Didn't swing today

I didn't swing. I've been turning that over since five a.m. and I still don't know if it's discipline or if the shoulder just wouldn't let me. Cotton walked into Apex like he owned the racks, bumped me hard enough to feel tomorrow, held his phone up so the lens caught the contact, and said nice hitch, champ like he was reading the label off a cereal box. I felt the heat behind my sternum and I didn't swing. Good. Also: I don't know what that is.

The heavy bag almost ended me on a rebound around two. I felt something shift in the cuff — not pop, not tear, shift — and I taped tighter and finished the round because that's what you do, that's the only thing I know how to do, that's how every rotator cuff I've ever known has gone south. Danny said breathe first. I said yeah. I did not breathe first. I ran the drill louder until the gym had to hear me over Cotton's clip.

Zoe called from the Gold Coast and asked what happened at training. I told her we ran the new jab and Jules looked sharp on the ropes. That is true. I did not tell her about the bump or the bag or the clip. I sat at the kitchen bench with my shoulder out of frame and felt like the kid I was at twenty-two who learned how to lie about a sore shoulder because he didn't want to be benched. Three months of a draft I haven't sent her and I still can't write the second line.

Cotton has a clip now. I know what a clip does to a man. I said that yesterday about someone else. I was right and I was a coward for being right.