Two weeks later (Thursday, November 18, 2021) - Long Island City, Queens, New York, United States

“Ah shit!”

Ell landed on her butt. Breathing hard. Craig stood over her.

“I don’t think I have ever seen anyone improve as quickly as you. You come in every day, work on things until you are collapsing on the ground. You chill out a bit, drink a sports drink, get on the weights and bump up your weight hard for your size. Then you come in the next day bouncy as a bunny with no soreness.” Craig looked admiringly at her, “I have no idea how you haven’t fallen apart. Do you even take rest days?”

Ella lied, “Yep, weekends off.” She trained at the other gym on weekends. She knew she was being insane and her recovery was ridiculous. Even small daily bumps and bruises healed quicker than she thought they used to.

“Well regardless, you can’t replace mass. So a larger person will always be able to knock you over and be able to break good locks with pure strength a lot of the time.” He smiled and offered a hand to help her up.

She bounced up and down a bit to loosen up, grinned, and said “Again.”

After thirty minutes she was onto weights and pushing new PRs. Craig had said she would have easy gains initially, but she was definitely pushing his credulity.

She knew it was weird. But she figured she would just ride it out. She was even still doing ballet on the weekends and going out sometimes at night.

But the days were definitely starting to blend into one another as Thanksgiving approached and mentally she was ready to take a real break and eat a lot of turkey and be lazy.

The next day (Friday, November 19, 2021) - NYU; Greenwich Village, Manhattan, United States

Friday found her coming back from Dr. Fedoriw’s office after running through the details of a paper he was submitting. The math was esoteric and weird even for her, and she had a pounding headache. The weekend was going to be booked double checking her initial thoughts but overall it held together. It also gave her some thoughts as to what sort of research and dissertation she might head towards.

Vacuum instability was a depressing topic. Stupid fundamental particles not staying where they belonged.

So she was in no mood when she came back to her tiny shared studio to find it packed with people. Or maybe it was the right time for it to snap her out.

Besides Jade and Craig, there were at least two other guys she had never met, a very tall and fit woman and Jae-Young. They were all sitting wherever they could find space, each a couple of beer cans in as witnessed by the overflowing recycling bin. The one that she had emptied that morning before the gym.

“Woah!” Jade yelled. Not slurring yet but maybe a bit tipsy? “Eleanor is back!” Her Kenyan accent, normally suppressed, had come to the fore. So definitely tipsy.

“Hi folks… ummm. I will just get my stuff and get out of your way. Don’t mind me.”

“No, no, no. Hamna shida. We saved some for you. Jae, where are they?”

Jae-Young wordlessly handed her a beer with a shrug.

“So you know my brother Craig. This is his boyfriend, Luke. And his brother, Harlan.” Whereas Craig was the epitome of human perfection, someone a sculptor would wish they could emulate, Luke was a big cuddly bear of a man with strawberry blonde hair and beard, a comfortably round belly and green eyes. Ella thought if they ever made a movie about a young Santa, Luke was it. His brother Harlan was pretty much his twin except no beard.

“And this is Donna…”

She looked coolly at Ella. Ella noticed she did not have any beer and was just drinking water sparingly. Craig took up the silence, “Donna is someone else I just started training. I was thinking you need some variety and also someone at least closer in size. And Donna here is good.”

Donna still hadn’t said anything.

Craig stared at her for a moment, but apparently lost that staring match as he continued, “Don’t mind her, she is just grumpy since she has a fight coming up and is trying to make weight. Too many cheat days and now she is paying for them.”

Donna looked at him, rolled her eyes, and then extended her hand delicately, “Ignore this guy. I am not grumpy. I’m Donna and I guess we will be training together a bit. Craig said despite you being new, you had some good basics and he was willing to comp me a bit to train with you.”

Ella looked at Craig who looked uncomfortable. She should have offered to be paying him for all the training she had been getting. He waved off what she was about to blurt out and toasted, “to new friends!” And made them all drink.

Later on he sidled up to her and said, “Donna is super intense. Weird too since rich kids usually don’t go all in for pro fighting, they have better options. But whatever. Anyway it will be tougher than with me, she doesn’t really have easy mode. But you will improve a lot fighting her. I’ll also start setting up some other folks for you to rotate in with.”

Then he went back to his boyfriend for a hug and another beer.

Jae-Young finally extricated himself from talking to Jade. “She wanted to know how long we have been dating, why I never come around, and was being super nosey.”

“No worries. That is just how she is. I’ll tell her you have your own place and that will be enough of a reason. Hanging a sock on the door handle is completely unnecessary.”

The next day (Saturday, November 20, 2021) - Ella’s Studio; Greenwich Village, Manhattan, United States

Saturday she woke up in her bed with Jae Young next to her, Craig on the floor and Donna, Jade and Harlan just moving about. Jade saw her move and started complaining immediately about her head hurting.

Ella saw the clock was past 9 and hopped over to grab some gym clothes to go training. Despite drinking a lot and sleeping in, she felt great.

Craig’s eyes were opened and he commented, “I knew you weren’t taking weekends off” before crawling off the floor into her place in bed and falling back asleep. Jae-Young was still out.

Ella settled into a light jog outside in the cold November air. Each block she brought her speed up a little bit until she was sprinting when she hit the gym. Up a couple of floors, switch out into her new shiny, very short Muay Thai shorts and wrap up her hands and she was on the bags immediately warming up.

She had begun practicing ungloved blows with just hand wraps. Craig had told her to take it lightly for a long time and build up so she didn’t hurt herself too much doing this. Eventually the wraps would come off and she could start the same toughening without any hand protection, but she was taking this part very carefully.

She tried to settle into a rhythm on the bag, imagining blows and counters but just couldn’t find it. Her attention wandered. Eventually she gave up and switched to alternating airboxing combos with heavy bag conditioning drills.

She was in the middle of a set of 50 kicks alternating with sprawls when the door opened up behind her.

“Not too bad form for someone only doing this a couple of months.” Donna’s voice was a surprise.

Ella stopped and turned around, wiping the sweat off her forehead. “You follow me?”

“Maybe. I called Craig and he figured this is where you trained on weekends1. He also said you were the fastest learner he had ever seen. And I can see that. You must have huge talent and it is great you have the will to put behind it. Even if you are starting a bit old.”

Donna must have been wrapping her hands as she came up the stairs and walked in since she was finishing up. She plugged her phone into the gym radio and cranked up the music2, then began hopping around and lightly jabbing and pivoting with a fluidity that Ella envied.

Five Points

“Holiday” by Turnstile