do was nod.

"This was your first trip to a regional match. You earned a championship bout, and that's something to be proud of. You can't expect to take it your first time out."

Becoming angered, I squished my eyebrows together. Ben knew I didn't go for excuses. "You did." I used a harsher tone than I'd meant to use.

He tightened his mouth and inhaled. "Yep, yep, I did. But things were different back then. There was a boxing team in every town throughout the entire state of Washington when I was growing up. We had that much more competition to grow our skills. Nowadays, there are far fewer teams to develop from. Shoot, Forks ain't even got one anymore."

As much as I'd love to cram myself with a bunch of excuses to make me feel better, I couldn't do it. I felt too pissed off at myself. I tensed my jaw, turning my face away from him, hoping I wasn't appearing disrespectful. Ben was like my grandpa.

"I'm speaking the truth, Jake. The further south you get, the bigger the teams get, and the more teams there are. That makes for better experienced fighters. The guy you boxed was from a huge Las Vegas club. Twenty-six years old, but he barely pulled off that win over you, a young sixteen-year-old. No question about it, you have all the talent. Develop a little more physically, and there'll be no stopping you. Now, ah... Seth's been calling. I haven't been answering. I figured you'd want to talk to him yourself." He took his cell phone out from his vest pocket and stretched it toward me.

"Nah, go ahead. You can tell him for me." I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone.

"Okay, then. So, I'll see you back in the La Push gym when?"

"Two weeks."

"Good. I spotted a thing or two we can work on this summer."

I heard Old Ben's cell phone buzzing as he shuffled in the door's direction. I didn't think he wanted to pass on the bad news himself either, because he didn't answer it.

As he neared the door, it occurred to me. The only person's voice I wanted to hear was Bella's. I wanted to go home. I could show her I was thinking about her and try to get an idea of whether I had a chance.

The last time I spoke to Leah, she unhappily revealed that nothing more serious than friendship was going on between Bella and Seth. Me and the boys learned a long time ago that it was a bad deal getting caught up as the friend-type guy to the girl you're crushing on. If Bella wasn't the girl Seth had his sight on, I might have warned him of that. But just being in Forks with her gave him the advantage.

Hopping up, I strode out after him. "Ben! I do want to make a phone call." Someone up there had mercy on me because, out of all the times I called her house, she finally answered the phone. I said a silent thank you while looking up in the air. "Bella. It's Jake."

"Jacob!" I thought she sounded fairly excited. "Hi, how are you?"

"I'm fine. I'm in Mesquite, Nevada right now."

"Oh, yeah, Seth told me you made it to Regionals. Emmett's not here right now. I'm sure he was looking forward to hearing from you."

"That's all right. I really just called to talk to you."

I heard a banging sound, and then a thud, and then Bella wailing, "Ouch, Owee, Ouch!"

I pulled the phone away from my head and eyed it for a second before lifting it back to my ear. "Bella?"

"Jake. Jake. Sorry, Jake. I dropped the phone." She laughed. "Then I bumped my head on the wall, bending too fast to pick it up."

I smiled, picturing her. I could imagine how cute she looked, probably blushing and biting her lip. "Are you okay?"

"Sure, I'm fine. So, how did you do today?"

"I didn't win. I took the silver."

"Wow, you made it all the way to the Championship. That's great. Emmett said you were the only guy from your entire team who made it to Regionals."

It sounded great coming from Bella. "Yeah, but I hoped to get to Nationals."

I heard Renee hollering for Bella in the background.

"Jake, I'm sorry. I have to go. My date's here."

"Date?"

She had a date. I finally came to my senses and called her without a care of how Emmett or Seth would feel, and she had a date. Like my chest didn't get pounded on enough for one day. My heart sank. I couldn't catch a break with Bella.

And who the hell was the date?

The only way I could make it through the next two weeks with any amount of peace was the fact that I only had two weeks before I'd see her again. Then I'd have the whole summer in Forks.

I gave it my all this boxing season. Now, all I could do was keep training and look forward to next year's regional tournament.

It was time to focus on Bella. Time to somehow make her mine.