Chapter 33 #2
“I think you mistake gentleness for access.” I let a beat pass.
“I think you see a girl with scars and tell yourself a story where being curious counts as being kind.” Another fraction of pressure.
Another hitch in his breath. “I think you believe if you hang around the edges long enough, eventually somebody damaged enough will confuse your persistence for tenderness.”
His elbows dip.
The bar settles harder into his chest. Not enough to collapse him. Enough to make his face twist. A sharp grunt breaks out of him before he can bite it off.
There it is.
“Don’t,” he gasps.
The word is instinctive. It slips out humiliatingly raw, the shame hitting him right after. Good. Shame teaches faster than threats ever do.
“Don’t what?” I ask, almost gentle. “Press?”
A little more weight.
His heels dig into the floor, the soles of his shoes squealing against rubber. Every tendon in his neck jumps. He’s still trying to keep the bar off his ribs, but now he’s not pretending this is about pride or posturing. Now it’s just survival. The body gets so honest when you corner it properly.
“Or maybe,” I continue, as if we’re in the middle of a calm conversation instead of this, “you thought Octavia would be grateful somebody noticed her pain. Maybe you thought if you looked wounded enough yourself, she’d lower the knife.
” My mouth pulls wider. “That must be the embarrassing part. She didn’t lower anything. She broke your face.”
His eyes flash.
That still gets him. Even now. Especially now.
“She-” he starts.
I drive the bar down another inch.
The sentence dies as a crushed sound in his throat.
Not a scream. Not even close. Just that involuntary noise a body makes when it suddenly understands something has turned against it.
His grip slips, then catches. One more inch and he’ll lose leverage.
One more inch and every breath gets expensive.
Crouching beside the bench so we’re eye level, I peer at him.
“Finish that sentence,” I hiss.
He can’t. Not because he doesn’t want to. Because right now speech costs air and I’m rationing that for him.
My thumb taps once against the cold steel.
“You want to know what keeps me calm?” I ask. “How easy this could be.”
His pupils widen.
“I could let go for one second and blame your own ego for the rest.” I warn, glancing meaningfully at the loaded plates. “Nobody would even have to lie very hard.”
He believes me. That is the important thing. Not the threat itself. The fact that he can see I am not bluffing, and worse, that I’ve already thought through the practical details.
He tries to push again, his arms buckling visibly this time.
Letting the weight settle until it pins him enough that his next inhale comes thin and high, his breath is caught halfway in his chest. Panic flickers brighter. Sweat beads along his upper lip. He looks at the bar like it betrayed him.
“Listen,” I say quietly. “I want you to carry this feeling for a while.”
His eyes drag back to mine.
“This helpless part. This pressure. The understanding that all your strength means nothing if somebody stronger decides to make a lesson out of you.”
He swallows against a dry throat.
Taking one hand off the bar, I slap him across the face.
Not hard enough to break anything. Hard enough to turn his head and make the bruise Octavia left flare red again. Hard enough to remind him I’ve got room to improvise.
His head snaps back, his shock blooming more than the pain.
Hitting him again, open-handed, I got for the other side this time.
“You don’t get to wear that mark from her like a trophy,” I smile.
“You don’t get to take her rage home and make it part of your little fantasy.
” My voice stays low, which somehow makes it meaner.
“You get to remember what it felt like when she hit you, and then you get to remember there was more where that came from.”
His breathing is ragged now. He’s stopped trying to posture completely. Good. Posture wastes time.
Shifting my grip, I curl both hands more firmly over the bar, lifting just enough for one measured second he thinks I might be easing off.
Relief flashes over his face.
Then I shove down hard.
The metal drives into his chest with a brutal clang that jolts the entire bench. He cries out, small, and ugly, the sound tearing loose before he can control it. His hips jerk. One plate rattles violently against the collar. His hands scramble, nearly losing the bar altogether.
“Fuck,” he chokes.
“Yes,” I scoff. “Now we’re speaking honestly.”
He’s breathing fast enough to get dizzy. I can see it in the way his eyes keep trying to refocus. I let him suffer there for a few long beats, pinned under weight and humiliation, then lean close enough that my words brush his cheek.
“You’re going to stay away from her because fear taught you to,” I murmur. “Not because I asked nicely. Not because you suddenly respect boundaries. Because your body is going to remember this every time you think about testing me again.”
His lips peel back. “You’re fucking crazy.”
I nod once. “You keep saying that like it changes your situation.”
