Fight Like a Girl

f i g h t

❝ I was painfully initiated into boxing, because the guys I fought were a lot bigger than me.❞

-Sugar Ray Leonard

        

        On Friday, Everett returns. I thought I had scared him away, but he wanted to stab me a few more times before sending me into the ring. Cool.

I run out of the house, plunge my headphones into my ears, and start off.

“No stretching today, huh, Lane?” I pluck a bud from my ear and peek behind my shoulder. There’s Everett; he gives a small wave and jogs up beside me. “I was a bit under the weather yesterday. Couldn’t go for the daily run.”

“I thought I had convinced you to go away?”

He blows air through his nose and shakes his head, as if it were obvious that he was going to stay around.

“Honey, it’s gonna take a lot more than that to scare me off.” The fact that he calls me honey irks me out; that’s a term of affection. It turns me into some weak person that can’t even be called by their name, because they’re a certain gender, race, etcetera. It’s not a nickname.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Honey?”

“Yeah. No.”

“What about sweety?” Dad’ll call me sweety because he loves me. Not because he wants to poke me.

“No.”

“Delaney?”

Delaney.

Karen called me Delaney. Only Karen and my birth certificate. I felt her arms begin to wrap around me again, suffocating me.

Strangling me. I’m out of breath, searching for something today.

Then I remember Everett. He started this; he was trying to set me off.

“What’s your problem? Can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Woah.” He places his hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay? You look like you’re gonna pass out.”

“It’s all because of you!” I jam my finger into his chest. “You just want to freak me out to make me look like some idiot in the ring on Saturday!”

“No, really, I’m not.”

“Why did you ask if I wanted to me called D-De-D-” I stumble. I can’t even say it.

“Delaney?”

I place my forehead in my right hand and begin rubbing it with the side of my thumb.

“You need to leave me alone. You need to leave.”

“Why?” He sounds exasperated. Above all, there should be no reason for him to stay anyways. I’m not exactly the most social person, I don’t need friends to make me a better person.

“I don’t know.”

“Then I can stay.”

“Why do you want to?”

“I don’t know.” He steps back, bites his lip. “I think it’s because I can tell there are more layers to you, Lane. You’re rough on the outside, for sure, but there’s something deeper, something more… emotional. And the mystery of it all just kind of draws me in.”

“You shouldn’t go making those assumptions.”

He sticks his hand at me, as if to make some point.

“There you go again! Just calling me off as if I’m the one at fault! I get that you’re a feminist, or whatever, but I’m not the one who does all the research. I don’t know the right and wrong things to say, Lane.”

I think about this. Over the past week, he’s gotten better with his intentions.

But my views are probably changing as I let him in more and more.

“I don’t need friends, Everett. I need support, and you know who gives me the best support?” I jam my finger into my chest. “Me. So you can stop, because you’re throwing me off.”

“Who’s Karen?”

I’m taken aback. I begin to stutter.

“H-h-how do you know about that? About her?”

“I saw your phone, that day when it rang. Is she, like, your ex?”
“No. Please, don’t ask about her again.”
He shrugs.

*t o   b e   c o n t i n u e d*

AN: Dedicated to @cathykiley for the wonderful banner!