It was mundane work. It was greasy, frustrating, and dirty. And as she watched the old man meticulously tighten the final tensioner pulley, his hands steady once again, she realized it was the most heroic thing she had ever seen him do. Greg’s office was a cramped, unventilated box that smelled of bleach and old leather. The walls were plastered with fight posters, most of them featuring Greg in his prime, his face contorted in various stages of aggressive triumph. Chloe stood in the doorway. She was holding her gear bag. It felt heavier than usual.
“You’re late,” Greg said, not looking up from the clipboard on his desk. He was organizing the sparring brackets for the upcoming camp. “Put your wraps on. I want you in the cage with Miller again. He needs the ego check and you need to get over whatever mental block you hit last week.” “I’m not putting the wraps on, Greg.” Greg finally looked up. He set his pen down slowly. “Chloe, we’re four weeks out from the regional qualifiers. You’re the top seed. If you win this, we get you a pro contract. We talked about this.” “You talked about it,” she corrected quietly.
She walked into the room and set her gear bag on the corner of his desk. She unzipped the main compartment, reached inside, and pulled out her 16-ounce sparring gloves. The bright red leather was cracked along the knuckles, stained with years of sweat and dried blood. She set them on top of Greg’s clipboard. “I’m done,” she said. Greg leaned back in his squeaky office chair. He looked at the gloves, then up at her. He didn’t look angry yet. He looked profoundly confused. “Done? What does that mean, done? You taking a week off?” “It means I’m retiring.”
“You’re 28. You haven’t even gone pro. You can’t retire from an amateur career, Chloe. That’s just called quitting.” His voice started to take on that familiar barking edge—the coach’s edge. “Did you get scared because you got taken down once? That’s pathetic.” Chloe didn’t flinch. A month ago, an insult like that would have sparked a shouting match followed by three hours of punishing pad work to prove him wrong. Now it just sounded hollow. The volume was loud, but the words had no weight. “It’s not about being scared of Miller,” Chloe said. She kept her voice even.
