Stimulus Overload #2
She tugged at the hem again automatically, trying to create space between the fabric and her skin. It stuck back against her immediately. Riley exhaled slowly through her nose.
Loose clothing allowed her to forget about it once it was on. Fabric that moved independently from her body faded into the background quickly enough to stop registering as active sensory information.
This did the opposite. Every movement carried feedback with it: the brush of material across skin, compression across her thighs. Restriction through her shoulders whenever she lifted her arms. Nothing disappeared.
The awareness of it sat constantly against her skin now, impossible to deprioritise no matter how many times she attempted to redirect her attention elsewhere.
For one brief moment, Riley felt her control slip, her frustration seeming to override her brain. She straightened immediately.
No, this was still manageable. Uncomfortable did not mean unmanageable. She could adapt. She would adapt.
By the time she returned from the bathroom, the camera setup had changed. Earlier recordings were structured: individual client sessions filmed with consent forms, fixed framing and clearly defined observational parameters she could review later with objectivity intact.
This was different. Now cameras were positioned around the gym floor itself, angled from multiple directions with overlapping coverage that eliminated any clear boundary between active filming and passive observation.
The gym itself had technically closed, but it wasn’t empty. Trainers still moved between scattered clients across the floor, enough lingering activity to prevent the environment from ever settling fully still, which was somehow worse.
Declan stood near one of the camera rigs speaking casually with one of the gym owners, posture loose and completely unaffected by the additional equipment surrounding him. One hand gestured lazily while he talked, his weight shifted onto one leg like none of this required effort from him at all.
As though observation changed nothing. Riley stepped onto the floor carefully, drawing in one slow breath as her gaze moved automatically across the room attempting once again to impose sequence onto the environment.
Weights. Machines. Open floor. Functional space. A logical progression, a pattern. Something repeatable.
It still refused to align.
The lack of resolution drilling further into her skull, her ability to compensate already worn down from hours spent trying to stabilise variables that kept shifting the second she identified them.
Her focus snagged repeatedly on movement that dissolved before completion, pathways that refused to hold long enough for her brain to organise them properly.
Then a whistle cut directly through her concentration.
“Looking good there, Riles.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
Riley’s expression tightened before she could stop it, nose wrinkling slightly, upper lip pulling back in immediate distaste.
Declan saw it, a low laugh escaping him, easy and unrestrained, like her reaction had been expected. Like this was normal, harmless.
Riley’s jaw locked. “Don’t call me that.”
He ignored the correction completely. “First session,” he said instead, glancing briefly toward the nearest camera. “Big moment.”
The transition was seamless enough to feel intentional. “Have you ever done a PT session before?”
“No.” Her answer came clipped and immediate. “It is not conducive to my current work schedule.”
“Right,” he said easily. “Then today’s the beginning of fixing that.”
Before she could respond, he reached over and hit record on the second camera. Riley felt it instantly, not the movement itself, but the awareness of it.
Another thing to account for. Yet another point of observation sitting just outside her focus, impossible to deprioritise once noticed.
Declan stepped back in front of her, but his attention never stayed in one place.
It shifted to the camera, back to her, over her shoulder toward movement on the gym floor, then back again. Small adjustments. Casual ones.
Riley tracked every single shift automatically. Camera. His face. Someone moving behind him. The metallic crash of a weight resetting somewhere to her left.
“Alright,” he said lightly. “We’re gonna start simple.” Simple, the word scraped somewhere in her head instead of settling properly.
“Feet here,” he said, demonstrating quickly. “Hip-width.”
Riley mirrored him exactly, adjusting the angle of her stance with precise alignment. That part, at least, made sense. Defined position, clear instruction.
“Good. Down.” She followed the movement.
Immediately, the fabric shifted against her skin, the shorts tightened across her thighs as she lowered, riding slightly with the movement instead of staying still.
The shirt dragged across her shoulders when her posture changed.
Every adjustment created another point of sensation demanding her attention.
The feedback felt wrong, then the music surged louder overhead. At the exact same moment, a weight crashed somewhere behind her. Her concentration split, her balance correcting half a second too late.
“Too far forward,” Declan said. “Sit back.” She adjusted immediately.
“Relax your shoulders.” Another correction.
“Stop overthinking it.”
“I am not—”
“You are,” he said easily. “I can see it.”
Her movement faltered. She reset her stance and tried again, but the inputs no longer separated cleanly.
They layered. Noise stopped sounding directional.
It compressed inward, music and voices and metal striking metal collapsing into one continuous pressure she couldn’t filter fast enough.
Movement kept catching at the edges of her vision: people crossing behind cameras, trainers walking between machines, reflections shifting unpredictably in mirrors.
And Declan kept talking. Sometimes directly to her, sometimes toward the camera. Sometimes half-turned away so she had to work harder to track the words properly.
Her focus narrowed further.
“Riles,” he said, half-laughing now, “it’s not that complicated.”
Her jaw tightened hard enough to ache. “It is not a matter of complexity.”
“Then why are you struggling with it?”