Chapter 20 Shrinking
Even though I'm experienced, confident even, on a bike, the moment I realized something was wrong, terror flooded me. In my heart, I believe Lyra has tampered with the brakes on my bike.
I couldn't tell the police though. I froze. I told myself she may hate me but not to the point of killing me. I've always hated confrontation. When something feels dangerous or overwhelming, my instinct is to pretend it never happened, to disappear, to run. So that's what I did.
That is what I have always done. Just keep quiet and disappear.
I learned it in childhood from listening to my parents praise my sister with words they never seemed to have for me.
From the way my sister measured my worth against everyone else's achievements.
From the way my ex used to look at me with silent disappointment, as if hoping I might shapeshift into someone easier, someone less complicated.
Even with Arlo, I learned how to shrink. How to become the quietest version of myself. The least demanding so that I don't overwhelm him. So yeah, I was deep in a pity party. It didn't help that I'd just opened another rejection email, this one for The Desert Princess and Her Lions story.
Everything felt stripped away at once. No dream job. No Arlo. No family to fall back on. And hanging over all of it was the sharp, undeniable truth that I had almost died.
But that was the thing, I hadn't.
Lying in my room, I realised that this time, shrinking had almost gotten me seriously hurt. Avoiding Lyra hadn't protected me. Disappearing hadn't kept me safe. I walked away with a few scratches, yes, but it could have been so much worse.
It was time to get up and move on. So the following day, I answered the messages I'd been ignoring of Arlo's, March's, Asa's.
Then I grabbed my jacket, left the house, and went to the Dojo.
I went straight to the heavy bag and started hitting.
The punches were messy and wild, lacking precision or technique, but they carried all the weight of every thought I had refused to articulate.
My breath began to fray. My shoulders ached. My knuckles burned.
At some point, a quiet presence filtered into my awareness.
I didn't turn, but I sensed him standing there, hesitant, unsure of how close he was allowed to be.
Asa hovered just outside my reach, hands tucked nervously into the sleeves of his hoodie.
His expression was careful, earnest, and achingly gentle.
He watched me for a long moment before he finally spoke.
"Feb," he said, voice soft but steady, raising his palms as if calming a frightened horse. His smile was small and nervous, an attempt at levity that trembled at the edges. "You are assaulting that poor punching bag like it insulted every pet you've ever owned. Should I... be worried?"
A strangled laugh escaped me, half-breath, half-sorrow.
"I'm fine," I said, though the words wavered as they left me.
Asa took a tentative step forward.
"You know," he murmured, gaze intent yet impossibly kind, "I've seen you angry before... But this... this looks like something that's swallowing you from the inside."
His voice was soft, but his perception cut straight through me. I stared down at my trembling hands, ashamed of how unsteady they'd become. It took effort to speak. When the words finally came, they scraped their way out like broken glass.
"I think Lyra, my ex's ex, tampered with my motorcycle," I whispered. "I think she cut the brakes."
For a moment, Asa went completely still.
"She did what?" His voice broke halfway through the sentence, disbelief colliding with a sudden, frightening anger. "Feb, that's attempted murder. Did you go to the police?"
"They were there," I said quickly. "They asked if I suspected anyone, and I didn't want to say her name unless I had proof. I kept telling myself no one would actually... try to hurt someone like that." I swallowed hard. "She's pregnant. I'm just the ex of her ex. Why would she want me gone?"
My throat tightened until the words almost stopped coming. "So when they asked if I had someone in mind, I said nothing. I still haven't said anything."
I felt impossibly small in that moment, like my body had folded in on itself. Asa stepped closer. "Feb," he said gently, "even if you'd said her name, they wouldn't have chained her up on the spot. They would've started looking for evidence. That's all."
I didn't answer. I knew he was right. I just didn't want to believe she was capable of it. Asa exhaled softly, then lowered his voice, something protective settling into it. "Can I tell you something?" he asked. "And I need you to really hear it."
I nodded.
