The seventh began with Celia coming for the body again.
There had been too much time to watch each other. Rae had stood through the last of the pause with a glove pressed against her sore side. Now Celia came off the stool without waiting for Nita to finish, eyes fixed on the place she had already hurt. The referee moved close to them as the held bell finally sounded.
Rae stepped in first.
The jab caught Celia high on the glove, enough to delay her. Rae put a right behind it and felt the clean connection at the cheek. A roar moved across the room. Celia stepped back, reassessed, came with the body. Rae was already shortening the distance, elbow close, keeping the target small. She turned away with her feet and came out able to see.
The next right landed too.
For the first time in several rounds the younger woman had to make a fresh decision instead of improving an old one. Rae felt the pleasure of causing it, a fierce return of something she had almost sold in advance. She could still make Celia work. More than that, she could make her doubt the next thing she intended to do.
She wanted the fight.
It was a greedy want, not a clean one. She wanted her name read first. Wanted Celia to know the cost of arranging a former champion's return. Wanted to put every real year of work behind a punch and discover it outweighed thirty-one.
She pressed. A jab, a change of place, the body touched when Celia covered high. Celia came back with a right that Rae caught badly and felt through the glove. She moved, tightened, refused to spend the good breath proving she hadn't felt it. Jun called from the corner. Rae took the direction before annoyance could edit it.
Celia found her ribs once more. The pain stayed familiar, ugly, present. Rae could use the work around it now. She made the next shot awkward, changed the side on which they met, caught Celia turning, and left.
The bell went with Rae's right hand still returning to guard.
She sat down wanting more time. Jun gave her water and asked about the body. She answered. He looked at Len and nodded. Neither man offered her the smile she'd got after good work in camp.
An official stood in Tess’s row. She had her bag against her body and was looking up at him, talking. He waited until she stopped, then indicated the aisle. She went ahead of him, past the seats where Mick stood back to let them through. Rae watched her as far as the exit before Jun touched her glove.
"Celia’s letting you see the first one," he said. "Be careful what you believe after that."
Rae looked across the ring. Celia had her head bowed while Nita spoke. Her mouth was open, breath moving hard. When Nita put a hand on her shoulder she shrugged it off, then caught the hand and squeezed it once. Rae looked back to Jun before Celia could find her watching.
In eight Celia gave her the old mistake.
The left came out and stayed there a fraction, chin rising behind it. Rae knew the picture before the glove finished moving. She'd corrected it hundreds of times: don't leave the hand hanging while you admire where it went. At twenty Celia had hated the correction because Rae could make the same point with her own right hand whenever she pleased.
Rae pulled away, set the feet and threw the answer.
Celia wasn't there.
The right went past the place her face should have been. Celia had changed height and stepped inside its path, shoulder turning under Rae's arm. Her next punch arrived short, hard, above the body Rae had already begun protecting. Rae's head turned. She saw white rope, dark crowd, then Celia again, already leaving before the older woman could make the miss less important.
It took one shocked breath to understand.
She'd shown it on purpose.
Rae could hear Jun calling. She moved because the voice had earned its place. A left touched her forehead. She covered. Celia changed the rhythm, not rushing, making the older woman choose between repeating the thing she'd just punished and inventing something quickly enough to matter.
The opening appeared again.
Rae didn't take it. That was a victory she couldn't put on a scorecard. She jabbed the chest instead. Celia accepted the light touch, came around it and landed twice before Rae could leave. The refusal had become another expected answer. Celia was not simply offering a trick. She was making Rae spend time doubting what she'd once done without thought.
It was excellent boxing.
Rae hated her for perhaps half a second. Then she was too busy to afford it.
She got close, made the work less pretty, tried to take away the room in which Celia's plan looked clever. Celia tied her, let the referee separate them and returned to the middle first. Rae followed. A short right of her own landed near the end, clean enough to remind Celia that solving one habit did not solve the entire person. Celia took it and worked again. The bell ended a round Rae knew she'd lost.
At the stool she said, "She showed it."
Jun was looking directly at her. "Yes."
"The old—"
"I saw. You saw. Now what?"
Rae breathed out. He had no interest in letting her sit inside the beauty of being outthought. The woman was across the ring now and there were two rounds left in which to do something else.
"Feet first," Rae said.
"Then make her choose. Don't stand there waiting for the right memory."
Len touched a cool compress to her face. Rae closed her eyes for a second and heard the room as a room again. People calling prices for drinks. Somebody whistling. A voice shouting her name with enough affection to make her open her eyes too quickly.
Flo, perhaps. Tony. Somebody who'd met her once. She couldn't tell.
In nine she stopped trying to make Celia return to the place she remembered. She jabbed without asking for the right, changed the distance when Celia wanted to settle, put the body to work when Celia covered high. It was harder than springing the old trap. There was no single gratifying crack telling her she'd been correct. She had to keep making choices after the first one.
Celia met her.
For a stretch they traded in the middle, not standing still but neither giving the other the easy sense of possession. Rae landed a left that made Celia reset her feet. Celia answered with a right over the next jab. Rae got the better of one exchange and the worse of the next. The body pain sharpened whenever she forgot it and became manageable whenever she respected the space it needed.
She could not tell who was winning the round.
That frightened her more than certainty. She wanted to do something large enough to remove doubt. The desire made her start the right from too far out. Celia saw it, stepped away and touched her cleanly. Rae heard Jun say her name, not an instruction, a reminder to return to the woman who could work rather than the woman who wanted a verdict.
She came back behind the jab. This time she kept the feet ready, turned when Celia tried to press, and found a short opening on the way out. Celia's guard caught part of it. Rae felt enough land to keep trying.
The last twenty seconds were ugly. Both women tired, both unwilling to be the one remembered leaving. Rae's shoulder bumped Celia's. The referee made space. Celia took a breath with her mouth open, and Rae could see the wet line along her upper lip, the ordinary effort behind the face she'd spent years treating as defiance. Then the gloves came up and there was only the next exchange.
The bell cut through it. They separated immediately.
Rae walked to the corner uncertain whether she'd gained or lost the round. Jun sat her down and gave her water. He was still working, and she had no idea what he'd do when that work ended.
"Say it," she told him.
"You need the last round."
"I know that."
"You may need more than the round. We can't know every card. Don't leave something in here because you're guessing."
She looked across at Celia. Nita spoke, Celia listening through her own breath. She had beaten the old answer. Now Rae needed a new one before there was no more time to ask.