At this, a breath in my chest caught—not because I’d never been in this position before, but because—why? Maybe because this didn’t feel like any of those other times. Maybe because it felt… deeper, defenseless, unpredictable. She could sense this too. She paused. Her hand rested on my stomach for a moment.

“I’ll only do what you want me to do.”

I wanted her to do this. I took a deep breath and told her so. She removed her shirt. Helped me to remove mine. Kissed the bruises growing across my right shoulder. Found my rapidly rising and falling stomach and kissed the skin there too. Touched every aching part of me both inside and out until my body seemed to let loose the ache into her lips and fingers. Gentle and soft like I’d always thought being with a girl would be, but also strong and crushing and deep in ways I hadn’t imagined.

Before my mum died, I hadn’t been able to see all the ways she loved me. I’d been so caught up in proving how strong I was that I could only see what I thought were her weaknesses. How little she understood about boxing and sports. The way she gave in to Thatha. How she stayed quiet when I wished she would speak. I should have seen how her real strength was in the way she gently held space for both my dad and me—how little she needed muscles and force and fists to make us feel safe.

Now—too late—moments with her would come back to me, appearing so differently through time and grief. Like the time I’d grown so frustrated with my math homework that I’d thrown my assignment aside and stomped down the hallway to the kitchen, where my mum was sitting at the table, paying bills.

“Oh, hello,” she’d said, looking up over the top of her glasses.

“Hi.” I’d opened the fridge door and plunged my head into it. Dinner at our house wasn’t until later. That’s when the brown folks ate. Unfortunately, my body needed food way before that, especially with the amount of training I’d been doing. I grabbed a dish of tapioca from the fridge and a banana from the fruit bowl.

As I was getting a spoon, Amma had asked, “Shall we have a cup of tea?”

I looked up at her, a bit surprised. Usually she’d just let me go about my business without interrupting. “I have lots of homework.” Not that I wanted to do it, but I was also grumpy as hell and didn’t have time for tea. I banged the drawer shut harder than I meant to.

“I can bring it to your room?” She’d taken off her glasses and rubbed her eyes as she asked. She looked tired.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”