My Abusive Ex Threatened Every Man Who Looked At Me. Until I Started Dating MMA Fighter

It was only 15 minutes away. I didn’t even think; I just grabbed my keys and headed for the door.

Cameron stopped me.

“Where are you going?”

I asked.

“Amber’s place. Derek is there. She’s scared.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”

We drove to Amber’s apartment together. Sure enough, Derek’s car was parked across the street.

I could see him in the driver’s seat, staring up at one of the windows. Cameron parked right behind him.

Then he got out of the truck and walked up to Derek’s car. I watched from our truck as Cameron knocked on Derek’s window.

Derek rolled it down. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could see Derek’s face.

He looked angry at first, then scared. Then he started the car and drove away.

Cameron came back to the truck.

“He’s gone.”

“What did you say to him?”

I asked.

“I reminded him of our last conversation. And I told him that if he ever harassed you, me, or anyone else in your life again, I would make sure everyone in Austin knew exactly what kind of person he is, including his employer.”

“His employer?”

I asked.

“I did some research after he came to the shop. Derek works at a financial firm downtown. They have a whole code of conduct policy.”

“I doubt they’d be thrilled to know one of their employees is stalking multiple women.”

I stared at him.

“You researched him?”

“Of course I did. Know your enemy. That’s fighting 101.”

We went up to Amber’s apartment. She was still shaking, but she was grateful.

We stayed with her for an hour, making sure Derek didn’t come back. Before we left, I gave her Dr. Chen’s contact information.

“Therapy helps,”

I said.

“Trust me.”

That weekend, we were at the farmers market again. It was the same spot where we’d had our first real conversation.

We were eating burritos under the same tree when Cameron spoke.

“I’m fighting for the regional championship next month. It’s the biggest fight of my career.”

“I’ll be there,”

I said immediately.

“I know you will,”

he took my hand.

“But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. Madison, before I met you, fighting was everything to me. It was my whole identity, my whole purpose.”

“But now, I don’t know. It’s still important, but it’s not everything anymore. You’re everything.”

My heart was pounding.

“Cameron…”

“I’m not proposing,”

he said quickly, laughing.

“Not yet anyway. I just wanted you to know that meeting you changed my life.”

“You made me remember that there’s more to life than fighting. That being strong isn’t just about how hard you can hit. It’s about who you protect, who you stand up for, who you choose.”

I kissed him right there under the tree in the middle of the farmers market. People probably stared, but I didn’t care.

The championship fight was three weeks later. Cameron’s opponent was a guy from Houston with an intimidating record: 18 wins and two losses.

Both of Cameron’s coaches were worried, but Cameron wasn’t.

“I’m ready,”

he told me the night before the fight.

“I’ve trained harder for this than anything in my life. But even if I lose, I’ve already won because I have you.”

The fight was brutal. It lasted five rounds.

Cameron took some heavy hits and his face was bloody by the third round. But he never gave up.

He kept pushing, kept fighting, and kept moving forward. I couldn’t watch half the time.

Jessica sat next to me holding my hand. Every time Cameron got hit, I flinched.

But every time he got back up, I cheered louder. In the fifth round, with less than a minute left, Cameron landed a perfect combination.

His opponent went down and the referee stopped the fight. Cameron won.

The crowd went insane. I screamed until my throat hurt.

Jessica was jumping up and down beside me. When they announced Cameron as the new regional champion, I cried.

I actually cried happy tears for the first time in years. After the fight in the locker room, Cameron’s face was swollen and bruised.

His eye was almost shut, but he was smiling.

“We did it,”

he said.

“You did it,”

I corrected.

“No, we. You think I could have focused on training if I was constantly worried about some psycho threatening you? You freed me just as much as I freed you.”

He was right. We’d saved each other.

A few weeks after the championship, Cameron got offered a contract with a bigger promotion. It meant better money, better exposure, and better opponents.

It also meant more travel, more risk, and more time apart.

“What do you think?”

he asked me.

“Should I take it?”

“Absolutely,”

I said without hesitation.

“This is your dream. I’m not going to hold you back.”

“You could never hold me back,”

he pulled me close.

“Come with me to the fights, to the training camps, to everything. I don’t want to do this without you.”

So that’s what we did. I went remote with my design job and we started traveling.

I watched him fight in Dallas, San Antonio, and Las Vegas. He won some and he lost some, but he was happy.

We were happy. His first loss was hard to watch.

It was in Las Vegas against a fighter who’d been training for 15 years. Cameron fought well, but the other guy was just better.

That night, when the judges announced the decision, I saw the disappointment on Cameron’s face. After the fight in the hotel room, he was quiet.

He was just sitting on the edge of the bed staring at nothing.

“You fought well,”

I said.

“Not well enough.”

“You can’t win every fight. That’s not how this works.”

“I know. It’s just hard. I wanted to win that one for you.”

I sat down next to him.

“Cameron, I don’t need you to win fights for me. I need you to be safe, to be healthy, to come home to me. That’s all I care about.”

He looked at me then, really looked at me.

“How did I get so lucky?”

“We both got lucky,”

I said. Six months into his new contract, we were in a hotel room in Phoenix the night before a fight.

Cameron was supposed to be sleeping and conserving energy. But instead, he was sitting on the edge of the bed looking nervous.

“What’s wrong?”

I asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,”

he said. He stood up and pulled something from his gym bag, a small box.

My heart stopped.

“Madison, I know I said I wasn’t proposing at the farmers market, but that was months ago.”

“And I’ve been carrying this around to every fight waiting for the right moment. And I realized something: there is no right moment. There’s just us and I don’t want to wait anymore.”

He opened the box. Inside was a simple ring, beautiful and perfect.

“Will you marry me?”