Gifted

Four extra rounds. That's what the blog bought me. Reno Mathers sits at home with a hand infection telling some sad nobody that I got the main event because the club felt sorry for me, and I ran four rounds I didn't need because the alternative was sitting with that sentence.

"Gifted." I've been gifted nothing since I was twenty-two. Nothing. Every weigh-in, every session, every fight — I earned those the way you earn air when someone's holding your head under. And now some bloke with a infected hand gets to write the story and half of Melbourne reads it as fact. "He blew up his first sport, the club feels bad, here's your headline." I can't even argue it because arguing means I read it again.

So I didn't read it again. Just Lou's voice, same message as the text: Reno's out, I've got the slot, here's the thing someone said about you. I said nothing back. Same system. I was good at that system when it was just Lou. Now it's a blog with a timestamp and a comment section and I can picture every bloke who read it nodding like yeah, sounds right, Hayes never had it anyway.

Jules hung the banner and I saw it in the corner of my eye — her name, her work, first time up at the Pavilion. I should have said something. I know I should have. But I was thinking about the blog and the four rounds I had left to do and the way my shoulder was starting to catch on the follow-through, and I couldn't make words for Jules because the only honest word was I hate this and that's not something you say when someone's celebrating.