The Past
1209 Words
I met Rio when I was sixteen. He was eighteen at the time, and a scrawny little rat. I met him at one of my fights, he acted like a total groupie. Well at first he acted like a total misogynistic evil monster. He pulled out a wad of cash and thought that would just make me drop my panties and f**k him or something.
Once he realized I wasn’t that kind of girl, he fell hard for me. Always trying to take me out, and spoil me with gifts. I mean I couldn’t lie, it was nice but I didn’t trust it. Nobody ever spends that much money on you without wanting something in return.
I didn’t have s*x with him until I turned eighteen. I lost my virginity at fifteen and it was horrible. I don’t even talk about it because it was my worst experience ever, and I just block it out of my mind. I told myself I would never have s*x again until I knew it was right.
Well Rio came along, and I guess it felt somewhat special. Maybe it was all the shots I took for my eighteenth birthday, and got s**t faced. I ended up sleeping with him that night. I was shitfaced, but I could still remember the next morning what I had done.
After that, we regularly had s*x. Rio wasn’t like the guy I lost my virginity to or the guy after that. He actually seemed to know what he was doing. He cared about my body enough to explore and be gentle, showing me things I knew nothing about.
I appreciated Rio. He’s guided me through a lot of situations I have never been in. He helped me when I couldn’t pay all of my bills because I was careless with my money and didn’t understand anything about being an adult and saving money. He always told me he would take care of me, but he wanted me to be his and only his. When he said that, I cringed at the thought. I’m not just some piece of property to be claimed.
I ended up paying him back a couple months later because I honestly didn’t want to owe him anything. You never want to owe anybody anything to ever think they have the right to come after you for things you’ve rightfully built for yourself. Rio has taught me a lot of things about business and how people conduct it in Miami and in the streets. He’s even acted as a bodyguard to me at some of my matches. I’ve had a lot of fans over the years, more like crazy psycho groupies.
Once I got an apartment and a job at the casino, my life seemed to be going great. I wasn’t dealing with aching limbs and concussions from fighting. Or worrying where I was gonna sleep at night, or how I would eat. I had finally found peace in my life, but it’s been so hard navigating through it because I’ve never been here in my life. It almost seems too good to be true. The last two years, I have been waiting for the ball to drop and watch everything burn to flames, but it hasn’t happened yet.
I can’t help but think about Enzo and how he’s doing. I miss him everyday and pray that he is safe. I left home at sixteen. He was fifteen at the time, and he was already doing his own thing. He had made a name for himself too. He dropped out of school at around thirteen. I stayed until I was sixteen, I dropped out at the end of my sophomore year. But Enzo seemed to gravitate towards the streets, even before I started fighting at fourteen.
By then fighting was a big part of my life, and I was making good money. Too much money to waste by spending my days in school. Plus by then I was traveling all over the city, staying in hotels and just getting high. I even ended up joining a gang for a couple of months when I lost in touch with Rio.
He disappeared out of the blue when I was seventeen. I didn’t have any protection, even though I could protect myself. I had made a lot of enemies by then. A lot of men and gangs wanted me dead because I would beat these men in the ring and take all of their money from their foolish bets. Thank god that my father was six foot four and two hundred and seventy pounds. I inherited his strength and height. It helped me in winning and staying undefeated.
The last two years since I haven’t been fighting, I’ve gained weight. About twenty pounds to be exact. It’s not really a big deal to me. I mean I think I still look good, but I’m not in the best of shape. I’ve even picked up the habit of smoking weed from time to time. But my drug habits weren't as bad when I was in a gang.
I joined a gang called Opa-Locka. They were big on drug trafficking and narcotics. They were good for protection from enemies, but enemies are everywhere. I ended up getting involved with somebody higher up in the gang. He was a psycho and wanted to control me. He even hit me when he felt like I needed a good beating. I got hooked on pills real bad, loving the way ecstasy made me feel.
The man “King'' I was involved with, would feed me ecstasy like it was candy. I did a lot of things that I’m not proud of. I even did coke a couple of times, really not being in a good place. Sometimes I hoped the drugs would just kill me, so I didn’t have to die at the hands of King.
King would choke me and sometimes I would black out. I would wake up the next morning on the floor somewhere, wishing I died. He even stopped making me fight. Fighting was the only thing I had for myself. The only income I was making for myself. Once he stopped that, it really got worse.
Now you're probably wondering, why didn’t you fight back? I needed King and the Opa-Lockas. They were my only protection in the streets. I ended up spending my days at their club downtown, and would just get f****d up and party.
King was Eric’s right hand man and his blood brother. Eric was the boss of the gang. He was a lot nicer, but you knew not to give him any s**t. Eric knew that King beat me, but he didn’t stop him or try to keep me safe.
After a while, I got my s**t together and stopped doing drugs. I saved every Penny I could and secretly fought when I could. When the time was right, I left and never looked back. I’ve avoided northwest Miami since then. I’ve stayed under the radar and have just stuck to fighting in the south or east of Miami.
Rio ended up popping back up around my eighteenth birthday, and that was the end of it. We’ve been inseparable since.
- Writer
