The Knockout Queen

by Rufi Thorpe

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Bunny said. “Can I come in?”

  “Of course,” I said, because it is what I would have said when we were seventeen, even though now of course I did not want her in my room in the middle of the night. I did not think to turn on the light and she made no move to turn on the light, so we both just got into the bed in the dark. She smelled like liquor, like whiskey or something.

  For a moment she said nothing, then she said, “Man, I really took her apart, didn’t I?”

  “Sure did,” I said, terse and pissy, suddenly more awake.

  “Do you hate me?” she asked.

  “What? No, I mean, no. Why would you ask that?” Of course I hated her. She symbolized everything I most feared in the world.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Her nose sounded even more stuffed than usual, and I wondered if it was from the swelling in her face. In the reflected light from the street, I could see that her cheekbone was still warped and shiny, like half an apple had been inserted under the skin.

  “I can’t believe you said I let those boys beat me up,” I said. “I just can’t believe you fucking said that.” My heart was beating fast with how angry I was, and now I was entirely awake, scrutinizing her blue outlines in the dark.

  “When did I say that?” she asked.

  “At dinner.”

  “I’m sorry I said that,” she said. “I don’t remember saying that. But I know I’ve thought it before. I mean, couldn’t you have run? Couldn’t you have screamed?”

  “Maybe I did,” I said. “Maybe I did both those things.”

  “Did you?”

  “No,” I said, “I don’t think so. It just wasn’t—it wasn’t like that.”

  “I don’t get it,” she said.

  “You just don’t know,” I said. “You don’t know what it is to be weak. You don’t know how to be afraid. You can’t even understand it.”

  “But you can’t let things like that happen to you,” she said. “You can’t let things like that—those people, there are people, Michael, who are bad and who will hurt you and who will kill you, and you can’t just let them because you are innocent and they are bad. You have to try to get away. You have to fight with everything you have.” She was almost in tears, and I realized she was saying all of this because she wanted there to be some way to undo the beating, to avert it, to go back and make it not take place, to never let it take place ever again, and she felt that way because she loved me.

  “Are you one of those people?” I asked.

  “What people?”

  “The people who will hurt and kill.”

  “People choose to fight me,” she said. “They decide to get in the ring with me. It’s different.”

  I didn’t say it, but I think we were both thinking of Ann Marie, who had not chosen, who had not entered any ring at all, who had merely made the mistake of gossiping, of running that glossy little pink mouth of hers.

  “What do you want me to say, Michael?” she asked. “Do you want me to hate myself? Do you need to hear that? I’m cold, can I get closer? You have the AC up really high.”

  “Yes,” I said, and she scooted closer to me under the covers and then I could feel the heat of her breath and the warmth of her body.

  “I want to put my arms around you, but my hands,” she said.

  “Here,” I said, and lifted my head off the pillow so she could snake an arm under me without crushing her hand.

  “Sometimes I do hate myself,” she said. “Sometimes I do.”

  “I don’t want you to hate yourself,” I said.

  “Sometimes I forget to hate myself. Or I hate myself for all the wrong reasons.”

  “You don’t have to be good,” I said.

  “Is it okay that I’m in here? I forget how we got here, how I got in your bed, but I am so, so happy to be here,” she said, nuzzling her face into my hair.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “That you’re here.”

  I loved her body so much. I loved her so much. She was exactly as good and exactly as evil, I thought, as a panther. As any of us animals. As me.

  “Everything hurts,” she whispered.

  “Everything hurts,” I agreed.

  And then we fell asleep.

  Acknowledgments

  I owe the writing of this book to so many people. My kind and beautiful husband for his patience and support. My mother for her unfaltering belief in me, as well as her tireless willingness to read multiple drafts. My editor, Jennifer Jackson, who has toured the weirder warehouses of my mind over the course of the last six years—you always know how to say the thing that makes me see the book anew. My agent, Molly Friedrich, who is so wise, and who bore the brunt of my self-doubt more gracefully than I may have deserved. You are truly, sublimely kind on top of all the other things you are. I owe Lucy Carson, who makes me cry with the depth of her insight, and Kent Wolf, who makes me laugh with the depth of his. I owe Zakiya Harris and Heather Carr, both of whom keep the whole machine going and who are willing to explain things to me when I am being obtuse. I owe Decio Rangel, Jr., Esq., for his free and extremely jovial legal advice, and I owe the Airport Courthouse for putting up with my loitering and spying. Many thanks for all the medical advice and perverted dance moves of Dr. Bill Winter. I owe my salmon salad writers’ group, who have buoyed me up and known when to knock me down. I am in debt to the kindness and editorial advice of Jeff Zentner and Kerry Kletter. I owe my copy editor, Annette Szlachta-McGinn; Maris Dyer; and my amazing publicist, Emily Reardon. I couldn’t have written the book, done the work of the writing, without any of these beautiful people.

  But then there are the ones who taught me the lessons in life that made it possible to write the book at all. Who taught me what friendship is, who taught me regret and heartbreak and love. This is a book, like so much that I write, about friendship, and I can’t help but think about all the friends I have been lucky enough to have in my life. Simone Gorrindo, you are the best friend anyone could ever dream of, my first map of the world, and I am so proud just to know you. I can’t imagine Jason Arold, Annie Bassett, Reina Shibata, Margaret Aiken, Sean Kazerian, Josey Duncan, or any of 9C will be able to read this book without seeing flashes of the way we used to spend our time, gloriously, masterfully wasting it. Here is to the stupid adventures, the passions of platonic love, the water bottles of vodka, the things we didn’t understand yet, and all the things we knew too well. You have made my life so beautiful, and I fall on my knees in gratitude.

  A Note About the Author

  Rufi Thorpe received her MFA from the University of Virginia in 2009. Her first novel, The Girls from Corona del Mar, was longlisted for the 2014 International Dylan Thomas Prize and for the 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. Her second novel, Dear Fang, With Love, was published by Knopf in May 2016. She lives in California with her husband and two sons.

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