I ignored all that for a moment, grabbed my phone, and called King’s Kickboxing.

As it rang, my anxiety began to build.

“King’s Kickboxing. This is Ryan speaking.”

“Hi, Ryan. My name’s Adrian, and I saw your ad online. I was wondering if I could do a trial class?”

“Yes, of course,” he replied from his end. “What’s your name?”

“My name is Adrian Carter,” I answered.

“For sure, Adrian. Are you free this evening?”

“As in this evening, this evening? Wow. That’s like, really soon.”

“Yeah. This evening is this evening,” Ryan said sarcastically.

“Ummm, sure. I’ll be there. What time?”

“Be here at four-fifteen. Wear shorts and a t-shirt.”

“Cool. I will.”

“See you tonight, Adrian,” Ryan said before he hung up the phone.

As I put my phone down, I realized it was 3:30 p.m. and I heard my front door open. It must have been my mom. I didn’t know what to do and I began freaking out. What if she saw my eye? I shut my door to think of a plan.

“Adrian, are you home?” Mom called upstairs.

“Uhhh . . . Yeah. I’m actually just leaving, though,” I called back as I grabbed shorts and a t-shirt from my dresser.

“Where to?” she asked as I came down the stairs moving in an odd direction so she couldn’t see my whole face.

“To my kickboxing class,” I told her with a smile.

“Kickboxing!? Adrian —”

I was out the door before she could finish the sentence. I knew my mom wouldn’t like the idea of me joining kickboxing, but at least I told her the truth.

I found King’s without any trouble. It was on Richards Street, but it was in the basement of a building just off the corner. As I walked down the flight of stairs toward the entrance, I could hear the sounds of fists hitting pads and people yelling as they did it. It sounded like adrenalin was rushing through a lot of people’s blood.

I noticed everyone was wearing black shirts with KING’S written in gold on the front of them. A lean, bald, black man had seen me enter and he walked right up to me.

“Hello, I’m Ryan. I’m the head instructor here.” He extended a hand. I shook it.

“Hi. I’m Adrian. We spoke on the phone earlier.”

“Yep, that was me. Glad to see you could make it. Welcome to King’s.”

I could smell the sweat and feel the humidity coming toward me all at once. It felt overwhelming, and I was unsure if I even wanted to continue.

“All right, everyone. That ends class for today,” Ryan called to the class. “Hit the showers.”

I tended to avoid locker rooms, so I got changed in the washroom. I wore a white t-shirt and blue basketball shorts. When I came back out, Ryan was already on the mats waiting for me. I walked over and saw a pair of fingerless gloves on the floor.