But my dad’s agitation was contagious, and by the time we got to the gym, I’d grown more nervous and less excited. I knew my mum would hate this. Why had she come? It would be torture for her and distracting for me.

My concerns for her had made me hesitant and shaky in the ring. I’d boxed a defensive bout instead of an offensive one, against my dad’s coaching. Instead of going in for the attack, I spent most of the first three rounds avoiding my opponent’s jabs, “prancing around” her hits instead of going in for my own.

“I think I’m just tired, Thatha.”

“So? What do you want to do? Just play dead or something?”

“No, but—”

“But what? Daya, if you box soft, you lose, plain and simple. So you might as well lie down and let that girl walk all over you, no?”

And that was basically what I’d done. Four rounds of being chased around the ring with my gloves up until the match ended. When the other girl was rightfully called the winner, Thatha couldn’t even look at me.

Chapter Thirty

The rest of our roller derby practices turned out to be a bit complicated. Shanti and I talked about a lot of things after our visit to Yolanda and Bee, but we definitely hadn’t been thinking about practice or our “status.” We hadn’t seen each other since Sunday either, though we’d exchanged dozens of texts ranging from perfectly mundane to obscenely cute. The feelings of uncertainty and unease around letting someone in hadn’t left me, but I was trying to stay in the moment—and actively avoiding any thoughts about where this could all be going.

So when I showed up to practice on Tuesday night and saw her seated by the track, sketching something on a notepad with a tiny frown of concentration on her forehead, I experienced a surge of several states of being all at once: affection, trepidation, longing, uncertainty, and—when I saw Kat stretching nearby—a moment of intense anxiety.

What Shanti had shared with me about her and Kat’s life had helped me to understand Kat’s behavior a bit more, but that didn’t mean I found her any less unsettling. I’d been so in awe of her strength and no-bullshit attitude—we seemed so alike in that way. But now I could see we had something else in common—how much that toughness could cause harm. We were both pushing away hurt and causing it at the same time. But I wasn’t ready to let the hurt in. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready.