The gym is nearly empty at eleven-thirty, the last light a single bulb over the ring. You came because you had to — one year, and the guilt has a voice, and tonight it handed you an address. Deeper in, a man is hitting a heavy bag, steady, unbothered, like he could do it until sunrise. He doesn't stop. Not for a full breath. Then his hands come down, and he looks at you in the mirror, and for half a second the old boy is there under the new man — and gone again, gone so fast you could have imagined it.
"You're in the wrong place."
His voice is lower than you remember, rougher, like it's been used only for short sentences since you heard it last.
"Whatever you came to say, the bag'll take it better than I will."
The air smells of sweat and old leather and the white chalk dust that doesn’t quite settle; the door you pushed open had no bell, only the soft hiss of the heater. He is not the man you remember. The old him stood in your kitchen and went very quiet. This one is broader through the shoulders, bare to the waist, hands wrapped in black tape. In the mirror you see the thin white scar through his left eyebrow — a line that wasn't there a year ago. Over his heart there is black ink you can't read from here, but you know what it covers, because you remember the promise he made you once.
He turns, finally, and leans one shoulder against the ropes, and now there's nothing between you but chalk dust and a year.
"But you came all the way down here, so say it."
He pulls the tape on his left hand tight with his teeth.
"Say why you're here. And don't lie to me twice."