Chapter Seven The Kind of Family You Choose
The fight was two weeks after the weigh-in, and Mika sat between Nina and Tre for all six rounds with her hands pressed over her mouth, and when Amir dropped his opponent in the fifth and the ref waved it off, the whole section erupted, and Nina grabbed her and screamed and Tre lifted her clean off her feet in a hug she hadn’t asked for and didn’t mind.
Afterward, sweaty and grinning with a mouse already swelling under his eye, Amir found her in the hallway outside the locker room before he found the reporters, and he wrapped her up in a hug that smelled like leather and Vaseline and effort, and said into her hair, “You came.”
“You said your people don’t bite.”
“And?”
“They didn’t bite. They were the nicest people I’ve met in years.” She said it and felt the truth of it land somewhere deep, somewhere that had been braced for disappointment for so long it almost didn’t know what to do with the absence of it.
That night the crew piled into a cheap diner on Broad Street — Amir, still riding the fight, too wired to sleep; Pop, lecturing him about keeping his left hand up even in victory; Tre, doing an impression of Amir’s opponent’s face when he went down that had everyone crying laughing; Nina, feeding Mika fries off her own plate like they’d known each other for years instead of hours.
Mika sat in a red vinyl booth at one in the morning, full of pancakes and laughter, and realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed like this with Renee or Deja.
She couldn’t remember the last time anyone in her life had asked her a follow-up question, the way Tre kept doing — wait, so what happens if the landlord doesn’t fix the heat, what can they actually do — like her future career was interesting instead of just a fact about her.
Under the table, Amir’s hand found hers and stayed there.
“What?” he asked, catching her staring.
“Nothing. I just like this.”
“This?”
“You. Them. All of it.” She felt her face heat and pushed forward anyway, some new bravery unlocking in her chest. “I didn’t know people like this existed. People who actually — I don’t know. Show up.”
Amir looked at her for a long moment, something serious moving behind his eyes. “We show up for our own,” he said. “You’re one of ours now. Ain’t nobody gonna let you feel like you’re by yourself no more.”
Later, while Amir settled the check and argued good-naturedly with Tre over who owed who from a bet on the undercard, Pop slid into the booth across from Mika, quiet for once, studying her the way he had at the weigh-in.
“You know why I keep him close?” Pop asked, nodding toward Amir.
“Wasn’t ’cause I seen a good boxer. Seen plenty of good boxers, most of ’em wash out or end up back on some corner ’cause don’t nobody teach ’em how to be a person outside the ring too.
” He tapped the table once, definitive. “I keep people close ’cause that’s the whole job. Boxing’s just what pays for it.”
“Is that what you’re doing with me? Keeping me close?”
Pop smiled, the closest thing to soft his weathered face seemed able to manage. “Girl, I decided that the second you sat down and drank the water I gave you instead of pretending you didn’t need it. Don’t nobody around here perform for each other. You already passed the only test that matters.”
She would think about that sentence for a long time afterward — hold it, turn it over, use it like a lamp in the dark days that were still coming. You’re one of ours now. Nobody had ever claimed her like that before.