"Call an ambulance," someone else whispered.
"He just got the wind knocked out of him," Holland said. Her voice sounded strange in her own ears—dry, raspy. "It's a liver shot. He'll breathe in about twenty seconds. Give him space."
Graham looked up at her, his face flushed with panic and indignation. "You're a white belt. You're fourteen. How do you know that? Are you crazy? I could call the cops for assault!"
"He hit me first, Sensei," Holland stated, pointing a single bruised finger at her red, swollen ear. "During a drill. You were watching your phone."
Graham opened his mouth to argue, but the words died in his throat. He looked at the heavy bags, at the peeling mats, at Trent, who was finally beginning to draw shallow, ragged, weeping breaths, his face pressed against the damp vinyl.
Holland didn't wait for a dismissal. The air in the room was suddenly unbearable, choked with the smell of cheap cleaner and panicked sweat. She reached down to the stiff, lopsided knot of her white belt. She untied it with a single pull. The stiff cotton fell away. She uncrossed the oversized lapels of the loner gi top, slipping it off her shoulders.
Underneath, she wore a simple, faded gray t-shirt. She let the heavy white canvas drop to the floor right next to Trent's head.
"I won't be coming back on Tuesdays," Holland said quietly. She turned and walked away.
The sea of black and blue belts parted for her without a word, stepping back to avoid her path. She didn't look at the mirrors. She didn't look back at the instructor trying to coax his star pupil off the floor. She pushed through the heavy glass double doors of the dojo and stepped out into the evening air.
The transition was jarring. The suffocating heat of the gym vanished, replaced by the cool, damp breeze of an impending coastal storm. The parking lot smelled of wet asphalt and fast food exhaust from the drive-thru next door.
Her mother's dented silver sedan was idling by the curb. The passenger window was rolled down. Her mother sat in the driver's seat smoking a cigarette, her eyes red-rimmed behind large sunglasses despite the fading light.
Holland pulled open the heavy car door and slid into the passenger seat, the cheap fabric scratching against her bare arms. Her mother took a long drag of her cigarette, not turning her head.
"Well? Did you hit something? Do you feel better?"
Holland looked out the window, watching a stray plastic bag skitter across the cracked asphalt. Her knuckles throbbed. Her ear was hot to the touch. The knot in her stomach—the one that had been tightening since they packed their lives into cardboard boxes—hadn't disappeared, but it had shifted. It felt different now.
"Yeah," Holland murmured, leaning her head against the cool glass of the window, letting her eyes slide shut. "I feel a little better."
The car shifted into gear, pulling away from the strip mall, leaving the buzzing fluorescent lights and the stale vinyl far behind in the rearview mirror.