Read Online Shadowboxer by Tricia Sullivan - Free Book Online Page A

grasping hands, and for all his age he out-maneuvered her. The door to the room was behind him. The window was open but high above the ground.
    She had to get out of here. She suddenly felt sure he intended to devour her in some way. She couldn’t stop herself.
    ‘Put the phone down, Mya,’ Mr Richard said in a flat, deadly voice. He wasn’t sleepy now. ‘You don’t know what you’re dealing with. Put it down.’
    There was only one place she could go. Mya projected her consciousness into the dark-leaved trees outside the window, focusing on their deep roots.
    She was not permitted to travel to the forest alone. But she knew how.
    ‘No, Mya!’ His face tightened until it looked stringy. ‘Do not leave me!’
    Mr. Richard made a lunging grasp for the phone. He seized her arm, but she kicked and bit. Her heart was already outside, among the trees, and he had no drug to help him.
    Mya slipped between molecules of air and into the wood of the trees. She passed through them and out the other side. The prayer room was gone. Mr Richard was gone. Moonlight tickled the edges of the big star-shaped leaves in the forest, and the stolen phone was still in her hand. Mya’s heart turned over like thunder.

 
    Where's Waldo?
     
     
    to: [email protected]
    from: [email protected]
    subject: re: staph infection photo
     
    Stop oozing and taking pictures of yourself. You know I’m delicate. Can you write your mom more often? She calls me, like I’m supposed to know what’s up with you. She says Nana won’t be with us much longer. Your mom’s having a bad time, she needs to know you’re doing OK.
     
    Khari called to ask about you. I said I wasn’t in the loop and btw why don’t you dump Eva and ask Jade out? Just kidding. He’s too old for you.
     
    xx Malu
     
     
    to: [email protected]
    from: [email protected]
    subject: re: staph infection photo
     
    I skyped my mom and Nana. I can only get online at an internet cafe, I don’t come here much. My skin is almost better so I’ll be cleared to fight soon. Tell Khari I want him so bad I said hi.
     
    My only friend here is a cat. He seems to be a stray. He’s gorgeous. Not a Burmese, not a curly-tailed cat like you see here. He’s big and long-haired and all black. He shows up at camp and watches us train. He’s so cool. Sometimes he appears like out of nowhere. I call him Waldo because you never know where he’ll show up.
     
     
    I WAS MADE of bruises. I was always hungry, always on the toilet, and always homesick. After talking to my mom every day, or at least chatting to her online, it felt terrible to be cut off. I pictured her freaking out missing me, but the truth is I missed her like crazy. I had no friends here yet. Pepsi tried to be nice after our bad start, and he introduced me to his older sister, who often came by with her ladyboy friend Jane to watch pad work. It was kind of weird how Jane was more feminine than I am even though she’s technically a boy. I knew that ladyboys were a normal thing in Bangkok because years ago Cake had showed me a DVD about Nong Toom, a famous boxer who was born male but felt like a girl on the inside. She had fought in makeup and a bra, then saved up her fight money for surgery to become a woman in body. Jane wasn’t talking about surgery, though; I had the impression she wanted to keep her options open. I liked her and she was nice to me, too, which was more than you could say for Pook—the only other woman at camp. Pook wasn’t mean or anything, but she kept away from me. I was sure she didn’t like me.
    Luckily Cake’s advice finally was starting to sink in. Don’t confront people, and don’t get angry. Coat told me a phrase for it: jai yen . Cool heart.
    Why was a cool heart so hard for me? I guess I was afraid that if I stopped being angry and confrontational, there wouldn’t be anything left of me. I wouldn’t be Jade anymore.
    I already felt like my identity was getting