Chapter 12 - What Dustin Said When Nobody Was Left to Blame
Hannah agreed to one mediated conversation.
Not reconciliation.
Not forgiveness.
Closure was too large a word for it.
She wanted answers about the money.
Her attorney attended.
So did Dustin's.
I waited outside.
That was Hannah's request.
It may have been the hardest instruction she ever gave me.
Afterward she told me what happened.
Dustin began with Pierce.
“Coach put everything on me.”
Hannah stopped him.
“This isn't about Pierce.”
Then Dustin blamed the pressure of fighting.
She stopped him again.
Then the loans.
The fighters.
The promoter.
His childhood.
His father.
Every explanation had some truth in it.
None answered the question.
“Why did you take money from Mom's account?”
Eventually he gave the real answer.
Because he thought Hannah would forgive him.
Not because she had agreed.
Because he believed he could fix it before she noticed.
He thought one big fight purse would replace everything.
Then another fight was delayed.
Then expenses grew.
Then he took more.
“And when I found out?”
Dustin looked down.
“I panicked.”
“You hurt me.”
“I know.”
“No. Say what you did.”
He struggled.
Then he said it plainly.
He grabbed her.
He stopped her from leaving.
When she pushed past him, he shoved her hard enough that she hit the kitchen counter.
The fall dislocated her shoulder.
He did not intend that specific injury.
He did intend to use force to stop her from leaving.
That distinction mattered.
Hannah asked about Nashville.
Dustin admitted that too.
Then she asked why Pierce knew her father was a Marine instructor.
Dustin gave a humorless laugh.
“Because after Nashville you told him your dad would kill me if he found out.”
Hannah had no memory of using those exact words.
Maybe she had.
Maybe Pierce exaggerated it later.
Either way, everyone had begun treating me as the weapon Hannah might unleash.
I thought about my first visit to the gym.
Rolling my sleeves.
Taking my stance.
I had walked straight into the role everyone had already written for me.
Hannah understood that before I did.
When she came outside after mediation, she sat beside me on a bench.
“Did you get what you needed?”
“Some of it.”
“Do you want to tell me?”
She looked at me carefully.
“Can you hear it without deciding what I should do?”
That question cut deeper than any insult Dustin had thrown at the gym.
I nodded.
May you like
So she told me.
And for once, I did not interrupt.
