That’s all.
I stalked into the gym’s sleek bathroom, surrounded by backlit marble, and stared at myself in a mirror; jaw so tense I could see the muscles as they shifted.
My face looked the same in the mirror, but I didn’t feel the same.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
4
COLT
Next session,I showed up ten minutes earlier than everyone else.
But Blair was already there. Neat again. Tidy. The same professional mask on his face. Armor he never set down. But I noticed that his pen shivered as I walked past him.
I didn’t say a word, but I let my shoulder brush him as I took the furthest seat.
Travis came in a few minutes later. He looked smug as hell and swaggered in as if he owned the place. As if on cue, he tossed me a smirk as he plopped into the chair across the circle. His tattoos shifted and moved as he stretched out.
I caught the way his stare dragged over Blair. Too long and too familiar. Too dirty. The type of stare that made my fists itch and my body tighten.
Blair ran the session as usual, calm and measured. But he constantly tracked my movements.
Halfway through, he paused and asked the group, “What is control? When instinct screams to react and fight?”
Silence. No one uttered a word. I didn’t raise my hand because that’s what was expected.
I just said, “Control is a cage.”
Clear walls, a door that clicks. A clock you don’t rush because you can’t. You sit inside it where everyone can see you. And you keep your hands still.
Blair’s focus locked on me.
“Why a cage?” he asked.
“Because,” I said, “it’s the best way to describe how it feels. To hold it back, to lock it down. It’s not control; it’s confinement.”
His eyes never left me as he tried to see past my ribs to see the thing that snarled underneath.
Blair’s lips parted. “Is that how you felt during the Mercer fight? Caged?”
I narrowed my eyes and shut out everyone else in the room.
“No,” I said, my voice low. “During the fight, I felt free.”
A few men in the group shifted in their seats, their discomfort evident.
Blair nodded, intently. “Thank you for your honesty.”
His constantly calm demeanor infuriated me.
Part of me wanted to rip the tranquility right off his face and see who he was without a shield to protect him.
Because the truth was, honesty didn’t matter. Not here, not with Blair. He was the one who would sign off on me at the end of this circus they called therapy. Blair’s tidy little reports, his judgment. He’d decide whether I got back on the ice.
Maybe that was why he continued to return to the video, so he could see how bad I looked on repeat. To stack the deck against me when the time came for him to either sign his name or end my career.
When the session finally ended, I stayed behind again.
