Fight Like a Girl

by Sheena Kamal

  I text Jason as soon as I get inside to tell him I don’t have a sling to worry about anymore, but he doesn’t reply. I haven’t heard from him for a few days, since the night at his dorm, really. He hasn’t called. Or texted. Or showed any signs that he’s alive.

  See, this is why catching feelings is a bad idea.

  Speaking of feelings, bad ones, Ravi is on the couch again. In the same spot he was in when I left yesterday. I can never look at that groove in the sofa again without thinking of him. The man-shaped impression that he slinks into, getting smaller and smaller with each passing day. At least he’s got a shirt on—actually, it looks like he’s wearing two—so there’s that. He’s awake, his gaze flicking briefly to me, then back to the television. I look at him while pretending that I’m not. I search for clues that he’s the hitting kind and finally decide that he is, but not with Ma. Right now he’d be too slow to get a grip on her, anyway.

  “You ever been to Diego Martin?” I ask.

  “I was there last year.” Then he blinks, as if to clear something from his eyes. Some kind of fog. “Why?”

  “That’s where my dad was from.”

  It’s the second time I’ve brought Dad up in front of him. He tenses. “So what?”

  “Nothing. Just…what were you doing there?”

  He kisses his teeth like Ma, which is meant to put me in my place without actually having to think up the right words, and turns up the volume on the television, as if the sound of a cricket match could drown out the sound of my question.

  When I come back into the living room an hour later, he looks at me like he’s never seen me before. It’s the dumb expression that gives me courage. “You figure out the answer to my question yet?”

  He blinks some more, but this time it’s like he’s trying to figure out who I am. Sitting there on our couch as though I’m the intruder. Whoever this man is, he’s not the Ravi who had the strength to knock a container of protein powder from my hand, to put his finger in my face and threaten me.

  “Why did you break the lock on our back door, Ravi? Did you come here that night to try to hurt Dad?”

  For a moment it seems like he’s going to answer me, like I’ve somehow gotten past this thickness that’s blurring his vision, but he’s gripped by something that my questions can’t even penetrate. His guilt seeps into the silence of the room.

  Who was that shadow slipping into the trees the night Dad died?

  Why did Ravi have Dad’s phone in his bag? Did Dad drop it and he just picked it up?

  Who attacked Dad in Trinidad?

  (I hated him, so why can’t I let him go?)

  It’s dark now, the night spilling in through our open window. I watch him as he falls deeper into whatever void he slips through, in a state that I know somehow is dreamless. A dreamless, gaping void that he gets lost to all the time now, for some reason. Maybe when the crates fell on him it made a hole inside him. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t bother to turn on lights, because he’s alright with the darkness pulling itself over him, covering him, keeping him locked inside himself.

  But it doesn’t explain why I’m sitting in the dark across from him, in the brand new leather armchair Ma bought last week.

  I can stay here forever.

  I fall asleep and when I wake up, I feel a presence in the darkness. Standing just inside the living room, a body that’s like a wisp, a ghost turning solid in almost unbearable increments.

  Real, and frightening.

  Long strands of hair falling down its back. Fingers opening and closing into fists. Nails sharp. The creature is looking at Ravi and I can feel the malevolence roll off it in waves of electricity. It’s what jolted me awake, what holds me silent. This feeling of hatred.

  But I’m not silent enough.

  I must have made some sound, some loosening of breath, some shift of my body. The creature turns to me. My mother shines through its eyes. “Baby,” it says, sounding like Ma but not really. The voice that comes at me in the dark is smooth like honey, the Trinidadian lilt like music, like rain on galvanized roofing, like a place that is at once far away and much too close. “Baby, what are you doing up?”

  “Ma?” I croak. My throat is dust.

  “I’m here, baby,” she says, putting her hands on my shoulders, helping me to my feet. “Come, let’s get you to bed.”