"A long time ago," he began, eyes drifting somewhere distant, "some boys kept bullying me outside school. They hated everything I was without knowing me at all. I thought that if I stayed calm, if I didn't react, if I didn't defend myself, they'd lose interest eventually."
He swallowed hard.
"They didn't."
His fingers worried the edge of his sleeve, twisting the fabric until it wrinkled beneath his grip.
"They cornered me one day and kept hitting me," he said quietly. "They only stopped when they got bored." His mouth tightened. "I thought if I stayed kind, if I stayed gentle and kept my head down, they'd leave me alone. I thought being quiet would make me acceptable to them."
He looked away.
"But some people don't attack because of what you do," he added. "They attack because of what you are." His fingers stilled. "And they only stop when they've taken enough."
He lifted his eyes to mine, and there was something fierce beneath all that softness.
"People like Lyra," he said with quiet conviction, "do not stop because you show them grace. They stop because one day, you decide you will no longer be quiet or apologetic."
Before I had a chance to respond, the side door swung open with such ferocity the sound reverberated through the room like a crack of thunder, and March stormed in, her hair wild and her eyes blazing with something that looked like both fury and fear.
She took one look at me, then Asa, then back at me.
"Oh finally she got outside her house. Now get up," she said, her voice trembling with emotion she was barely containing. "Feb, get up. Now."
"I am up—" I tried to protest weakly, gesturing vaguely to the bag.
"No," she repeated, her voice louder this time, pointing toward the sparring mat with shaking fingers. "Get up properly. Get on the mat. I want you to fight me."
I stared at her in disbelief.
"March, I'm exhausted," I murmured, trying to force humor into my voice, though it broke before it formed. "I can barely stand."
"That's perfect," she replied fiercely. "Maybe exhaustion will finally make you snap and maybe for once you'll act instead of fold."
She threw a padded glove into my chest, and it bounced off uselessly.
I shook my head quickly. "I'm not fighting you."
"I want you to fight me and hit me," she snapped. "Not a punching bag. A person. Me. Fight back, February. Fight back!"
"Please stop," I whispered.
"No. I won't stop, because you almost lost your life, and you're letting her off the hook but that won't protect you. It didn't protect you."
"Stop," I said again, louder this time, though the word fractured.
She continued anyway, one step closer, then another.
"She will keep hurting you, and you will let her, because you are terrified of taking up space, terrified of being seen..."
"I SAID STOP!"
March stood there, stunned into silence, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her face raw with emotion she couldn't contain. I felt the heat of tears gathering before I could blink them away.
"I'm sorry okay?" I yelled. "I am sorry I'm not like you. I'm not like Jan. I don't know how to be fierce or untouchable or loud. I hate conflict and I hate confrontations."
"I almost lost you," she whispered. "I almost lost you Feb! I almost LOST YOU! Don't you understand that? If circumstances had shifted only slightly, we would be planning a funeral instead of standing here. I would rather have you furious and loud and visible than silent and gone."
I stepped forward and wrapped her in my arms, and she clung to me with a ferocity that felt like fear, and grief, and love.
"I get it," I murmured against her shoulder, tasting both salt and truth. "I will not let her take anything else from me."
March pulled back just enough to look at me, really look, her eyes shining with relief and terror and anger and pride all tangled together.
"You won't do it alone," Asa said, stepping forward, resting a steady hand between my shoulders. "You have all of us. We are here, and we are not leaving."
I closed my eyes and breathed for the first time in days.
"Thank you," I whispered.
March wiped her cheeks roughly with the heel of her hand, her voice trembling with stubborn determination. "For the record," she added, "Jan would've eaten her alive."
I let out a short breath that might have been a laugh. "I know."
"Anyway," March went on, drawing in a steadying breath, as though bracing herself for what came next, "Arlo found her husband."
My eyes opened slowly, the air in the room shifting.
"What?"
"Yes," she replied, her lips curling into something sharp and triumphant. "He's coming here. Apparently he is not what we were led to believe."