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Jennifer Dutton

this, there is one bit of pride in there somewhere. The coach is
watching, after all.
He laughs from somewhere across the room. “Bet you wish

you’d done the Darth Vader, huh, Alexis,” he says cheerfully.
That’s when you cup your hands over your mouth and nose
so you can breathe when your face is being compressed. Nice,

right? And a lot of good that information does me now.
“You’ve got this!” he yells.
Um. Not so much.
My lungs threaten to explode as I draw in moist panicked
breaths from the Axe-laden gi top. I huff and puff and push and

squeeze until my hips finally pop out to the side.
The buzzer beeps loudly. Bodies rustle as the rest of the kids
get up in mass exodus. Except me. I lie in a crumpled heap on

the floor. It takes me a few breaths before I can stumble to my
feet. I steady myself and push my gi top back into place. Jack’s
already run off, and of course, his dirty blond hair is still perfectly
coiffed in his trademark spiky “messy” hairstyle.
“Okay, circle up,” Coach Gary commands.

Pretty much everyone else is patiently waiting in the middle
of the mat, so he’s obviously saying that for my benefit. I jog into
place and sit on my knees like the rest of the class.

“Arms up,” he says.
I hold my arms up, palms forward, like I’m getting robbed
at a gas station, and stare straight ahead at the blue-padded wall
in front of me. It looks like the mat on the floor creeps up the
wall like fungus. It stops just over the halfway point, where it

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