  She leads me up the stairs and into my bedroom. Her hands plucking at me, rough skin passing over mine. I’m so tired I’m almost asleep on my feet, so she tucks me in as though I’m a child again and I feel that maybe I am because I let her. I let her pull the blankets over me. I let her touch my forehead. I let her kiss me just above my eyebrow, my lids falling shut. Long fingers stroke down from my shoulders. This is what possession is…“Your poor arm, my girl. My little girl. Do you want something for the pain?”

  I hear her voice, but it’s far away. I’m sliding through the darkness. Even though I can’t acknowledge it, I do hear her say it, the way she has said to Ravi countless times since he’s been here. Do you want something for the pain?

  But I don’t need it, whatever it is. I’m already in the void.

  twenty-seven

  I’m back at the gym two days after I take my sling off. I’m surprised I waited this long. My left side is weak, so I need to start building it back up if I’m going to be in shape for Florida. It’s just over a month away. I’m hitting the heavy bag, working my swing kicks. Fifty on each side. Then push kicks—same. Grab the back of the bag and start skip knees, with my face pressed against the leather, whispering you kill him over and over, but it’s not a question. And then I’m dead.

  Jason comes in and lingers by the speed bag.

  I haven’t seen him since that night. Amanda’s not here, but Imelda and Noor are.

  Imelda doesn’t know about Jason and me, but she sees Noor come over, sees her looking at him looking at me and calls me over. “Wanna hold pads for me?” she asks, even though I’m covered in sweat and my arms are shaking.

  Jason looks like he’s about to say something, but I turn my back to him and grab a pair of mitts from the wall. Imelda doesn’t hit hard, but she’s freaking precise. Every hit I take, I feel the impact up through my forearms, all the way to my shoulders. We do a couple rounds and I can barely move my arms. I sit on a bench in the ladies’ locker room for a long time.

  Noor puts her hand on my shoulder before she leaves. “He didn’t call? No text, nothing?”

  “I texted him after I got rid of my sling but he didn’t reply.”

  “Oh no,” says Imelda. “Maybe—”

  “His dog died?” I say. “His phone broke?”

  “Okay, that does sound stupid.”

  “Want a ride home?” asks Noor.

  “Nah, I’m good.” I wait for them to leave, then shower at the gym. All the other girls have gone home and I’m here alone.

  Jason’s waiting for me by the train station. “You’re mad,” he says, a bit shy.

  “No.”

  “Yes, you are.” He runs a hand through his hair, and I remember what it felt like under my fingers. Silky, for a guy. Silkier than mine, anyway. “School’s been crazy. I’m sorry I never replied to the text you sent.”

  Yeah, well, I’m sorry I sent it. “Okay.”

  “Let me take you home,” he says. “My car’s just over there.”

  “You have a car?”

  “My dad’s car. I’m spending tonight at my parents’ place, so he let me have it.”

  I want to be the kind of person that turns down a ride home on principle, but the truth is I’m really tired tonight and I don’t want to take the train. Maybe the truth is about Jason, too. I don’t know. We’ll just have to see.

  We get into his dad’s car and he puts the seat warmer on for me. The stereo comes on automatically when he starts it, and pretty soon we’re
headed to my house, blasting reggaetón. College boy doesn’t have bad taste in music, actually.

  Instead of dropping me off in front of my house, he pulls into the parking lot, toward the far end where the forest begins. Switches off the car. Bye-bye reggaetón and hello awkward silence.

  “So,” Jason says.

  If he thinks I’m going to bring up the subject of him checking out on me after sex, he’s got another thing coming. I reach for the handle. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Wait. Just gimme a sec here. I want to explain something. After that night you came over, I just felt…I don’t know. Like it happened too fast, everything. Needed to figure some stuff out.”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about. Aren’t guys supposed to want it? And now he’s here telling me that maybe he didn’t? “If you have a girlfriend, you could have just told me.”

