Petra had a theory about fighting.
She told me it on the third session, when I'd stopped flinching at correction and started treating the feedback as information rather than judgment. We were taking a water break — she sat on the platform edge with the economy of someone who did not waste seated time — and she said:
"The way a person fights tells you what they're afraid of."
I drank my water. "What does mine tell you?"
"That you're afraid of being caught from behind," she said. "You check your exits constantly. You position yourself with walls to your back when you can." She studied me. "Not paranoia. Habit. Long practice."
"Rogue years," I said.
"Long before that," she said. "The habit is old. Older than the rogueing."
She was right. It was older. It was the habit of a girl in a pa
