A few days later Brooke finds out that there’s a picture of her kissing Scorpion and it’s getting spread all over the internet.  She worries that Remy will lose his shit over it.  Because when I think “teh bestest romance evar!” I totally think “where one person is constantly in fear of the other.”

And what do you know, Remy finds out and immediately flips a table over.

Also, bipolar =/= sudden mood swings.  The defining trait is not flipping a switch in the blink of an eye.  Some people do that, and it’s called “rapid cycling,” and it’s most commonly found in people who are severely bipolar.  So if Remy has this, then he’s probably really bad off.

And not getting proper treatment.

And fighting.

How awesome.

Brooke “feels awful” for “betraying” Remy as he’s at her table and angrily getting in her space.  But no, let’s not talk about that, let’s focus all on Brooke’s guilt. 

FFS, if Brooke’s guilty of anything, it’s just of hiding the incident, and even that’s pretty iffy.  I mean, she doesn’t have to tell Remy everything that happens in her life. 

“Please just count to ten.” Helpless, I touch his sleeve.

He narrows his eyes, then rushes on to say, “One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-TEN.”

He leans over and seizes part of my shirt collar in his fist, drawing me closer to him, the distressed look in his eyes cutting me like talons.

If there were any justice in the world, this would be the point at which Brooke realizes “oh, shit, the power of love doesn’t actually cure anything and he’s totally capable of beating the shit out of me.”

And I can’t stand that I put that darkness there, and I feel his pain, with every bone in my body I feel it.

But instead, we get this shit.

Remy continues to stay very scary shit about ‘breaking’ both Scorpion and Brooke, carries on and on and on about how he owns Brooke *shudder* and in general acts like every terrible NA ‘hero.’  If anyone doesn’t understand why this is terrible, I don’t think anything I say is going to change things.

“He’s just taken something sacred for me and pissed on it!”

Gosh, I hope someday I get a man who calls me ‘pissed on’ whenever someone so much as touches me.  Doesn’t that sound just divine to have your loved one consider you disgusting and damaged?

Riley gives him a sedative, because Remy is still spitting angry, and Remy punches him and runs off.  Brooke, rather than thinking “oh, right, he FUCKING PUNCHES PEOPLE WHEN ANGRY,” still gets upset at the idea of her precious, harmless teddybear being sedated.

Riley and Pete go out to look for him, while Brooke paces around in her hotel room.

and I can’t even wonder what that awful reptilian sick-dick might do to Nora as retribution if Remy hurts him tonight.

Oh, god.

The thought of me ruining, not only my own career, but Remy’s as well, positively shatters me.

So.

You recognize that your sister might be in mortal, physical danger.

And your main concern is still Remy’s career???

I’m not afraid of him. I won’t be. He’s still my Remy, only in a bad fucking mood.

FUCK YOU, LADY.  FUCK YOU.  BIPOLAR DISORDER IS NOT THE SAME THING AS A ‘BAD FUCKING MOOD’ AND FUCK YOU FOR THINKING IT YOU WILLFULLY-IGNORANT FUCKING HIPPIE.

Riley comes by at 5am to say that Remy is in the ER, but won’t say what happened, just that both boxers are not disqualified.

The acids in my stomach start to bubble uncomfortably. I really lack the testosterone for all this.

…huh?

They sedated him at the hospital. Honestly, I don’t know how we can expect him to fight tonight. But at least he’s angry.

And while we’re on the subject of thinks =/= other things, boxing match =/= backalley brawl.  Anger is NOT something you want to take into a competition like that.

Brooke is told not to come to the hospital, so she Googles bipolar disorder instead.  FUCKING FINALLY.  What comes up is similar to what I found while searching, so I guess we just haven’t seen Remy depressed in this book yet.  (Honestly, it kind of feels like this research was done halfway through the writing, and no one bothered to edit that part earlier where people implied that the only ‘mood swings’ he had was between happy and angry.)

Remy doesn’t come home all day, so we skip to the fight that night.  Anything to get this over with sooner.

There’s only one fight tonight. Only Remington and Scorpion will face each other, and this one match will last for hours.

…if by that you mean all the pomp and circumstance around the fight will last for hours, okay.

The two fighters come out looking already bruised, and Remy is subdued and won’t look at Brooke, which sends her into pages of frantic blathering.

Then the fight starts and Brooke keeps flailing around in her own brain, because Remy is throwing the fight but she thinks he’s not punching back because he’s injured.  Of course, Remy is really bad at throwing fights.  He just stands there and gets hit.  He’s not trying to hide it at all.  That’s going to tip off the judges.  Fixing fights is illegal.  (Of course, for all we know all parts of these fights are illegal, but even in that case, the people who bet on Remy are going to be able to tell he lost on purpose and they’re going to be pissed.  All around, if you’re going to throw a fight, you still need to put on a good show.)

And as I watch him take another hit that splatters blood across the ring floor

She’s mentioning a lot of blood.

Is there no referee?  This would not fly in any official league.  A referee should have put a stop to this a long time ago, because beating on a guy that can’t/won’t fight back is not allowed either. 

THERE ARE RULES TO BOXING, BOOK, COME ON.

Finally the fight ends when Remy gets KOed.

I watched the man I love break his own body to unconsciousness, and every millimeter of every quadrant of my heart is broken.

Melodramatic much?

A new burning wetness pop up in my eyes

…okay, if you say so.

Medics come to take Remy away, and Brooke has to go meet her sister (or at least wait for her and hope her sister comes), so she runs off and cries huge tears of ultimate sadness because the worst thing ever is to have Remy get beat up in the ring.

I dunno.  Maybe it’s because I’m jaded.  Maybe it’s because I actually like watching UFC and when I think “getting his ass kicked in a match” I think something that is controlled and generally not fatal, so the fact that no one put a stop to this fight makes it seem less ‘horrible.’  This book does not match up with my base knowledge in such basic ways that even when Remy is headed off to the ER I’m still going “eh, whatever, shut up Brooke.”

Seriously, she’s acting like he got shot.  She calls his throwing the match ‘attempted suicide.’  Calm your tits, girl.

At the hospital, he’s in a private room.

I sit in a chair for the first week and stare at his beautiful face with the tube that helps him breathe

Or not, but now we’re just back to “how did everyone let it get this bad?”

If there’s rules, the referee should have stopped things.

If there’s no rules, then there’s no rules, someone should have jumped in and stopped it.  It’s not like you can get in trouble for it if there’s no rules.

When he wakes up after a week-long coma (why do books throw out comas like they’re nothing?), Brooke yells at him for breaking her heart and making her watch him get beat up like that.  She says she can’t put up with watching him get hurt.

He’s got a tube down his throat, so he can’t answer, and then some nurse comes in to sedate him anyway.  She leaves a letter for him that is the expected “I love you, chin up” stuff and then walks out.

It’s just occurred to me, but…why is Remy bipolar?

Every problem that they have is based on something other than his condition.  This break-up here?  A result of him throwing the fight.  Them not getting together for a while?  Pure hesitance and fear. 

I mean, not every plot point with a mentally ill character has to be based around that.  Of course someone with bipolar would still have all the regular issues to deal with.  BUT THEY WOULD ALSO HAVE ISSUES SPECIFIC TO THEIR ILLNESS, and in Remy’s case, those are all swept under the rug.  Any time something directly connected to bipolar comes up, Brooke goes “oh, I care not” and they go on.  It’s only the extra stuff that has any affect.  At best, his bipolar disorder is an excuse for other drama that could have had a thousand other excuses (and has had a thousand other excuses; “I don’t want to lose you” is not exactly something new in romance books).