Birds Without Wings(bxb)

3. Anthropophobia

Smoke escapes my lips in puffy rings that disappear into the air as soon as they're out of my system. My lungs collect all of the hard stuff, tar and toxins. It's a nice way to kill myself slowly. I can be a coward and still take control.

"You want us to wrap these up for you?" The female mover asks me. I can't remember their names.

"Uh," I hold my cigarette down. "Yeah, sure."

She's carrying two glass vases from her position on my tiny little balcony. Like most of the stuff in my apartment, they're from my mom. This place is haunted. A part of me doesn't want to bring anything to the dorms with me. I don't deserve to escape the pain though.

I put my cigarette out as one of the movers walks past me with a box labeled "kitchen." There's not much in there but a handful of dishes, a rice cooker, and an air fryer I accidentally scrubbed the knob settings off of. So it's always a guess whether I'm frying or broiling my leftover takeout.

I spend hours with the mover duo until my apartment is gutted completely. The empty walls that remain taunt me as they did when I first moved in. I toured the place and instantly thought of a jail cell. This is where I would serve out my sentence for two counts of homicide.

I squeeze in between the driver's and passenger's seats in some illegal road hazard. The gearstick is wrapped in torn leather and the check engine light is on.

"So why the move? Looking for a change of scenery?" The male of the ragtag duo asks. He looks to be in his 40s but years of hard labor could've aged him a bit.

"Yeah," I say while jostling around on the car floor. "I'm a professional fighter so I'm just moving closer to my gym."

"I can't believe you fight for a living. You've got such a baby face... That explains the scars I guess." The woman looks me up and down from her position in the passenger seat.

"What weight class are ya? Gotta be in the smallest one," Her partner says and he can have his assumptions.

I'm actually in the second smallest, including the women's division. My weight class doesn't matter. I know I could go toe to toe with any middleweight in a real fight.

We arrive at the dormitory with the couple mostly talking amongst themselves. The conversation shifts from professional fighting to the two of them wondering if they've still got it. They'd probably pop a hip trying to prove it to themselves.

There's no practice today, otherwise I'd be there. So the dorm has a bit of a crowd. They're chatting it up in the hallways and cutting calories in the cafeteria. I walk by with several pieces of furniture and luckily I hired the movers because no one else offers to help.

"You're moving up the ranks fast," Eduardo says as he leans his toned body on the door adjacent to mine. "Took me a year to earn my dorm room."

"How do you like it here?" I don't really care.

I use a box cutter to slice open my box of minimalist decorations. The sound of tape and cardboard ripping mutes the beginning of Eduardo's response.

"Plus it's kinda like having your own apartment with how big the rooms are," he carries on regardless.

If I unpack everything tonight, I might miss dinner but I won't have to worry about it during practice week. There's more space here than there was at my studio, so I have more options of where to put my old anime figurines and dying plants.

I truly don't deserve all of this, not even half of it: the kitchen to the living area. I've never had so much space to myself. When Coach brought it up after my debut fight, the only reason I didn't decline the offer because I didn't want to seem ungrateful.