The word swimmer

Lev said swimmer loud enough for the floor. That is the word that has been following me for three years and he put it on me in front of Voss, in front of my own trainee on the way to the change room. I walked Kieran in there to be a coach. I walked out tagged as the other thing. I keep trying to bury swimmer under boxer and the ring people keep digging it up. Voss's nod was not disrespect. That was worse. That was recognition from a man who does not yet know what I am.

Twelve times I have watched him on the projector. I know his rhythm now — body, body, head. The pull-counter off the front foot. He does not flinch when the shot lands. I have been flinching at shadows since the pushbike. A kid on a bike nearly put me through my own headrest and I sat at ten and two for a full minute because my hands knew what to do when my brain did not. That is the man I am bringing to a contracted fight. A man who brakes for children and then has to remember how to breathe.

Shoulder is the same. Not worse. I keep touching the buckle crack under my chin, same place as last night, and I do not know if that is superstition or checking if I am still here. The cut on the brow has scabbed ugly and I look like a man who has been in a scrap he did not start. Rob texted while I was driving and I could not answer because my mouth was busy telling myself I am not afraid of Voss.

Dinner alone. Phone face down again. I am running out of ways to say last without meaning final. The swimming committee did that to me. A shoulder might do it. Lev put a word on it and Voss signed it with a nod. The contract is in the room and I am the only one who has not read it yet.