Your Heart to Keep: Holly and Jax by Amanda Mackey Read Free Book Online

a cut on the other one from the accident but I desperately needed this.
    If I didn’t tear into this bag I was going to go and buy a couple of bottles of whiskey and drink them both straight until I fell into an alcoholic coma and I really didn’t want to revert back to my old ways. I needed to keep clean. One slip and I’d be right back where I’d been before Chloe saved me.
    I slid my gloves on and went to town. Each blow, a powerhouse of hurt.
    Dear, sweet, Chloe. This wasn’t how it was meant to end. Punch! We were meant to get our happy ever after. Punch! We were going to make beautiful babies. Punch! Punch! I loved the shit out of her! Punch! Punch! Punch! Another woman now had her heart. Punch!
    I don’t know how long I kept up the furious pace. I was in the zone. 100%. Fighting the demons within. Fighting myself. Maybe Chloe hadn’t deserved the screwed up mess I had been. She could have done better. I’d known that. But Christ, that woman had done something to me that no one else had. She’d made me want to clean up my act. Become sober. That wasn’t a bad thing, surely. And I’d done it too. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a drink. Sure, Chloe hadn’t been perfect but she’d been my perfect. She’d liked to cuss like me and drink coffee like it was going out of fashion but we fit. A part of her and a part of me had clicked together. Now? I was drowning. Who was I without her?
    Sweat was rolling off me as I continued to jab at the bag. Left. Right. Left, left. Right.
    The bag hadn’t sat still since I’d thrown the first punch. Even with gloves on, I imagined my knuckles bleeding. I gave it all I had and more, working it hard. I was used to pushing myself beyond my limits at the gym so I knew I still had a bit more in the tank.
    It was mental strength more so than physical. The mind could push the body further than it was willing to go. That’s what I loved. Seeing how far I could progress to stretch that limit. Today I think adrenalin led the race as I ignored my muscle’s pleas to stop.
    My mouth was a dried up river bed and my hair was glued to my forehead, the perspiration now dripping into my eyes on its journey to the ground. Each blow to the bag represented the days and months I would grieve for Chloe. The minutes and hours I would spend without her.
    After another half hour I was physically hurting real bad but it was nothing compared to the mental distress. The emotional death I was suffering.
    When I stumbled, sensing my legs about to give, I slowed to a stop, collapsing onto my bed, heaving. The lactic acid build-up in my arms burned like a rampant inferno. God it felt good.
    This afternoon I would have to go down to the police station and give my statement. I wasn’t looking forward to that. Having to relive it all. Maybe when I got back, I’d need another round of boxing. I was certain between that and the gym, I'd found my new drug.
    I stripped off and took a shower, guzzling some of the spray as it throttled my skin, standing under it until the water ran cold and even then I paused for a minute, letting the chill seep into my veins, the rest of my body now becoming the same temperature as my freezing heart.

Chapter Seven
    Holly
     
    Today I was being transferred out of ICU to the cardiothoracic floor where I would stay for about a week, maybe two, depending on my progress. I had been grateful for the constant presence of nursing staff in Intensive Care. Knowing there was always someone there around the clock if I needed anything. I hoped it would keep up for the rest of my stay but the reality was that once I was back in the ward I would get the same attention as everyone else.
    I was given an incentive spirometer which was a plastic device, sectioned into 3 pieces with a small ball in each. A tube was attached to the device and it was my job to breathe into the tube to see how high the air from my lungs could raise one or more of the balls. At present I could only