Page 37 of Beyond Protection
It hurt. Good hurt. The kind that meant something stuck was finally moving.
"Breathe," he said.
I breathed.
His hands were firm and confident. He knew what he was doing—how much pressure, which angle, when to hold, and when to ease off. It wasn't something he'd learned from a YouTube video. It was training. Knowledge. Competence applied through touch.
"Better?" he asked after a minute.
"Yeah."
He didn't stop. His palm moved across my back, finding every knot, every locked muscle, and every place I'd been holding tension since Thanksgiving. Working methodically. Thoroughly. He leaned into each press, and I listened to his breath steady above me, both hands moving now in synchronized pressure that bordered on pain but promised relief.
I closed my eyes.
Somewhere in the rational part of my brain, I knew it was only stretching. Recovery work. Something any good trainer would do.
With Eamon, every point of contact felt like it meant something more. Every place his hands settled and pressed and held was deliberate. Intentional.
"You hold everything in your shoulders," he said quietly.
"Occupational hazard."
His hands kept working. Patient. Thorough.
My hands flexed against the mat. Instinct. I had a need to reciprocate, to balance the equation and do something, so this wasn't just him giving and me taking.
I started to push up.
Eamon's hand pressed down between my shoulder blades. Not hard.
"Don't," he said quietly.
"I should—I can help, I can—"
"No." Firm voice. "Lie there."
My breath caught. The pressure of his hand—gentle and implacable—pinned me in place. I could have moved if I'd wanted to, but something about his instruction and the care in his voice locked me down more effectively than force ever could.
"I don't know how," I whispered. "I don't know how to just—let someone—"
"I know." His hand stayed where it was. "That's why I'm doing it anyway."
"But you're—what do you want? There has to be—"
His other hand settled on the back of my neck. Warm. Grounding. "This isn't a transaction, Mac. Some things belong to you."
I swallowed around a lump in my throat. My face pressed into the mat with Eamon's hands on me. I had nowhere to hide.
"I don't—" My voice cracked. "Everyone wants something."
"I know you think that, but I'm going to keep showing up anyway. And eventually you'll figure out that sometimes people only want to give you things because you're worth it."
I couldn't speak.
His hands kept working. He wasn't only treating an injury anymore. He was teaching me—slowly, patiently—how to receive. How to accept care without calculating the debt. How to be still and let someone else carry the weight for five goddamn minutes.
When he finally sat back, I didn't move immediately. I lay there, breathing, feeling the places where his hands were still there like ghost prints on my skin.