  He looks hurt. “I don’t have a girlfriend. The last girl I dated…we broke up months ago, before I started coming to the gym. That’s why I was into training so much. I was trying to get over her. Then I met you, but I hadn’t really gotten over the breakup…”

  Wow. “So I’m the rebound.”

  “I swear I never saw you that way, Trish. I was at the gym a lot. Kept seeing you train. There was something a little crazy about you.”

  “Did you just call me crazy?” All of a sudden I’m feeling mighty aggressive up in this car.

  “Okay, sorry. Didn’t mean it like that. I just meant fierce. I liked it. And I realized I liked you, too. I wasn’t expecting to, but I did.”

  So much disappointment in just one conversation. I need a thousand hot showers to feel like myself again. Maybe I should ask Pammy if I can borrow her self-help books or something, get some enlightenment. He didn’t expect to like me because why?

  I kiss my teeth just like Ma would because that’s the only response I can think of with as much disdain as I’m feeling. I’m about to get out of the car when he touches my shoulder lightly. “How’s your arm feeling after all that training?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I can take care of myself.”

  He looks skeptical. “Yeah? Sometimes I see you whaling on the bag for so long, sparring all night, never holding anything back—it’s like you’re trying to hurt yourself. You’re not doing this as a sport. It’s not fun for you.” He moves the hand to my shoulder, and it doesn’t feel bad so I let him.

  “It is fun for me,” I say. “It’s the only place where I have any control.”

  “Trish, you don’t have control in a ring!”

  That’s true. I’m smiling now, and so is he. I can see that he feels bad about being kind of a jerk. “I’m really sorry about not being around as much. I do like you,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “Why do I like you?”

  I nod. I hope he doesn’t call me crazy again.

  “I don’t know. Just do. Why do you like me?”

  Is he high? “What makes you think—”

  He kisses me then. And it feels just the same as the night in his dorm. Like I don’t want him to stop. I suddenly understand that scene in that old Titanic movie Aunty K is shockingly still into, where the windows in the car heat up and the hand presses against the glass. Doing this in a car isn’t as comfy as on the bed, but it definitely beats the train station and, all in all, is the nicest way I can think of for Jason to make it up to me.

  We’ve been at it for a while when I see the headlights approaching. Another car pulls into the lot and parks in the space nearest to our unit. “Get down,” I hiss at Jason, sliding lower in my seat and pulling him with me. “It’s my mom.”

  “Are you not allowed to date or something?”

  “No, I…It’s complicated. My mom…she’s just not ready to know.”

  We watch as Ma gets out of her car. She doesn’t spare a glance our way, but the mood is killed.

  “I gotta go,” I say, pulling down my shirt. My hair is a tangled mess so I put it into a quick bun.

  “Wait. That’s it?”

  And then I do get mad. So he’s MIA for all this time and now he doesn’t want me to leave? “Yeah, that’s it. You bounced. I don’t owe you anything.”

  “Okay, okay. I never said you did.” He puts his hands up. He’s gone quiet and serious now. “I know I messed up, but are we done here, me and you?”

  Like I’m supposed to have all the answers all of a sudden. “I don’t know. There’s so much going on, especially now that I’m back training.” As soon as I say it, I feel awful. But it’s the truth.

  He looks like I slapped him. “Right. Yeah. Of course. You have to train until you’re falling over and practically dead. My bad.”

  “Are you jealous that I’m a better fighter than you?”

  “Okay, I know you don’t want me to call you crazy but honestly that’s just ridiculous. I like that you can fight. That’s not what this is about. Trish, I’m worried about you, okay?” He pulls me in for a hug, messing my hair up again. “It’s like you got some kind of monster in you that you’re trying to work out, but that would only make sense if it came out in the ring, which it doesn’t. Maybe the little demos that don’t matter, yeah, you win those, but the others? Where it’s for real? It’s like you switch off and let them hit you. It’s like…” He pauses here, but he’s come too far to stop now. “I don’t know why Kru doesn’t see it. Why he keeps letting you in the ring. Don’t go to Florida, Trish.”

