Celia's first jab hit her on the chest.
Not the face. Rae had given a small movement of the head, ready to be clever, and Celia touched the body that hadn't gone anywhere. A light punch, a measurement. Rae felt her mouth curl behind the guard.
You learned that here, she thought.
Then Celia did it again and Rae remembered the point was to stop her.
She stepped off the line and put her own jab between Celia's gloves. Not hard, but clean enough to bring Celia's hands a fraction closer. Rae moved while Celia looked through them. In the first exchanges everything arrived too quickly to feel like the long thing she'd been imagining. A step, a shoulder, a hand that might come from either side. There was no time to see a whole person. You saw what needed answering.
Celia wanted the middle. Rae let her have the exact spot and made her turn to use it. Not retreating far, just changing the side on which the next exchange began. She could feel the space, the ropes behind her without looking, the little distance in which she could touch Celia and not be there when the answer came. On the outside she was still good.
The crowd made separate noises. Her name. Celia's. A man shouting a full sentence nobody in the ring could possibly follow. Rae heard Jun once, a low command she recognized because she had asked him to use it. Then the noise became part of the room again.
Celia came in behind two lefts. Rae caught the first, shifted for the second and put a short right into the gap. It landed along the side of Celia's face, turning her just enough. Rae saw the expression after the turn: not pain exactly, annoyance at having supplied what the older woman wanted.
There you are.
Rae didn't chase. She touched the body and went away, letting the score of the exchange stand instead of asking for applause. She could hear approval in her own corner. It pleased her. That too was genuine, which made the other thing easier to carry. A fighter could do real work while knowing where she intended to stop.
Late in the first Celia crowded her toward the ropes. Rae held her ground a second too long and took a left high on the guard. She turned her shoulder into the next punch, stepped clear and found the middle before Celia could keep her. The bell sounded while they were both reaching. They stopped. Rae had expected a grin, perhaps. Celia only turned away.
Jun set the stool. Rae sat, breathing harder than she wanted him to see and knowing he could see anyway.
"Chest isn't moving when your head does," he said.
"Noticed."
"Good. Let it come with you. You're getting the distance. Don't wait for her to admire it."
He gave her water. Len worked quickly beside him. Across the ring Nita leaned close to Celia, two fingers indicating a direction. Rae looked away. She had spent years reading instructions from other corners. Tonight she could feel herself wanting to read permission in them: Celia was being told to do the part that would make six plausible.
"Here," Jun said.
She looked at him.
"Not over there."
Rae nodded. The minute was already nearly gone.
In the second Celia stopped following the first movement. She put the jab where Rae would be after the turn, not where she began. Rae felt it tap the side of her head. Before she could return, Celia was close enough to make the right awkward. Rae shortened it and caught an arm instead of a face.
Celia hit her once to the body, hard enough to matter.
Rae's elbow came down. The next left went above it. She moved back, irritated, and Celia took the space without hurrying. Celia's feet had become a problem. Six years ago Rae could turn her because Celia arrived with too much eagerness in the front leg. Now the weight stayed ready to go either way. Nita's work. Celia's work. Rae couldn't hate it without admiring the effort required.
She tried the old opening. Right glove a little low, shoulder slack, the invitation no good fighter could resist forever. Celia looked at it and jabbed the chest again.
Rae almost laughed aloud. Celia wasn't going to feed her the favorite thing because the evening was sentimental.
She stepped in instead. They exchanged at close range, shoulders brushing, neither able to get full room for the punches. Rae landed a short left. Celia answered below the elbow. The body shot was not a promise of six. It was a woman finding a useful place now.
Rae moved too late. Her heel touched the lower rope, and she knew she'd given ground without deciding where to stop. Celia worked, not wildly, choosing the body when Rae covered high and the head when the older woman's elbows dropped. Rae tied her long enough for the referee to make them separate. On the break she took the full step she was told, seeing Celia wait rather than trying to steal a last blow.
Professional. Ready. Rae had wanted that once. She still wanted it, except apparently on evenings when it was inconvenient.
The second ended with Rae landing a right that sounded better than it felt. The crowd liked the noise. She knew she hadn't bought the round with it.
"She found you," Jun said as she sat.
"She's very observant."
"You're leaving the same way. She doesn't need to be."
He did not tell her she was losing the whole fight. One round had gone badly. It was a fact small enough to use if she didn't make it larger to suit her temper. He showed a small adjustment with his hand, a different first step. Rae watched. Across his shoulder the crowd blurred into faces she could not afford to identify.
"Stop making the first movement the whole answer," he said. "There's another one after."
She breathed out. This was what she'd asked for. The truth in pieces she could do something with.
When the third began she took the space first. No big rush, no announcement. A jab to get Celia's hands busy, a touch low enough to make her think about the body, then a step that denied the straight return. Celia moved with her. Rae waited a fraction longer than the younger woman expected and found the right.
This one landed properly.
The crowd rose around the sound. Celia's eyes sharpened. Rae could see the temptation to answer fast and gave her the old small opening. There. Come on. You hate the last one. Show me.
Celia came with the left. Rae pulled it past, turned and hit her with the right she'd taught her to expect. Years of shared work occupied less than a second. Celia took it, recovered and stepped away before Rae could add the next. Her next jab came back fast. Rae had to leave.
Rae felt the pleasure go through her so strongly it nearly undid her feet.
Still mine.
She wanted another. That was always the danger after doing something beautifully: believing it remained available because you deserved the feeling again. She kept the desire in her chest and moved instead, touching, making Celia begin from farther away. Her own breath sounded louder now. It would be easy to work too much in the first half, spend what she thought she didn't need after six. She held something back, not a punch she could have landed for certain, but the willingness to pursue an exchange beyond the sensible point. There was an end she kept consulting while the woman across from her prepared for ten.
Celia tried to take the space back. Rae met her with the jab and turned. Celia hit an arm, then found the ribs. It hurt enough to make Rae angry. She answered with two short punches and nearly stayed for the third before Jun's voice reached her.
Move.
She moved. Celia had been ready for the place she'd left. The punch passed behind Rae's head, close enough to make the audience believe in danger. Rae felt the wind and remembered why the work she called ugly had been worth doing.
With half a minute left Celia changed the jab, slower first, quicker second. Rae caught the second and touched her face. Celia stepped away. Their eyes met. No daughter, no benefactor, no bed somebody had confused with a promise. Celia wanted to hit her and was working out how. Rae felt a relief so intense it was almost affection.
Then the bell went.
Rae walked back without lifting a glove. She knew the difference between winning exchanges and presenting herself as a winner. Mick had taught her that, although he'd enjoyed it when she forgot.
Jun sat her down. "Better."
"Only better?"
"You want a ribbon?"
"A small one."
Len smiled while working at her shoulder. The corner had become familiar enough to hold a joke without losing the seconds they needed. Rae drank, spat, breathed. Jun showed her the adjustment Celia was beginning to make with the lead foot.
"She'll offer you that again," he said. "Don't think it's free because you landed it."
Rae nodded. She could feel the right hand still warm from the clean connection, the knuckles alive inside the glove. She wanted to trust it. She wanted one thing from her old life to stay where she'd put it.
Beyond Jun's shoulder, Mick sat still, watching. Dorian was farther away, his face turned toward the ring with no visible instruction on it. Both men could see her work. Neither knew exactly what she would do next because for another few rounds she had allowed herself not to know either.
"Three's gone," Jun said. "We do four."
Rae stood. Across the ring Celia rose at the same time, mouthpiece in, eyes on her.