Kru has me hold pads for the little kids in the junior class and it’s not so bad because at least he gives me a round or two after evening sessions. I feel an itch, just beneath my skin. Sparring isn’t the same, it really isn’t. I need the ring. The crowd. The feeling of surrender to what is happening between me and the other girl.
Like my mother, who has completely surrendered to Ravi. She’s so busy all the time now, with work and dealing with him. Even my eighteenth birthday wasn’t anything special. Just some takeout and a cake. She looked relieved that I didn’t want any presents, only money. Usually she loves shopping for me, but I’m kind of glad I have no more dresses taking up room in my closet. I’m okay with not spending time at the house now that Ravi’s there. In fact, I prefer it.
One night I come home so late they don’t know what to do with me. It wasn’t my fault. Sparring went past closing time and Ricky was the one closing so he didn’t bother kicking us out the way that Kru would have.
When I get to the house, I try to be quiet. Ravi comes into the kitchen while I mix a protein shake. He knocks the tub out of my hand. A puff of vanilla-scented powder comes flying up at us.
“We have rules here now,” he says, as the container rolls away and into the wall. “This door locks at nine o’clock. No more gallivanting around till all hours of the night, you hear? That’s not what proper young ladies do.”
I do hear, but I kinda zone him out because who ever told him I was a proper young lady, anyway? My attention is focused on Ma. She’s standing behind him, a stricken look on her face. This is new, so very fresh that we’re both reeling from it. She has never, not once, allowed my father to speak to me like this because it’s always been understood that I’m hers, and hers alone. To love, to scold, to whatever.
But she stands silent behind Ravi and lets him.
She lets him.
fifteen
Proper young lady, my backside. I’ll show him. I start training so hard that, before I know it, I’ve got an injury of my own to deal with. I sprain my right ankle. It hurts like a bitch, but just a little whiny one. I’ve sprained this ankle before, so it’s always a little off. On the floor, I double up on the compression sleeve and am careful to only work my right swing kick on the bag, so that I’m pivoting only on the left leg for now. I make sure the kicks are mid-thigh so that there’s no chance of over-extending and catching a bit of the ankle by mistake.
“What’s wrong with you?” says Jason, as he walks past. Shirtless. He’s been watching me a lot since I got back, out of the corner of his eye. “You look rusty, Lucky.” But I can still beat him one-on-one, so there’s that. Luckier than him, at least.
“Yeah, well, you look soft,” I say.
He grins, passes a hand down his abs. He’s got six of them. I’ve counted. “Soft, huh?”
Amanda smirks because she’s pure muscle. Noor shakes her head at him in mock pity as he grabs his gear and heads off to the men’s locker room. I wonder, again, if he’s got a girlfriend. If he doesn’t, I may have ruined my chance with him with that soft comment.
Do I even want a chance with him?
I never really bother with guys because…okay…I mean…it just never was right or whatever…
But Jason.
It’s not really about his abs, because I have some of my own. So. His are nice but they aren’t the deciding factor. Maybe I like that he’s already in college. Am I into mature men?
Gross.
It could just be Jason. I think about how good he smells.
This time I have the good sense to keep these thoughts to myself. Ricky’s not around to tease me, but you never know. He could be hiding behind the weights or whatever, just waiting for an opportunity to jump out and say something annoying. I honestly don’t know what Amanda sees in him.
When Jason’s gone, we chat for a bit and then we spar.
It’s beautiful. So beautiful. Nothing like it in the world. We don’t even care that the gym smells like ass today, because we’re all a bit ripe after we’ve been at it for so long. I don’t mind the smell. It may be rank with ass, but it’s our ass. There’s a fresh bruise on my thigh, shining deep purple, aching all the way down to the bone. I pour some bright orange Thai liniment on it and rub the heel of my hand over it until the pain evens out to a steady throb. With my team around me, stretching and slap-sparring with their gear off, I feel pure, whole.
I never want this moment to end.
I get back home just before nine so no one can complain. Then I wait till they’re asleep (which is how I think of Ma and Ravi now: them) and rummage through the medicine cabinet. There’s usually a bottle of Advil somewhere. I search the whole bathroom but all I see is four little vials stashed under the sink in a pouch that wasn’t there before. Glass vials with a white label that says fentanyl citrate, clear as day. I get this funny feeling again, like I did at Dad’s funeral, and when Ma brought Ravi home. This is wrong. The vials shouldn’t be here. Aren’t people dying left, right and centre in our hood from fentanyl?
But here they are.
Ma doesn’t really talk about her work, and she definitely doesn’t bring it home, so I’m standing there wondering what the hell medication that looks like it’s from the hospital is doing here until someone pounds on the door.
“Hurry up!” calls Ravi.
I open the door to find him standing there with his arms crossed. He’s shirtless, quelle surprise.
(Why, God? Why do you do this to me?)
So I’m extra careful not to brush past him. Something’s wrong with him; I can see it in his eyes. Like he’s just taken a jab to the face and needs a minute to shake it off. “What you looking at?” he says to me, with a sneer. But it comes slow, like he’s underwater.
I slide past him, no problem. “Nothing,” I say, as I go to my room. I’m not scared of him, but I can’t help but wonder who put those little vials underneath the sink. I thought my dad was a bad influence on Ma, I really did.
I think Ravi might be something worse.
When I creep downstairs the next morning, I see Ravi’s duffel bag on the sofa. He’s nowhere to be found. The bag is open. There’s a phone peeking out. One that looks pretty familiar, an older model…but it can’t be whose I think it is.
I reach for it and turn it on.
While I’m waiting for it to boot up, I see a little baggie of pills in the duffel. Each pill is imprinted with the initials TEC. After the vials, it feels wrong, this whole thing, so I put the phone and the baggie back and am about to leave when I hear it.
The beat of a steel pan coming from Ravi’s bag, playing a very familiar song.