Feinting Spells 2-1
Late September, That Year
Jennifer and Theresa had only met in college but became fast friends since discovering that they lived two floors apart in the same dorm building and also shared the same discussion section for their general studies class. They'd been roughly inseparable since, spending most of their freshman year together and absolutely no one was surprised when they decided to move in with each other the following school year. They were a perfect pair: Jennifer was by a white girl from the Portland suburbs with cute, mousey features and a budding sense of independence evident in the streaks of green in her dark brown curls while Theresa was Filipino-American, a Biology major with wild eyes and long sunburn hair, still learning to balance business and pleasure.
The prefect pair. Until they weren't anymore.
Sophomore year had been … rocky and the two had quickly found out that friendship and cohabitation very different endeavors. Everything had been a struggle: an appropriate bedtime, who was supposed to take out the trash, even portioning out wall and floor space in their tiny dorm room. There'd been little squabbles and arguments all year about this or that, but things came to a head during midterms of their very first quarter together: Theresa was up late studying, Jennifer had an 8am exam, Theresa didn't feel like packing up all her books and laptop to go into the lounge. Voices were raised, and by the time their Resident Advisor intervened she found them halfway through a full on hair-pulling, screaming and crying catfight. When Rebecca pulled Jennifer off of her roommate it was clear to the whole floor (and maybe the floors above and below them) that those two weren't going to work things out on their own.
Early next week Rebecca called them into her room with an ultimatum that neither co-ed was prepared for:
“You want us to fight?” Theresa was incredulous and still nursing a small cut on her cheek. Jennifer was no less confused; she'd disliked her roommate intensely over the past month or two but the thought of actual premeditated violence had never occurred to her. “Oh, I'm as serious as student loans,” their RA assured them. “I've been ignoring your little outbursts because writing up incidents reports is a tiring and tedious process I'd rather like to avoid, but when you guys start waking up the other residents and fighting in the halls, I'm kinda, obligated to do something about it. Or else I look bad, and we can’t have that now, can we?” The two young women exchanged nervous glances as they sat on Rebecca's bed. The blonde 4th year leaned in toward them with a mischievous smile. “So what's it going to be? Are we going to have to talk to the Residential Director? Or are you two gonna handle this like big girls?”
The sophomore pair swallowed hard, seemingly in unison, as a tense silence fell on the room. Theresa was the first to speak up; her hands rested meekly on her lap. She certainly didn’t give off athlete vibes, hers a curvy physique at least partially owed to the weight she'd gained in college. The reality of the mythical freshman 15 lbs. “I mean, I think anything would be better than having to talk to our Resident Director, but I mean, I don't think I hate Julia enough to actually want to hurt her.” “I know,” the slender brunette piped, her eyes full of hesitation, “and besides, you haven't told us anything about what kind of 'fight' it'd be. I mean, the last thing I need is for Theresa to use some kind of kung fu martial arts move on me and break my arm, or worse.” Her gaze bounced from her RA’s hungry eyes to the poster covering the walls of Rebeca’s room. Her wavy brown hair fell over one of her eyes, giving her the allure of a shy girl more comfortable in a bookstore than a club. “Kung Fu is Chinese; I’m Filipino!” Theresa retorted, the rest of her protest interrupted by Rebecca's open palm. “Well, now that I know you two are game, let me explain a little more...” she said with a devilish grin.
“There’s a gym just a few blocks off campus. Totally within walking distance. The school’s boxing team practices there, and because so many students have memberships there they let us use it afterhours sometimes too. It’s become something of an underground fight club. We have fights out there once or twice a month. Late night, off the record stuff,” she said with a smirk as she looked from one girl to the other. The kids with limited to no experience; that’d be you,” she scoffed, “end up on the undercard, and there’s nothing better than two underclassmen with bad blood between ‘em….” Rebecca had a wicked gleam in her bright green eyes as she sized up the two sophomores. She kept talking before they worked up the courage to ask any questions. “Now that you know what you’re getting yourself into, how’s about I let you in on the rules? You two will be boxing. I’ll help you out with gloves and stuff, but make sure to wear something sporty. Oh, and what is this? 3rd week?” Rebecca cocked her head and stared at the calendar on her wall.” So if we do this Wednesday of 6th week, you two’ll have almost three weeks. Yay!” She cheered, even though she was clearly the only one excited by her news.
