I heard a sound in the dojo and stopped. My place should have been empty of students. I crept down the hall.
Ramona stood barefoot on a mat. She’d changed out of her bloody suit and into yoga pants and a tight tank top. She held a standard pair of tonfa and studied herself in the mirror on the back wall.
“Widen your stance and bend your knees.”
She watched my reflection approach her and smiled. “I could say the same to you under different circumstances.”
“I thought you went with your Grandma and Jessica.”
Ramona lost her smile when she realized I wouldn’t play along. “They’re fine. I’m the one who needs to learn to fight. Big battle ahead, you know?”
I thought of Lina. “We all fight the darkness in different ways. Maybe you don’t belong on the battlefield.”
“Grandma thinks I do. I saw it in her eyes.”
“Then, here.” I adjusted her upper body and used my foot to push hers out farther until it lined up with her shoulder.
“I thought you said I didn’t belong on the battlefield.”
“You don’t. But, I told you I’d teach you in the dojo, and I keep my promises.”
She leaned back against me. “I like that in a woman.”
“This is how you hold the tonfa.” I adjusted the weapons in her hands. “That allows you to swing—”
Ramona turned her head and kissed my mouth. She tasted of sage and rainwater and her lips felt as warm as sunlight. I swear I sensed the earth turning under my feet. I’d never kissed a woman, never thought about it. But I didn’t pull back until she finished.
She leaned in to kiss me again.
“No. Ramona, I’m sorry.”
“We could die tonight.” She laughed a little. “Did that sound as lame to you as it did to me?”
I smiled. “Pure cliché.”
“But still true.”
“Clichés usually are.”
“All the true stories have an element of cliché.” She put the tonfa down and turned to face me. “Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl meets girl….”
“And says no, because it’s too soon since girl lost boy.” Not to mention you’re a goddess-in-waiting who’s way above my paygrade and I’ve been told to let you down easy.
Ramona looked down, still smiling. Then she looked back up at me. Out of her heels, we were the same height. “So…too soon means there’s a chance later?”
I shook my head. Then I took her face in my hands. “You’re very beautiful and smart, and not meant for me.”
“I don’t get to decide that?”
“Not in this case.”
“I get the sense that it’s not your decision, either.”
Let my granddaughter down easy.
“Maybe it isn’t.”
Ramona reached up, wrapped her fingers around mine and drew my hands down. She held them and said, “Let me know when you’re free to make your choice.” Ramona moved in for a second swift kiss and I let her.
She picked up the tonfa and put them back, then I watched her walk out of the dojo with all the grace and glory of a full-fledged goddess. She may not have been ready for it in that moment, but I felt like I’d gotten a preview.
And when she transformed, she would be breathtaking.