Fight Like a Girl | ✔️

Epigloue

May, 7 months later.

I sit in the audience, watching Nari cross the stage to receive her certificate. She graduated. Duh, there was never a question that she would.

No, I didn't graduate. Taking time off school helped me in areas that required my focus and commitment. Every day I get better at learning how to communicate and heal.

True, it was just this morning that Coen wouldn't stop slurping on his cereal and I called him a fucking animal. But I'm a work in progress.

The point is, once I left school, I could never reestablish the desire to go back. I threw myself into therapy and fighting. Reclaiming those gloves and that ring was empowering. Finding the strength to take back what I deserve, it changed everything.

Ronnie let me open a class of my own, one for survivors. It's a safe place. You can talk, not talk. There's a lot of hitting. It's a place to find release in an environment where there's no pressure or judgement.

You can start as a beginner and remain a beginner. You can progress if that's what you want. People take what they need from the class and I've never felt more purpose than when I see someone leave the class without the weight of the world on their shoulders.

It's not a cure, but it's something.

After graduation, I wait while Nari is hugged by her exponential amount of family members and when it's my turn, I hold her tight.

"Congratulations," I say, leaning back and tousling the tassels of her graduation cap. "Off to DU next."

She'd been accepted, her hard work paid off and soon she would be studying the subject of her passion.

DU was only an hour and a half from home, but it felt so much farther now that she was leaving and I wouldn't be going to live with her as we'd planned.

She wasn't getting an apartment, she was getting a dorm and now that I looked back on our plans, getting an apartment together while she studied full time and I trained, did seem a little farfetched. We'd had high hopes and it was hard to know how much distance would exist between us at the end of Summer.

"You can come and visit me all the time," Nari says, sensing my poorly hidden disappointment at her leaving. "It's not that far. We'll have dorm sleepovers and go to frat parties."

A light laugh blew past my lips at the thought of Nari going to a frat party, I know she'd offered it for my benefit.

Or perhaps she would leave her comfort zone. All sorts of things happened in College. It reminded me that Niles would be starting NYU soon, I couldn't wait to watch him thrive in that environment.

Nari returned to the arms of her eagerly waiting family who had plans for lunch. Sundown til' Sunup was tonight and neither Nari or I would be attending. I didn't have to conquer everything all at once. My therapist, Mila, made sure I knew that. That particular party wasn't worth the damage it could do to my progress.

I came to the graduation alone, having left a class at the gym just before it started. Walking back to the parking lot where I'd left dad's new car, I slipped through the crowds of excited graduates, proud parents, bored siblings.

Some of the athletes and cheerleaders stood on the bleachers, dancing to their portable speakers, the front steps had a gathering of friends taking photos, all around me, the air was electric with exhilaration and I felt a ball of sadness gather in my chest for what I didn't get to experience.

A tear slid down my cheek and I kept my head down as I fought the ache in my throat and sting in my nose. Mila's words pushed through the fog and I grasped them.