Maddy and Me

Chapter 31: My Friends and I

"When I was very young like 5 or 6, my brothers and I weren't that close. They didn't want to play with me because they saw me as a brat and had just finished their 'Eww! Girls!' phase. I didn't have friends yet and couldn't play with my sister either, I was too rowdy and she was a baby. Around that time, Dad had started giving me boxing and wrestling lessons.

One day, Dad put me in the ring with my brothers, one by one, and I won against both of them in both wrestling and boxing matches. I was so happy that I won but my brothers were like, She only won because we went soft on her because we're older and didn't want to hurt her.

I got so mad and my dad defended me saying, "She would've won even if she was fighting with those her age." And I was like, Yeah! And I'll prove it to ya! Seeing you fight in class like a lady and have people still like you made me think that if you could fight, I for sure could fight. So, I went around my block and knocked on doors to ask for kids to come wrestle with me in the 15 minutes that Dad took to get ready and go back to the gym. Nobody, none of my then friends, agreed. After weeks of knocking on the doors of the nearby blocks, three boys agreed. One of them had a twin sister and she joined saying, "If he can, I can and I will" and she just bolted out of the door."

Maddy smiled. "Jake, Tony, Joel and Evie."

Morbidly, Teddy continued as she ate. "Yup. Dad gave them a week of classes and then we had a series of very light and regulated matches. I won against all of them. Even a year later, I won against them. For that one year I didn't see them as friends, I saw them as I people I sold a membership to. People who would come to my dad's classes and be my opponents in the ring, nothing more.

I was so fucking wild that they were a bit scared of me and I would regularly get a beating and scolding from Mom. My brothers would laugh and tease me.

The last match I ever took seriously was the last match that even Evie, Joel, Jake and Tony participated in. I think I had accidently broken a plate or something around that time, when we had guests over, in front of a kid that I had a crush on. Obviously, my brothers got a huge ass kick from insulting me for it. They teased me worse than ever. So when I got to channel all of my frustration in the ring, I couldn't control it. I didn't want to. I took it all out on them.

Jake was the last one I fought. The matched stopped when the whole gym filled with grown adults and my brothers heard a loud crack and Jake's scream. ...I fractured his hand."

...what?! No... That's impossible. "how bad was it?" she asked, mortified.

"There are baby screws in his left arm to this day."

"You're kidding right?"

"No...", guiltily replied her beloved Teddy.

"But you were a kid!"

"Melissa couldn't believe it either," with a disarming chuckle.

"Of course. You were only 6 or 7!"

"7."

"Yeah and that's impossible."

"So you can imagine how badly I was scolded by Mom and how depressed I became when Dad just looked at me disappointedly. He didn't say a word, not one to comfort or lecture me. Sam and Rahul started distancing themselves from me and dinners became eerily quiet and awkward, whenever any of us spoke. My aunts, uncles and cousins looked down on me, they didn't let me even see Rebecca for months. I felt absolutely lonely.

Only a few people who knew I existed were left in the world and they all quit the gym on the day of the last match. Before all of it, I used to hang out with them in the school playground and after it, they pretended like I didn't exist. I was alone at school and home. During one of my crying sessions after returning from school, I decided, for some reason that I can't remember now, that I'd sneak out of the house and apologize to Jake.