The second round starts, but I'm already feeling like I've been in the ring for 12 rounds. My legs are wobbling and it's hard to even stand up, let alone fight, but I know that I have to make something happen this round. I watch Kelly as she floats around the ring effortlessly. It's clear that I wasn't able to do anything to her the first round. We circle around each other and I wait until her back is close to the ropes. I realize that now is my chance and I unleash the hardest right I can muster directly to Kelly's face. It lands and I see her head snap back, so I go in for another shot. This time I come with my left, but at the last second she deftly dodges my punch and counters back with a strong right that hits me square in the face. She rocks me with that punch as I start stumbling backwards towards the far ropes. She seems completely unfazed from my power shot. I put everything I had into that punch. How could it not hurt her? I tried again with the right. A swing and a miss, but this time I realize what's wrong. I had absolutely no strength left in my legs, so I couldn't get the power I needed when I pushed off. Power shots aren't going to work so I had to change tactics. I tried to force short exchanges with her for the rest of the fight, but it seemed as if I came out on the wrong end of every exchange. For every shot I got on Kelly she hit me back with two or three shots of her own. All this new damage I was taking didn't sit well with my already injured ribs and face. The pain was really starting to get to me and now instead of the exchanges I was lucky to get it was back to a one sided beat down as she pummeled by body and face with devastating shots. Finally, she had me on the ropes again and hit me with a left, right, uppercut combination that sent me collapsing to the mat. Kelly's boyfriend started the count...
1...2...3 I start to get up, standing on my knee's .... 4....5... I collapse back down to the mat ... 6....7 I refuse to lose right here and climb to my knee's again... 8... 9 ... I manage to get up just before being counted out. Kelly's boyfriend makes us touch gloves and the fight is back on. She rushes at me, backing me into the corner ready to unload again, but just then the bell rings and the round is over. I'm too weak to walk back to my corner on my own so I followed the ropes and use them to stabilize me as I stumbled back to my seat.
Again, my boyfriends gets to me straight away. This time my face is looking much worse. My left eye is now almost completely swollen shut and it's hard to see out of it. Their is a bad cut above my right eye that he's trying to work on and I'm bleeding from my nose. Once he gets my eye fixed he quickly switches to my nose as I sit there trying to get back my breath. I know Kelly is beating the shit out of me and I'm honestly not sure how much I can take. Even if my boyfriend can stop the blood coming from my nose, what can he do for my damaged ribs? Not only that, but I'm exhausted. I shoot a quick glance to Kelly again and she's actually pointing over here and laughing at me! I can't hear what she's saying, but I assume it's about how badly she's beaten my face. I can bearly breath and she's over there laughing.
My boyfriend finishes up on my nose and gets the bleeding to stop, but he's knows that's the easiest part of this changeover. The hard part will be convincing me that I still have a chance in this fight and he knows it. He can see the pain in my eyes and tries to comfort me. He tells me that my face really isn't that bad and that if I can only weather the storm a little bit longer... I cut him off right there and call him out on his bullshit.
"You can this a storm? She's a category 5 hurricane and she's tearing through me like Katrina did to New Orleans, just fucking admit it I don't have a chance in this fight anymore. I probably never had a chance. She's just too good for me, ok? Too tough, too strong, too fast... however you want to say it she's fucking better" I scream at him.
My boyfriend goes silent.
"I'm sorry, babe. I was just trying to help. You're right you should really throw in the towel. She's picking you apart out there and I don't want to see you get hurt...." said my boyfriend.
I'm completely silent as my boyfriend reaches for the towel we brought with us in case this happened. All I can think about that shit grin on Kelly's face getting even wider when she finds out in a few seconds that I'm throwing in the towel before the third round. I already know that she's never let me live this down. I can already hear her "Remember the time you couldn't even last a full five rounds with me in the ring" she'll say as she bursts out laughing. Just the thought made me sick.
I look back over to my boyfriend and I can see the look of disappointment in his eyes as he's about to raise the towel in surrender.
"Put that down!" I scream as I rip it out of his hands and throw it outside of the ring. "I'm not done yet, I'm not gonna go down like this. I know it looks bad, but I'm not just gonna quit. I said I'm going to fight, so I'm going to finish this fight, no matter what" I tell him.
I can tell he's unsure if I'm making the right call, but he respects the fact that I want to finish the fight I started.
The bell rings and it times for round 3. As I'm about to leave the corner he grabs me and kisses me passionately. He looks me dead in the eyes and tells me that he loves me and that this is MY round and not that bitch take it from me.
His passion seems to flow through me and I feel inspired again. I don't feel quite as hopeless as before as I manage to stumble back out into the middle of the ring for the start of the third round.
