Mike answered anyway, ignoring her entirely. "She was eight and zero."
Derek’s eyebrows shot up so high they nearly touched his hairline. "What? Undefeated?"
"Five first-round submissions," Mike listed off, checking them off on his thick fingers. "Two bloody, grinding unanimous decisions. And one clean, walk-off knockout via head kick."
Claire rubbed her forehead. "Mike, seriously, enough."
Mike turned and looked at her over his shoulder. "Hey, you asked Brandon not to make you into his digital background content. I respected that. You did not explicitly say that I couldn’t verbally educate this kid on his gym history."
Derek walked slowly back toward the center of the mat, his eyes locked on the small woman in the faded shirt. "You were eight-and-oh? A professional fighter?"
"Briefly," Claire said softly, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Then why the hell did you stop?" Derek asked. The question wasn't meant to be cruel, but it hung in the air with a blunt, intrusive heaviness.
The atmosphere in the room changed again, shifting from shocked amusement to something deeply somber. Mike’s proud smile evaporated instantly. Claire’s right hand moved unconsciously, a ghost-like reflex, coming to rest gently against her right hip.
Derek, hyper-observant of body mechanics, saw the movement instantly.
Claire took a deep breath and answered in a flat, clinical voice. "Car accident."
Nobody spoke. The silence was absolute.
Claire kept her eyes focused on a scuff mark on the mat between her shoes. "A drunk driver fell asleep at the wheel and crossed the center line on Interstate 25. Head-on collision." Her voice remained terrifyingly matter-of-fact, completely devoid of self-pity, reciting medical facts she had memorized over a decade ago. "I suffered a shattered pelvis in three places. A massive, complex tear of the labrum. And severe, cascading nerve damage down the right leg."
Derek’s face changed. The last remnants of his defensive ego washed away, leaving behind a sick, hollow feeling in his stomach.
Mike stepped closer to Derek and continued the story in a quiet, gravelly voice. "She was officially scheduled to fight for a major, international promotional contract exactly six weeks after the crash happened."
Claire finally looked up, shooting Mike a glare. "That part really isn’t necessary for the story, Mike."
"Yes, Claire, it is," Mike insisted fiercely. He turned entirely toward Derek, ensuring the younger man heard every syllable. "She was exactly one fight away from signing a television deal that would have fundamentally changed the trajectory of her entire life."
Derek looked down at Claire’s right hip again. He remembered watching her stretch before the class. He remembered seeing her wince slightly, moving with that distinct, guarding stiffness.
She hadn't been moving stiffly because she was an inexperienced, recreational hobbyist. She was moving stiffly because her body had been violently, permanently shattered.
"What happened after the crash?" Derek asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"Rehab," Claire answered simply.
"For how long?"
"Years."
"And you... you never came back?"
"To professional fighting?"
He nodded slowly. "Yeah. No."
"Couldn’t?"
Claire tilted her head, thinking about the question seriously for a moment. "I suppose I could have tried to force it. Pumped myself full of painkillers, taped the joints together, and limped into a cage to get beaten up by a twenty-year-old."
"Why didn’t you?"
Claire looked directly into Derek's eyes. "Because being physically able to survive a training camp is entirely different than possessing the biological machinery required for a professional career. You have to know when the window closes."
Derek became incredibly quiet. The profound maturity of her answer contrasted so violently with his own childish posturing over the last hour that he felt physically ill.
Claire continued, breaking the tension. "I went back to school instead."
"For what?"