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283minutes in the ring can tell you things about a person that otherwise might take years to learn.Though she has to admit that this theory is another thing that has been rattled lately, considering her former best friend is, despite all the rounds they put in together, now behaving in a way that Kayla never could have predicted.She looks up at the ring, at the two tall, thin men dancing around each other inside the ropes, at Coach calling out instructions from the corner, the brim of his baseball cap pulled low. Breadbasket means throw a straight punch to the body. Ticktock means move your head already. She remembers all the times she and her former best friend embraced in the ring%u2019s slightly sunken center after a hard sparring session, heaving and drenched. For a moment, Kayla gets the outlandish idea that her friend has been kidnapped and a menacing stranger is posting under her name.Before Kayla even sees the bout sheet, she knows who she is going to be matched with. There aren%u2019t that many local girls in her weight class and division. The day before the fight her suspicion is confirmed.%u201cShe only has two tricks,%u201d Coach tells her. %u201cYou know them both.%u201dThey spend the rest of the day reviewing how to dismantle those tricks, working slowly and lightly in the ring. Her former best friend%u2019s first trick is catching someone with a looping left hook as they%u2019re coming in. The second is feinting an overhand and digging the body instead. Coach reminds her of how to take each punch away and how to counter.%u201cKeep her out of your head.%u201d Coach flicks her forehead with his index finger and thumb. %u201cDon%u2019t let her go where she doesn%u2019t belong.%u201d10The fight is in Kissimmee. Kayla leaves early in the morning, in order to make weigh-in. Coach is driving a few teenagers down in his van; she will meet everyone at the venue, a civic center on a large lake. On her way out of town, she swings by a gas station. The air is already torpid; the dawn sky is a luminous, tangerine veil. At the pump, the credit-card reader is broken, so she has to pay inside. She decides to use the bathroom, to grab a sports drink and a protein bar for after weigh-in, while she%u2019s at it.On a different day, she might have noticed the man hovering outside the entrance, right in front of the Florida Lottery sign, with the neonpink flamingo balanced on one spindly leg. White and drawn, in black pants with some kind of pale dust on the knees, and a swamp-green hoodie, strange only because the temperature is already pushing ninety. Hood pulled tight around his face and eyes jumping all around the parking lot, like he%u2019s waiting for someone else to arrive, like he%u2019s waiting for a sign.The gas station is just down the street from her house, where Kayla lives with her father, an employee of John E. Polk Correctional. She has been coming to this gas station for candy and slushies ever since she was a kid. It is one of the few places that remains untouched by time: same yellow linoleum floors, same dust-clotted light. Kayla is waiting to pay, the sports drink in one hand and the protein bar in the other, when she hears slamming, shouting, coming from the front of the line. Two people are ahead of her, a man in navy coveralls and a woman in jeans and a pink tank top and white sneakers. A maroon braid hangs between her shoulder blades. L%u2019Or%u00e9al Babylon Intense Red%u2014that%u2019s Kayla%u2019s best guess. The woman cradles a family-size bag of pretzels. The man in coveralls takes a step back, holds up his hands.Kayla pops up on her toes; the man in the green hoodie is standing in front of the counter, up by the black-cherry cigarillos and the energy 155 Laura van den BergWhat is Kayla%u2019s theory about getting to know people in the boxing ring? Why does Kayla%u2019s former friend%u2019s behavior cause Kayla to question her theory?33Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.