The cut knows the same road

The cut reopened in the same place. Same place. I sat on the apron and watched Jules work and thought about how my body apparently has a signature now, a preferred exit point for blood. The tribunal letter is in Carly's kitchen in an envelope I've touched so many times the edges are soft. I keep reading it like it will change if I find the right angle.

Danny read it aloud like it was a poem. It wasn't a poem. It said I can fight Saturday but someone is watching, and the someone might decide I shouldn't. Voss put that in motion. The Voss camp looked at my shoulder file and decided I was hiding something. I wasn't hiding it. I was carrying it quietly like I carry everything, and that turned out to be the same thing as hiding it when you have a tribunal.

Carly asked what I want the second opinion to answer. I almost said I want it to tell me I'm not the kind of person whose body quits. That came out wrong. What I meant was I want permission. I want a doctor to say the elbow is fine enough. I want to stop feeling like I am two people — the one who trains clean and the one who keeps ending up under fluorescent light with someone holding a butterfly strip.

I made dinner with my left hand tonight. The right one works if I don't turn it wrong. Carly steered the conversation like she was steering around something alive. I let her. Tomorrow I sit in a chair and someone looks at the file and I sit in a chair and wait. I am good at sitting in chairs and waiting. I was good at swimming. I was good at a lot of things before I got good at not being fine.