Reaching down, I catch two fingers in the collar of his shirt, tugging him just enough to make the fabric bite into his throat. My other hand never leaves the bar.
“I know exactly what boys like you sound like when they think they’ve found a weak point. I know that sweet careful tone. I know that false patience. I know how quickly concern turns into resentment when the girl still says no.”
His expression flickers at that. Recognition. Not of me. Of himself.
There it is.
I smile again, but there’s no humor in it.
“You saw her pain and thought it made her reachable. It didn’t. It just made you stupid enough to stand where I could find you.”
He shuts his eyes for half a second, whether from pain or fury I don’t know. When he opens them again, they’re wet at the corners. Not crying. Just body stress. Another humiliation.
Perfect.
Rising to stand, I press the bar down one last time until the metal kisses his chest so hard his whole torso quivers under it. Then, very slowly, I slide my gaze to the side of the bench where the safety clip sits loose from one end of the bar.
He sees me looking.
That scares him more than anything else so far.
Because now he’s imagining what happens if a plate slips. If balance goes. If all that weight tips wrong while he’s trapped beneath it.
I don’t even have to touch the clip.
I just let my fingers hover over it.
His face goes pale under the flush.
“Please,” he cries.
That word hangs in the air between us, almost sweet in its ruin.
Glancing down at him, I see it.
Fear.
There it is. There’s the truth. Strip enough comfort away and every man becomes a prayer in a body.
Letting him sit in that for a second, and then another, the clock on the wall ticks.
When I speak, my voice is almost kind.
“Now you sound teachable.”
Taking my hand away from the clip, I return it to the center of the bar, not lifting yet.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I start.
“You are going to get out from under this bar and walk out of this room. You are going to scrub Octavia’s name out of your mouth.
You are going to stop looking for her, speaking to her, speaking about her, hovering around people she knows, dragging her history into conversations where it does not belong.
” My gaze locks on his. “And you’re going to do all of that because next time I won’t stop at frightening you. ”
His chest heaves under the steel. He nods once. Fast. Too fast.
I slap him lightly, not even really a hit, just enough to sting and make him flinch.
“Use your words.”
"Yes,” he spits, humiliated by how quickly it comes out.
“Yes, what?”
His nostrils flare. For a moment I think he might choose pride and make me hurt him worse.
Then survival wins.
“Yes,” he says again, lower. “I understand.”
No, you don’t...I guess you need more motivation.
Lifting the bar just enough for him to believe relief is coming, his elbows strain upward as he tries to take some of the weight back.
Reacting, I suddenly shove it sideways, just enough to tilt one loaded end lower than the other, the plates on the dipped side lurching with a savage metallic crash.
He yelps, eyes flying wide as the whole bar jerks crooked in his grip, balance threatening to spill.
He is instantly fighting not just weight now, but chaos, trying to keep the loaded side from tipping, muscles convulsing in panic.
The sound of metal grinding over metal shrieks through the empty room.
“That,” I say over the noise, calm as can be, “is how fast control disappears.”
Adjusting the bar before the plates can slide off, his arms shake so violently, he almost drops everything. He is breathing like he sprinted here. Face white. Mouth open. The smell of fear is almost clean.
Then, finally, I re-rack the bar, the metal slamming into the hooks, the sound ringing through the gym, my feet dragging as I take a step back.
He doesn’t move at first. He just lies there staring up at the ceiling, dragging air into his lungs like he isn’t sure it still belongs to him. His chest rises hard and fast under the sweat-soaked shirt. One hand twitches against the bar, still trapped in the memory of holding it.
I only let him have a second before I am grabbing the front of his shirt, hauling him halfway upright.
His face comes close to mine. He smells like salt and terror.
“If I hear your name near hers again,” I warn, each word clear, “I will make this room the last place you ever feel safe.”
Shoving him back down, his shoulder blades hit the bench, his body flinching like he expects more.
He should.
Straightening my back, I smooth the front of my shirt, glancing once at the fading bruise along his jaw where Octavia hit him. My thumb twitches with the urge to reopen it.
Instead I lean down, close enough that only he can hear the last part.
“She defended me without me asking,” I murmur. “Do you understand what kind of devotion that earns from a man like me?”
His throat works. He doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t need to.
Patting his cheek once mockingly, I step away from the bench.
“Stay afraid,” I whisper, before turning away, leaving him there there under the fluorescent lights, shaking too hard to pretend otherwise.