Page 39 of The Sound of Silence

I shook my head.

“I don’t think so, Derek. Maybe I’ll go back one day. I just don’t think I’m ready.”

He raked a hand through his hair and seemed to contemplate something.

“Look, you’ve got a lot of spark. I’m going to throw this out there for you to consider. I do personal training.” My eyes widened and I began to shake my head again, but he held up his hand. “Hear me out. I teach the private self-defense lessons differently than I would a standard personal training session. They aren’t one-on-one. I partner up with Hana, another trainer. I’ve found having another woman present helps put the trainee at ease. Hana and I demonstrate technique until the trainee is comfortable enough to jump in. We work together to figure out what your boundaries are.”

Personal training?

I nearly laughed.

“That’s a nice offer, but I’d never be able to afford personal training sessions.”

“You’d get the same deal. The first month will be free. If you decide to go past that, we can negotiate a price that works for you. Remember, I’m the owner. I can do things like that,” he added with a wink and flashed me a self-assured smile. He seemed sincere yet I found myself hesitating.

“You helped me find a job, and now you’re offering me free, private self-defense classes. I don’t want to sound unappreciative, but I can’t help wondering what the catch is.”

“No catch at all. New York is a tough crowd. We aren’t really known for being the city of good neighbors, so I try to do my part in changing that bad rep by paying it forward now and again. Plus, I know I really messed up back there in the class. I shouldn’t have pushed right away. Consider this my way of making it up to you.”

He had me backed into a corner. I’d be foolish to pass up the offer yet I still felt uncertain.

“I don’t have to do anything until I feel ready, right?”

His eyes softened, and a look of concern passed quickly over his features. Before I could decipher what that concern may have meant, it was replaced with a look of determination—as if I was a challenge he was prepared to meet head-on.

“Not until you’re one hundred percent ready. There won’t be any pressure. Scouts honor,” he said, holding up three fingers. This time, I did laugh.

“Okay, boy scout. I’ll try, but I’m not making any promises.”

His smile was wide as he extended a hand to me.

“It’s a deal then. See you tomorrow, say ten in the morning?”

“It’s a deal.”

17

Derek

Iwatched Val disappear through the entry door to her apartment building and felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. If I had any questions about whether she was running from her husband, they were answered the minute she ran out of my defense class. She was, without a doubt, the victim of abuse. There was no other explanation.

I’d been teaching women’s self-defense classes for nearly eight years. Every woman was different, but they all suffered long-lasting emotional effects. Through the years, I learned offering support to a survivor went well beyond teaching them physical defense maneuvers. It meant I had to be receptive and nonjudgmental about whatever symptoms of trauma they might have. I had to listen to when they were speaking and respond without judgment. I also had to be careful about asking too many questions, which could possibly cause the survivor to be afraid.

And most importantly, I’d learned that certain touches could trigger memories, comparable to PTSD, and be counterproductive to any defensive maneuver I was trying to teach. I knew better than to touch Val before knowing her triggers. I knew how important it was to discover things that could elicit a negative reaction before any physical contact. It was practically the number one fucking rule—never remind a survivor of any sort of unresolved trauma from their past.

Yet I did exactly that with Val.

I had purposely ignored the rules.

What kind of man did that make me?

I’m a selfish dick.

I wanted her close to me, and I’d put that above all else. I wanted to interact with her—to have her so near I’d be able to smell the scent of the shampoo she’d used that morning. I wanted to have my hands on her—on her shoulders, hips, and thighs—positioning her body in different defensive stances.

That didn’t just make me selfish—it made me a sick fuck.

I thought back to what I was doing that may have provoked her adverse reaction. I’d had one hand on her arm, the other on her neck. Was she afraid to have her arms pinned? Or was it the chokehold that sent her reeling? I didn’t know the answer but it was my job, as her personal defense trainer, to find out.

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