He tells her about Carly

“There’s… There’s this girl who came to my boxing club, Carly…” Billy moaned. “She used to be a member a while back, b-but… She quit.”

Anna tilted her head, a curious and amused expression on her face. She knew she’d get Billy to talk eventually.

“She quit?” Anna asked, subtly grinding her hips backwards and forwards, still keeping her weakened older brother securely pinned down. Billy nodded, slowly.

“Sh-She wanted to prove that girls could box just as well as boys, but when she realized she couldn’t beat any of us, she quit the club… I was the last one to beat her. I was just a rookie. I made her quit…”

Anna smiled, excited about where this was going. “So that was a few years ago. What happened the other day?”

Billy shuddered.

“Apparently she took up kickboxing… Today, Carly- I-I mean, the other day, Carly came back to the club, a-and…”

Billy’s mouth was dry. The tips of his fingers were starting to tingle with slight numbness, his bulky arms still trapped in the thigh-and-calf prison of his scheming younger sister. He knew Anna had him at her mercy. He couldn’t get out of this admission. Sharing the story of his loss, his near-knockout, to a loud, outspoken feminist.

Billy shuddered as the realization hit him. It was only during this retelling that the picture had truly come into focus. Losing to Carly proved one thing… His immense skill, his immense power… All of it had been reduced to the point of when he was a rookie. No, worse than that… He was losing to someone he had utterly demolished as a rookie. His slow, tired arms, his shy, anxious chin… If something wasn’t fixed soon, his descent was only going to grow more rapid. He was going to be a worse boxer than the day he started.

“…And she knocked you out?” Anna guessed, an excited gleam in her eye as she grew too impatient with her older brother’s dazed, extended pause.

Billy shook his head.

“She didn’t knock me out, but she kinda kicked my ass, I…”

Billy’s mind drifted briefly, to all of the events that had led him here. Distant dreams of letting his mother KO him, of Karen treating him like a worthless punching bag. Was he really worse than he had been as a rookie? Could the version of Carly he fought back then, the girl who lost every single fight she had and quit the club in an emotional whirlwind, have beaten the version of Billy that Anna currently had pinned to the floor…?

“…I just wasn’t in the right headspace, and she took advantage of that,” he finished. “She beat the hell out of me. I… I actually lost…”

“Soooo… I guess that means you’re not the champion anymore,” Anna grinned, a teasing lily in her voice.

Once again, Billy shook his head, slowly. “N-No… I am… It was just practice, it wasn’t a real fight… She didn’t take my belt or anything…”

Anna pouted. She had been enjoying the idea of her older brother losing his belt. But oh well - getting whooped by this “Carly” was pretty good too. Getting made a fool of by a girl from his past he hadn’t thought or cared about in years. That was pretty good stuff, title loss or no. Besides, Billy still being the champion made Anna’s own victory tonight all the more special, so she was okay with it.

“Does Carly go to our school?”

Billy’s lips tightened. Shit. He did not want Anna to meet Carly. Not after the way Carly had been talking over text. He was sure the two would make things very difficult for him.

Worse than that, if Anna managed to find out that Carly had actually beaten Billy TODAY, she would find out that he still hadn’t told her what really happened on that night he’d been taken out by Karen. And he was sure that would lead to another interrogation like tonight… In which case, Anna would end up finding out about both.

Billy was tired. So, so tired. So worn out. His brain was begging for sleep. But he told it to hold on just a bit longer… The next words he said had to be carefully chosen, and they had to be convincing.

Anna stared down at her woozy, trapped brother. Her intelligent, perceptive eyes gleamed, as she awaited his reply.