Page 167 of Break the Ice
“I don’t want to talk today.” There’s too much going through my head for me to filter what comes out of my mouth, and she’s too good at prying.
“Then why did you arrive on time for our session?” Connie doesn’t look at me. “Goodness, this burns a lot faster than I thought it would.”
“Because your body isn’t used to it,” I chuckle at her frown before I answer her question, “I came to work out.”
“Before physio? Obviously, I don’t know much about fitness, but it sounds counter-intuitive. No?”
It’s pointless trying to work around her questions when her job, that she is highly acclaimed for, is to pry answers out of people. That’s a battle I’m never going to win, so instead, I ask, “How did you know I was here? On time?”
“I saw you at reception.” The knowing tone of her voice gives me pause, and I know she notices me stiffen because the rhythm of her workout stutters. “Who was that you were talking to?”
“Nobody,” I reply, heading to the Z-press on the other side of the mat.
Connie doesn’t adjust her position to face me as she asks, “Do you make a habit of getting cross at nobody?”
After adjusting the weights on the press, I lean into it, debating what to reply. “Ryker and I used to know each other back in the day.”
“Ah, so he’s not a nobody. He has a name, and you have a past together.”
“No,” I grit, lifting the bar from side to side and holding between each alternation. “We’re not like that. It’s not… I’m not…”
“You’re not what?” She asks, out of breath while I continue lifting and holding.
You think you’re so innocent?
You think you didn’t ask for it?
Stop pretending you didn’t want it.
Everyone saw.
“I told you I don’t want to talk today,” I growl, heaving the weights from side to side as fast as I can. My bones scream like they might snap.
“How about I talk, and you listen, then?” Connie puts the dumbbells down before she sits on the step facing me while I hang over the Z-press.
Glancing up at the clock, I take stock of the time. “I have to meet Coach in twenty.”
She nods. “Yesterday, we talked about Presley Tomes, why you dislike him… homophobic sack of shit comes to mind.”
“He is,” I growl down at the floor, focusing my mind on my breaths and my blood pulsing to my hands until it throbs in my fingertips.
“Today we’ve talked about Ryker and?—”
“Hardly. He’s not worth talking about.”
“I see.” I side glance at her through the loose strands of hair that have escaped during my workout. I expected her to be watching me or something, but instead she’s examining one of the dumbbells. “Is Presley worth talking about?”
“No.”
Connie nods, picking up the other dumbbell and pushing to her feet. Surprisingly, she goes back to the reps I showed her.
“Is that why you don’t want to talk?” She asks, focusing her stare on the whitewashed brick wall ahead.
I shrug, and she continues working out. Leaving me with my thoughts again while I get up and look around the gym for another way to silence it all. To exhaust myself to the point that even my brain gives up.
There is nothing that catches my eye. Not a single thing that screams catharsis, like when I tell her, “I didn’t want him to do it.”
It’s one phrase that can be spun a billion different ways, but it instantly lightens the weight in my chest.
