She lets out a soft sigh as we move down the hall. I’m over here giddy like a virgin about to get his first taste of a girl, and she’s sighing like I bore her. I look down at her stony expression. Her brows are pinched, her lips set in an angry pout.
I don’t ask yet; I want privacy. I lead her until we enter the room we’ve trained in every time she’s been here, and just on the inside of the doors, I press her back to the wall and bring her gaze up to mine. “What’s the matter?”
She pulls away from my reach, so I grab her chin and bring it back. “Talk to me, Kit. Friends talk. Friends vent.”
Her eyes water and spill over, and she angrily yanks her chin from my grasp, scrubbing at the traitorous tears.
“Woah, talk to me, babe. You’ve got me freaking out over here. Are you okay? Is Jack okay?”
“I’m fine,” she snaps angrily. “Jack’s… lucky to be alive.” Her desperate eyes come up to mine. “I swear, Bobby. I’m so angry, I’m shaking. I want to whale on him. I want to make him hurt, because he obviously enjoys hurting me.”
“What’s that mean? Is he giving you trouble?”
She sniffles angrily and wipes an arm across her nose. “Yeah. I was called to pick him up from school today. He’s been suspended for the rest of the week… for fighting.”
Nervous sweat trickles down my spine. Does she think this is my fault? Will she take him – and herself – away from me? We teach kids to fight, yes, but really, we teach them to walk away. Every damn day, we drill into them that the best fight is one you never have to have. Mental strength is what we advocate. Walk away, be the bigger man.
“I can talk to him, Kit.”Don’t run now. I’m begging you.“Fighting outside the gym is no bueno. We don’t allow that shit.”
“No, it’s okay.” She shimmies out from between me and the wall. “It’s my problem, I’ll fix it.”
“It doesn’t have to be your problem alone. I can help, as a friend, as his trainer.”
“Let it go. Can we start training? I need to hit something.”
I don’t know how to help her. I don’t know what to say to make her feel better, so I start the timer and pass her a rope. I’ll let her hit shit, and when she purges the poison, I’ll be waiting to hold her up.
Tonight, we work on five strike combos, and though I let her go to town on the pads, she trains with a single-minded focus and potent anger. I simply let her get it out, and every time her technique suffers, I stop her, fix it, and we reset.
If it was any of the guys, we’d be bitching each other out about training while angry. That’s how you get injuries. When you get angry, you get sloppy. You end up kicking elbows or hip bones, or rolling wrists and hyperextending limbs. But I’ll be her safe space. Zero judgement. Zero reproach.
In her hurricane of anger, our hour passes by quickly. Packing our shit away and collecting water bottles and bags, I lead her back to the main room to find Jack standing in reception.
I didn’t stop to look before. I was so caught up in getting to Kit, I didn’t even spare him more than a partial glance, but now that I know to look, my eyes zoom in on the bruising on his jaw.
He hurt Kit, which means he landed his ass on my shit list. Without a word, I walk them both outside and stand by as they climb into her small car and pull out of the lot onto the street.
She said it was her problem, and hers alone, but…
I turn and head back inside, then stop in the main room and wait for the buzzer on Jon and Aiden’s round.
We need a team meeting, now.
Before they restart the clock, I step forward and lean against the ropes. “We need to talk.” We rarely ever ‘talk’ in a serious team meeting kind of way, so I have their full attention immediately. “Who had Jack’s class tonight?”
Jimmy raises his hand. “I did. Why?”
“He got in a fight today at school. He’s been suspended for the rest of the week.”
“Fuck,” Aiden spits out. “He’s not done being a prick?”
When the other two look between Aiden and me, I figure I may as well fill them in. It’s their gym as much as mine or Aiden’s, so they deserve to know what’s going on under their noses. I want to help her – even if she doesn’t want to be helped – which means we need to be on the same page.
I tell Jon and Jimmy what I told Aiden earlier – I don’t go into too much detail. I don’t want to betray her trust; I just explain about her folks and that he’s her responsibility now. “She didn’t say so, but I doubt they have ‘take your kid to work’ days at her office, so he’ll be home alone. That’s not gonna help a bored kid already set on stirring up trouble, and I don’t want her to spend the next two days worried he might get arrested while she’s on a conference call. So…” I nervously run my fingers through my hair. “I wanna bring him in here. He can work, sweep, clean, stack, all that shit that none of us wanna do. That’ll be his punishment from us, and that’ll save Kit the worry of him being home alone.”
Jon nods and considers my suggestion. “Who was he fighting? Do you know why?”
“I don’t know anything. She wasn’t chatty tonight.”