Making Ends Meet

Harry can feel himself breaking. It's the difference between comfortable and barely getting by. To anyone else it's a nominal amount but to Harry, it's an entire month's living expenses. To watch his security slip through his fingers like grains of salt paralyzes him with despair. He's in stasis. Unable to move forward and unwilling to go back. Going back will kill him. Literally. Six months on parole, 12 months sober. Going back is not an option. Maria would leave for good, taking Troy and Draven with her. The old habits would creep back in and thread their way through him, opening up old veins, worn out pathways, reigniting a long dormant fire that would eat him alive. Immolate him and everything he's fought so hard for. Eight hundred dollars. Gone. For him to make that kind of cash in three days would require an immense amount of backbreaking work or dumb luck. Harry doesn't believe in luck. Or lotteries, or prayer, or affirmations. He believes in getting shit done, come hell or high water and for Harry, that usually means busting a gut and utilizing everything he has at the expense of everything he owns. His body is breaking down. It's physical work, the sparring and grappling, the fighting and lifting. Without it, he's nothing. Bones, joints, tendons, ligaments, all the tools of his trade are wearing out. There's only so many sprains and tears and breaks and wounds he can sustain before his body finally says enough. He should have been an accountant. Learned to use his mind for numbers, not killshots and submission holds. He thinks three moves ahead. He visualizes where his opponent will move two seconds ahead of him. He wants to stop, landscape. Buy a truck, start a business. He had the down payment started. Cash in his pocket, subway ride home, too tired to see straight, head ringing, bell rung. Must have slipped out of his pocket. Or been lifted. Either or, he's two days away from rent and bills and training fees and the last thing he wants to do is fight. Nothing worse than a fighter with the fight knocked out of him.

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