𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐍

seven

『 seven 』

"FIGHTING POSITIONS!" JOHNNY SHOUTED later that day. The class arranged themselves in the correct stance. Johnny began critiquing their positions. 

He kicked Hawk's foot forward. "Stabilize your stance, Hawk! Put more power behind your punches."

Hawk took a deep breath. "Yes, Sensei!" He shouted, giving the air a quick punch. Satisfied, Johnny moved on to the kids in the back. One smaller kid, the one he had labeled a virgin his first day, flinched when Johnny turned in his direction. 

"Did you just flinch, Virgin?"

He turned to another kid, who flinched as well. Natalie watched through the mirror. "Holy shit, we've got a room full of flinchers!" Johnny announced in disdain. 

"Yes, Sensei!" The class shouted. 

"That was not a question!" He sighed and looked around the room. "Raise your hand if you've never been punched in the face."

Every single person in the room raised their hands except for Miguel, Aisha, and Natalie. 

Johnny rolled his eyes and approached the front of the room. "Put them down. All your life you've been avoiding fights. You haven't wanted to get a broken nose, or lose a tooth, or all that concussion nonsense. That ends today! Before you leave this building today, I want every single one of you to take a rock hard punch straight to the face!"

Johnny turned to Aisha. "Miss Robinson, I want you to line everyone up and un-flinch this group."

"Yes, Sensei," Aisha nodded obediently. 

The students started lining up behind Hawk. He was first. Natalie looked to him with her hands clasped behind her back. "Sorry," she whispered. 

There was so much blood. 

+ + +

That week was too hot for February. This was one of the reasons she wanted to move out of state in adulthood. Work had been torture. Two hours in a small, window less shop could not have passed any slower. Thank god air conditioning existed. 

Natalie had the car for that evening, but starting it took five times as long as it should've. Traffic was a killer. This had to be the universe telling her something. 

The house was empty when she finally arrived. She fell forward on her bed, her head missing her pillow by a foot. She couldn't tell how much time had passed. Could have been five minutes. Could've been an hour. 

Her phone rang at the other end of her bed. She groaned loudly and tried to kick it towards her hand with her ankle. It brutally failed, sending the phone to the floor. Any onlooker who watched this episode would have thought her to be seizing as she wriggled to reach the floor. She barely got to answer it in time for the voicemail kicked in. 

"Yellow?" Natalie put the phone to her face. It was an unknown number. 

"Natalie?" The voice of Robby Keene came through the other end. 

She sat up in her bed. "Yeah. How'd you get my number?"

"Nothing illegal," he assured her. She smiled. 

"What's up? Did you just want to hear my lovely voice?"

Robby chuckled. "Why not? I have nothing better to do, and we did say we'd see each other around," he muttered.