The flinch I recognise

The shoulder did it again. Clean click on the fourth stroke, same as yesterday. Two days in a row now. I know what that means. I know what it doesn't mean. I held pads for Rob and a new fighter called Hannah instead of testing it on the bag, which is the smart thing to do, and I hate that I'm being smart about it because being smart is how you sit and wait for something to fall apart.

Hannah is back after a year off. Twenty-six. Sharp going forward, flinching on the back foot like she was waiting to be hit. I gave her three rounds of notes and she took every one. I didn't ask what the year was from. I already knew. People who come back after a year off carry a flinch like that. I had it for two years after I stopped swimming. I didn't tell her that. I just kept moving her feet.

The autumn list has two dates on it now. I don't remember deciding to add the second one. Mid September is Lou's card. The other one I wrote at a red light in the car and I am not going to say what it is. I got home and stood at the counter and looked at the Woolworths receipt on the fridge and the drawer with the Manila envelope in it and I did the jaw thing for about four minutes before I opened a beer.

Here's what I keep doing. I'm building a case against my own luck. The shoulder feels good — that's suspicious. Hannah was better than she should have been — suspicious. I added a second date to a list I swore I'd leave alone — suspicious. Somewhere in me there's a version of this where everything works, and I can't let that version win because then I'd have to admit I gave up the wrong thing.

I said yesterday I wasn't going to write that last part down again. I just wrote it again.