The two girls sat there in stunned silence before Jennifer finally broke it, rattling off questions almost as fast as they bubbled to the surface of her mind. “So we’re gonna fight? Just like that? That’s like, no time at all! I don’t know the first thing about boxing! Who’s gonna be there watching us? Will there be guys? Friday is soooo soon!”
Rebecca put her hand up; this time she stared at Theresa to see if the pre-med student had any objections. When Theresa only returned a disaffected stare the feisty blonde turned back to the mousey brunette who suddenly couldn’t sit still. “Like I said, if you two wanna argue and bicker, then you’re gonna settle it like big girls, or we’ll go straight to the Residential Director. You don’t want that, I don’t want that, so I’m gonna let you two hash it out.” Rebecca’s tone obscured her genuine concern. “I’d suggest you drink a lot of water between now and then, maybe go jogging a few more times, and if you’ve really never even seen a real fight, well thank God there’s YouTube, right? Like I said, it’s after hours, so the gym won’t exactly open to the public, so you don’t have to worry about everyone watching you, but it’ll definitely be more than just the three of us. Don’t be nervous. Just let it all out. That’s why we’re doing this after all. No one’s expecting a professional fight or anything” With an exasperated sigh she turned to Theresa, whose gaze flashed back and forth across the room, betraying the storm of thought raging right beneath her blank exterior. “Any questions, Soriano?” “Ummm I think I got it all… but…. yeah!” Her hand shot up as if she were in class before recovering her composure a split second later, pushing her glasses back up her tawny face suddenly slick with sweat. “How long are the rounds? Will there be a ref? Will the rules be like a real boxing match?” Rebecca looked almost taken aback at the chubby Filipino student’s inquires. “Uhh, probably two minutes. And yeah, there’ll be a ref. To make sure everyone plays nice.” Rebecca scratched her back and Jennifer noted her RA’s toned muscles, not bulky, but definitely more pronounced than most of the girls she knew. She silently wondered if Rebecca was one of the regulars at the gym she’d mentioned.
The rest of the week passed by almost without incident. The two girls gave each other toxic glares as they passed each other in the halls and made more than a few catty comments while together in their room, but more or less stayed out of each other’s way. Theresa got a text from her RA the next week and was so nervous that she didn’t answer it for an hour, staring at her phone every few minutes as she tried to finish her chemistry problem set. When she finally gathered the nerve to actually read the thing she found her RA suddenly eager to talk with her. “Bring a jacket,” the text warned, and the thick Filipina figured it had something to do with their little conflict resolution that was quickly approaching. She silently hoped that her wild eyed RA had called the whole thing off. She saw her face reflected in her phone’s screen and tried to imagine getting it all bruised up. She wondered what her friends would say. What her family would say the next time they visited.
As it turned out, their upcoming social experiment was exactly what Rebecca wanted to talk about. They left the dimly lit residential hall for the wide streets of the bustling surrounding city. The brisk winter air made Theresa tug nervously at the running shorts and track jacket.
“So what’s up? “Just wanted to chat,” came her RA’s sly response, “See how you were holding up.” “Coming from the woman who’s trying to get me punched in the face?” Theresa attempted to match her wry tone “No, coming from the benevolent young woman keeping you from getting kicked out of housing. Sheesh, this is me doing you a favor.” “This is you using us for your personal enjoyment, Rebecca!” Theresa’s frayed emotions flashed briefly as they crossed the street. “Mmm. Why not both?” The athletic blonde said with a shrug as they headed away from campus. “You get to settle a grudge, and I get to make my senior year that much more interesting. Besides, I doubt either one of you is going to do any serious harm with those 12 ounce gloves on.”
Theresa merely shoved her hands in her pockets and looked at the ground in front of her. “I kinda hope so, I mean, I can’t stand that pasty loser, but not enough to like break her jaw or anything.” She looked at her balled up fist. “Break her jaw? Oh that’s precious,” her words drowning in condescension and faux concern. “Let’s not worry too hard about that; I haven’t seen either of you actually throw a punch yet. As a matter of fact, we're here because I've convinced a few of the gym regulars to give you both some pointers, so that you don’t go out there and embarrass yourself, ok? They're not super concerned with who wins or loses; we just wanna watch a fight without cringing” she laughed as she bounded up the short fight of stairs and through the doors of the gym, Theresa timidly following close behind her….
#Writing #Series #FeintingSpells #Fiction #Action #Fight #MartialArts
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