Fight Like a Girl - Sheena Kamal Page 0,59

I think she’s trying hard to make it like it used to be but I don’t care about all that because I’m about to get in the ring again and there’s no space inside me for anything but the rush. At the end of this fight there’ll hopefully be another, and at the end of that one a big black-and-gold belt. Noor got knocked out of the tourney an hour ago. Right now I’d rather die than be her.

We were all out there cheering for her, but it wasn’t enough. She faced the Brazilian chick from Buffalo who’s fighting here too, and who I guess has it out for our gym because she demolished Noor in a series of clinches that sapped the strength from her body like it was wisps of cotton candy. Nobody could be bothered to feel too sorry for Noor, either, because we’re already looking ahead. Well, me at least. Imelda, I guess, is trying to be a generally better person (what a time for it, Jesus) and keeps sending Noor consoling smiles, even as she holds mitts for me.

I push it all aside.

My second fight is against a towering brunette who’s all leg and hair. Thin, ropey muscles on her legs and stomach and not a pinch of fat anywhere else. Hard look in her eyes. It should have been outlawed for her to fight based on weight rather than height. At least that’s what I think before the second round starts. The first round was solid and we both landed a few good points, but you could tell that she isn’t used to fighting someone who isn’t intimidated by her size. She tried to get me into a clinch a few times, but I’d just seen Noor fall for that and I didn’t let her anywhere close. I was ready for it, ready for this to be the longest fight of my life, to keep light, keep scoring.

“Points,” Kru whispered to me, taking my head between his hands after the first-round bell. “Play this one smart, Lucky. Think about your injury, okay? Protect yourself.”

But there isn’t time for that, because Amazon rushes me at the third bell and I take a straight elbow to my nose. Blood gushes all over my face, my gloves when I bring my hands up, the mat when it drips down my chin. My eyes go soft, blurry. I grab the rope with one gloved hand but slip and go down to my knee. I see her over me and I think, yes. Do it. She sees the defeat in my eyes, that I’m ready for it, blood sticky on my face and my nose in the wrong place. Then she’s not there anymore. It’s the ref, pulling her away, calling the match.

I feel Kru in the ring beside me before I see him, shouting about the illegal elbow. The other coach pulls Amazon down from her corner and shuffles her away from the ring.

I win by disqualification. It doesn’t feel good, but I’ll take it.

Imelda takes one look at my bloody face, goes pale and spontaneously develops cramps so severe that she goes upstairs, curls into the bathtub with a hot water bottle and won’t come out again no matter how hard Noor bangs on the door.

When she does finally come out, there’s colour in her face again and she looks relaxed. I’m missing half of the painkillers that I’d left in the bathroom, the ones I stole from Ma’s hoard of extra-strengths, and I guess I know what happened to them. Relaxed Imelda is better than her other versions, but I wish she hadn’t popped so many of my pills. I could use some extra relaxation right about now.

Kru’s guiding me to the doctor downstairs, but I can’t chance they’ll take me out of the tourney because of a broken nose so I leave him and am pushing my nose back into place with my hands. And if that pain isn’t enough, I’m spotting, even though I haven’t had a period in months. It happens sometimes while training, a blow will shake some extra blood loose down there and you just accept it and try to block better. But all this blood seems like a bad sign. I try to ignore it while I go down to the restaurant for dinner.

Iron, I think, and always protein. So I order a steak, medium-rare, because I heard the man next to me order the same thing. When it comes,