You can’t stop.
Bob. Weave. Combo. Combo. Combo.
You picture Reggie’s face. Brody’s.
Everyone’s talking about what they did. What they did to you.
You don’t want to hit them, not really. You don’t want to hit anyone.
But you’re tired of thinking about them. You just want them to go away.
Two, one, two.Cross, jab, cross. The bag bucks on its chain, swings away and back, but your timing is off, and your next jab barely connects, sending the bag into a spin. You grab it to stop it, leaning your sweating forehead against it, but it’s heavier than you remember. And are your legs shaking?
You breathe hard, trying to catch your breath, trying to push off and get back into your stance, but once your arms slip away from the bag you can’t bring yourself to lift them again. You feel weak.
You think you’re going to throw up.
Instead you swallow it down and manage to bring your fists up again.
“Whoa, whoa,” Coach Nico says.
You drop your hands and glance back toward the entrance. He’s still in his outside clothes, jeans and a polo shirt with some company logo on the left breast, from his day job when he’s not coaching boxing. “You look like you need a break.”
You shake your head.
“I’m fine.”
You’ve still got another thirty minutes, plus weights after. Today’s leg day, and you never miss leg day. Not ever.
But Coach Nico drops his duffel bag on the front desk and comes over to you, grabbing the bag and holding it steady and looking right at you.
You meet his gaze, his blue eyes shadowed by his low-drawn brow, but you don’t know what he sees when he looks at you. You’re not sure you want to know. You like your coach, but he doesn’t know everything about you, and you don’t know if you’re ready for him to yet.
“It wasn’t a suggestion,” he finally says. “Come on.”
Something in his voice tells you he means business, so you drop your arms, try to scoop up your empty water bottle from where it’s leaning against one of the posts, but you can’t quite grab it with your gloves on, so he leans down and picks it up for you, giving it a shake.
“You need more water,” he says, walking you to the fountain, where he fills it up for you, and then he leads you past the others working out, a woman in her forties on the speed bag, one in her twenties on the pec deck, a guy in his twenties doing box jumps. He settles on the cubby bench and pats it for you to sit next to him, then hands you your water bottle.
You drink and drink and drink.
“You doing okay?” he asks.
“I’m fine,” you say, too quick, too aggressive.
His eyebrows rise, which really shows off the little bald scar on his right one.
“I’m okay,” you say again, firmer. You are.
“I’m worried about you,” he says, and you pause halfway through undoing your glove.
He takes your arm and opens up the Velcro, pulls off the glove, then gestures for your other arm. You let him, but you have a hard time keeping your arm higher than your chest.
“Here. Stay put.” He sets your gloves on the bench, gets up, comes back a moment later with his duffel bag, which is weird because you could swear all you did was blink, but he definitely went somewhere and came back. He pulls out a chocolate bar. Not a protein one, but a candy one. A Snickers. “Eat this.”
You shake your head. Candy is a definite no. Too much sugar, and the macros are all wrong, and—
“Farshid. You’re not eating right.”
