"Maybe he was happy to be there." McKenzie bites a pretzel. "My update is that I got a DM from Kyle."
"Kyle the ex?" I ask.
“The shit burger. He said, and I quote, ‘I’ve considered what you said and think you should return to Kentucky for some growth work.’” She gags. "Growth work. He can't even grow a full beard."
"So that's a no," Aarthi says.
"That is a block, delete, and sage my phone.” McKenzie pulls a leg practically behind her ear, demonstrating incredible flexibility I’m not envious of at all. “What I actually want is to just … get laid. No feelings. No growth work. Just a nice man with a functional body and low expectations." She turns to me. "Ella. Your brother is a professional hockey player."
"Unfortunately."
"Doesn't he have friends? Aren't hockey guys like, famously …" She waves a foot in the air. "Available?"
Aarthi snorts. "She means slutty."
"I mean open to casual encounters with consenting women."
I open my mouth to respond — to say something about the parade of women I've witnessed filtering through my brother’s rooms over the years — but the instructor claps her hands and saves me from a conversation I am absolutely not ready to navigate, given that I had a hockey player's hand down my shorts a few hours ago.
The teacher’s voice booms, as if she has practiced broadcasting to a full room. “Welcome, everyone! I'm Jules. Let's start with some basics."
Jules appears white, maybe five foot two, and built like a gymnast, with arms that suggest she could bench-press most of the women in this room. She radiates the calm authority I associate with charge nurses, no nonsense, but Jules is also kind.
We start on the ground. I listen as she explains grip technique: wrap the silk around your hands, pull it taut, feel the tension in your shoulders. My forearms burn almost immediately. Pumping pressure bags and restraining combative patients in the ER have given me functional strength, but this is different. This requires me to hold my own body weight, which is not insignificant, and trust that a piece of fabric won't let me go.
"Grip higher," Jules tells me, adjusting my hands. "Good. Now pull yourself up. Use your core, not just your arms."
I pull. My feet leave the ground by about two inches, and I immediately drop back down.
"That's perfect for your first time," Jules says. "Try again."
It feels humiliating, far from perfect. McKenzie, who apparently has hidden lizard DNA, scrambles up her silk with ease. Aarthi manages a wobbly hang. I try again and get slightly higher, arms shaking, the fabric biting into my palms.
"Use the foot lock," Jules says, crouching beside me. "Step on the silk with your right foot. Wrap it around your arch. Now the fabric carries some of your weight."
I do as she says, and something clicks. The silk catches under my arch, and suddenly I'm not fighting gravity alone. The fabric holds me, supports me. I pull up, wrap my foot tighter, and I'm suspended, a fairy. Flying. Three feet off the ground, gripping the silk above me, one leg wrapped and locked, the other extended into open air.
It's not graceful. My arms shake. My face is probably purple. But I'm up. I'm off the ground. My body — this body that I've spent years thinking of as too big, too much, taking up too much space in too many backseats — holds me in the air.
"Beautiful!" Jules claps. "Hold it. Breathe."
I breathe, thinking of Bernard offering the same suggestion and feeling my body flush all over. I look down at my hands wrapped in purple silk, my knuckles white, my forearms straining. My leg extends in the air, pointed in a way I choose to imagine is graceful. My core is engaged, working, and strong.
I tilt my head back and laugh. I can't help it. The sound erupts from somewhere deep and joyful, and it bounces off the warehouse ceiling, and McKenzie whoops from her silk, and Aarthi cheers from the mat where she's given up and sprawled on her back.
I feel incredible. I feel powerful. I feel like my body is a machine. I've been doubting my entire life, and someone just proved it works.
I arch my neck in triumph, chin up, grinning at the ceiling — and through the studio's front window, half-obscured by the logo stenciled on the glass, I see a face.
Bernard.
He stands on the sidewalk with his hands in his jacket pockets, watching me. His expression is strange. Not smiling, not frowning. He looks caught between wonder and ache, like he's squinting at something bright he knows he shouldn't stare at.
My stomach flips. I wobble on the silk, tightening my grip.
He came early to pick me up, and now I’m on display like the prow of a ship, but he sure doesn’t seem horrified. His face looks a little like it did when I first took my shirt off for my first lesson of the day. But I can’t think about that now, while I’m in a different lesson entirely.
Jules calls time. I lower myself, less gracefully than I'd like, more controlled than I expected, and land on the mat. My arms are jelly. My palms are raw and pink and I feel like I could run through a wall.
