Wobble at the hinge

The Frankston kid put one through me tonight, clean on the same hinge Quill opened ten days ago. My legs went somewhere they shouldn't have and the glove caught canvas for a half-breath I don't get back. I felt the room read it before I did — that quiet you get when people are watching to see if you fall down or get angry. I didn't fall down. I tied up, dug a hook into the liver, came out on my feet and walked off thinking I'd bought myself another week of being believed in. Eight kilos on that kid. Not a small number to swallow.

In the change room my face did something I didn't give it permission to do. Hand on the bench, eyes shut, that slow exhale through the teeth. Three seconds, maybe four. Rob did not see it. I made sure.

The shoulder is the louder problem and I have been ignoring it loud. The jaw lights up the moment I try to extend the arm past horizontal — that's where it stops, same place as last week. I can live with sore. I cannot live with a tear I keep pretending isn't there because I want Thursday and the round after and to keep being written about as the guy who came back from being cracked. I want all of that more than I want to be honest with the shoulder. That is the worst sentence on this page and I'm leaving it here.

I texted Rob plain: Thursday, one more hard round, then sharpen. Phone went face down before doubt got a vote.

Sleep will be thin. The replay is the glove grazing and the fraction under it. Nothing else, on loop.