  “He believes in me!”

  “He doesn’t even see you.”

  But that’s not true. He does. Kru knows I need this more than anything else.

  Jason tries to say something else but I’m too angry to listen. I get out of the car this time.

  Ma’s door is closed so I shower and go to bed as quietly as I can. Jason calls but I turn off my phone before I’m tempted to answer. I’m still thinking about what he said. It’s not possible that Kru doesn’t see me. Because what else do I have but training and my ma, who’s alone now even though Ravi is around. Ravi obviously doesn’t count. And Ma…who does she have but a neighbour, a sister that lives in another country, and me?

  And how else am I supposed to deal with the fact that I’m scared, all the time?

  For her…and now…

  Now I’m scared of her.

  * * *

  I go digging through Ravi’s drawers in Ma’s bedroom. She erased Dad from them ages ago and let Ravi keep little bits of himself in the places where Dad used to be. There’s not much there. His work clothes. Heavy jeans and plaid shirts. Belts with makeshift notches in them to keep up with his shrinking waistline.

  In the basement, I find his toolbox. I pull away tools sharp enough to break open a back door, a bed of nails, a bed of bolts. I’m about to give up when I see a leather pouch. What a weird place to hide photos, I think, until I look through them.

  I’m alert to every sound in the townhouse unit. I feel not like myself, but someone sneakier, someone smarter. An investigative sort of person with nothing to lose, who’s drunk off some kind of need to know.

  I’ve never needed to know before, didn’t want to know. But this new person I’ve become is a nosy bitch.

  Crouching there like a wild animal, I scatter the photos in front of me and paw these images from the past. They’re faded Polaroids from at least twenty years ago. Ravi as a teenager, at school. In front of a scooter. One at the beach with an arm slung around Ma’s waist, her smiling up at him. The picture must be at least twenty years old because they’re both young and beautiful here. I knew Ma must have always been fine—you can still see it now in her high cheekbones, in her big dark eyes and pouty lips. The figure barely contained by her pinstripe bikini. Ravi, though, I had no idea he used to look like this. Sort of cute. His brashness shines out at me.

  I know dudes like this, have trained with them practically every day for ye
ars. They’re the junk people, like me, who no one wants and have nowhere to go at the end of the day but the gym because it’s the only place that will have them. This is the rough kind of guy who will spar you and hold nothing back until you’re a puddle of sweat. They’ll egg you on, cast doubt on your technique and try to own you when they hold pads for you but will unleash their full power when you’re the one holding the pads. They’ll try to break your wrists when you hold for them and laugh when a teep sends you flying. They’ll sweep your legs from under you and pummel you at exercises that aren’t even competitions.

  When you’re in the ring, though, when the stakes are high, they’re the ones who’ll have your back. But not without you putting in the hours with them first. Not without a price.

  So Ravi had her back.

  He was there with her in Trinidad, hearing the parrot squawk “Eliza is a whore” and he was in Diego Martin when my dad was attacked. He has her back and his price is that drawer upstairs and the groove in our sofa.

  I put the photos back in the order I found them and close up the toolbox.

  Ma, I think, what’s the price you make him pay?

  But I already know her price. She’s making him disappear.

  twenty-eight

  Insert training montage. This is the part of the story where the underdog has something to prove to the world, the interlude before Rocky wins the big fight against Apollo Creed and shouts Adrian! into the crowd and slobbers all over her when she arrives at his side. This is what gets him to that point. When Samart Payakaroon’s trainer tells him to work his jabs and teeps before his killer knockout sends Panomtoanlek Hapalang to the ground, choking on his own mouth guard.

  This is the part where the coach says: Alright, I’ll train you, ya bum, but you gotta give me one hundred and ten percent. You hear? You hold nothing back and we’ll see what you’re made of.

  (You hope you’re made of steel under your skin.)

  Skip till you’re cross-eyed, flicking the rope like a whip, crossing it, send it flying in time with your feet.