“I wanted to surprise you.”
“Surprise me?” I ask. “I don’t even know him.”
“Well, technically you have some sort of relationship. After all, when you wrote that your dad’s girlfriend had a son out here named ‘Pearce’ – and you got the spelling wrong—”
“Will you ever forgive me?”
Rose raises her eyebrows at me. “Anyway, I knew it had to be him. Maybe you can introduce me to him.”
I roll my eyes. “You’ve got a boyfriend. And besides, how would he even know who I am?”
“Well, you know who he is.”
“Yeah, because my dad showed me a picture. I never actually met him!”
Rose shrugs. “Seriously, you should come. It’s going to be fun.”
I suck on my lower lip, thinking about it.
“There’s nothing on television tonight,” she says.
“Will it be just us two?”
“Jason’s coming, too.”
Her boyfriend. That’ll cramp her style if she gets to meet this fighter.
“He’ll drive,” she says.
“Well, okay,” I say after a moment, grinning. “Why not, right? I’ve never seen a fight before.”
It’s dark, it’s cold, and as far as I can tell, we’re in some unremarkable lower-middle-class suburb.
“We’re here,” Jason says, and he meets my eyes in the rearview mirror.
“I thought you said this was a big event. I don’t see anybody around.”
“No parking on premises,” Rose says. I can hear the smacking of her lips as she chews her bubblegum. “Since it’s illegal and all. Five hundred cars would definitely look out of place at midnight on a Tuesday.”
“What is the, uh, premises?”
“Oh, just an old train depot that doesn’t get used anymore. It looks totally low-key on the outside, but they’ve done it all up real nice on the inside.”
“You mean like they used to keep trains inside?”
“The engine carriages, yeah,” Jason says. “That’s how there’s enough indoor space.”
“Ah.”
“We’ve got to walk there, maybe a ten minute walk?”
We all get out of the car, and I fall into step next to Rose. She’s holding Jason’s hand, and seems completely amped. I see goosebumps on her arms. She’s wearing leather pants she’ll have to peel off to get out of, and paired it with a tribal print crop top.
“You look like you’ve just stepped out of a Spice Girls music video,” I say.
“Nineties is the new retro,” she tells me. “Spice Girls were my favorite, anyway.” She blows a bubble and pops it with a bite. Rose definitely knows how to put on a show. She’s so confident.
We round a corner, and that’s when I see it, streetlamps glinting off train tracks and chain-link fencing. So we must be nearby.
There’s a scream of laughter behind us, and I see a pack of girls. They walk quickly by us, and we’re left in their perfume-soaked wake. Mini-skirts, platforms, skinny jeans, heels… they’re all dressed as if they’re going to a club.
“I thought we were going to a fight?” I say, looking at Rose. Suddenly I’m feeling a little insecure. I mean, I’m wearing loose jeans, a black Pink Floyd pullover, and a cardigan.
“We are,” she says. “Like I said, it’s the biggest fight. It’s going to be a huge party.”
“You could have told me what it was going to be like.” I fiddle with the buttons on my cardigan. “I’m going to stand out so bad. I thought it was going to be like, I don’t know, in a dusty basement or something.”
“Oh, don’t worry so much,” she says, waving a hand at me. But she doesn’t look at me. Her eyes are fixed on the big building in front of us. I can see that the windows are blacked-out, and from the outside it looks a little like an airline hangar. Huge, boxy, a real eyesore.
But I can hear it. The hubbub of excited people. It’s like a vibration in the air, a signal, and Rose is already tuned in to it.
She speeds up, excited, and I fall behind.
As we close in on the crowds, I realize that I don’t really want to be here anymore.
Chapter Six
They fucking love me.
I don’t just hear the crowd, I feel them. Their collective voices, the screeching and cheering, and all their clapping, it shakes the air. I feel it on the beads of sweat that sit on my skin, this buzz, this vibration. I’ve just been warming up in the back on the bike, but now, beneath the bright lights, with the audience chanting my name, I’m heating up.
I throw off my robe. I don’t do any bullshit showy poses. I don’t flex my biceps or my lats. I don’t howl or growl or woof or bark.