34

Marianna.

"Marianna." His voice is quiet now. Just for me. "Do you have a few minutes?"

"Of course." I look up at him. "What's up?"

"I was talking to Dr. Lindholm about your work with the F1 clients." He glances around the room, which is slowly emptying as people head to lunch. "She mentioned you've been doing some advanced posterior chain work. Shoulder rehabilitation. I'd love to hear more about your approach."

"Oh." I blink. "Sure. I mean, I'm still learning, obviously, but—"

"Walk with me." He gestures toward the door. "I want to show you something in the treatment wing. A technique I didn't have time to cover in the session. I think you'd appreciate it."

"Yeah," I say, shoving my notebook into my bag. "Absolutely. Thank you."

We walk through the hallways together. He asks me questions about my education, my clinical experience, my goals. I tell him about Eastside Physical Therapy—leaving out the part where I got fired—and about treating Oliver Hale, and about my hopes of eventually specializing in motorsport rehabilitation.

"It's a fascinating field," he says. "The G-forces alone create injury patterns you don't see anywhere else. The neck, the shoulders, the lumbar spine—all under tremendous strain."

He stops outside Recovery Suite 4—one of the smaller rooms, tucked at the end of a quiet corridor. "This is us."

He holds the door open. I walk in.

The room is standard Kinetic—treatment table, equipment wall, soft lighting. But it's smaller than the ones I usually work in. More private. The door clicks shut behind us.

"So." Dr. Hartley moves to the treatment table, patting the surface. "I want to show you a technique for deep hip flexor release. It's not in the textbook—too advanced for most practitioners—but based on what I saw today, I think you can handle it."

Too advanced for most practitioners. He thinks I can handle it.

I should feel honored.

So why is there a small knot forming in my stomach?

"Hop up on the table," he says. "I'll demonstrate on you. It's easier to understand when you feel it in your own body."

This is normal. Clinical demonstrations often use the learner's body—it's how you understand what the patient experiences. I did this in school. I did it this morning, practicing with Marcus.

I climb onto the table. Lie face-up, as instructed.

"Good." Dr. Hartley stands beside me. "Now, the psoas is notoriously difficult to access. Most people don't go deep enough. They're afraid of causing discomfort."

His hand settles on my abdomen. Just below my navel. Pressing gently.

"Breathe for me," he says. "Let your belly expand."

I breathe. His hand moves lower.

This is normal. The psoas attaches to the lumbar spine and runs through the pelvis. You have to go through the abdomen to reach it.

"Can you feel that?" His fingers are digging deeper now. Into the soft tissue below my belly button. "That's the edge of the muscle."

I can feel it. The pressure. The slight discomfort as he works into the deeper layers.

But I can also feel something else.

His other hand. The one that's not doing the technique. It's resting on my hip.

He's stabilizing. That's what therapists do. They use one hand to stabilize while the other works.

"You carry a lot of tension here," he says. His voice is different now. Softer. More intimate. "Very common in young women. The hips hold emotional stress."

His thumb keeps pressing into the hollow just inside my hip bone. "Relax," he murmurs. "You're very tense."

I am tense. My entire body has gone rigid, every muscle fiber locking into place like someone hit the emergency brake on my nervous system.

This has happened before.

This always happens.

Wooden board. Freak. What kind of girl doesn't like—

"The psoas connects to the diaphragm," Dr. Hartley is saying, but his voice sounds far away now, like he's speaking through water. "When it's tight, it affects your breathing. Your emotional regulation. Everything."

His hand on my hip shifts. Slides lower. The tips of his fingers brush the skin just below my waistband—where my shirt has ridden up, where there's a strip of exposed flesh between fabric and fabric.

His wedding ring catches the light.

"Try to breathe," he says again. "I need you to relax for this to work."

I can't breathe.

I can't move.

"Such beautiful muscle tone," he says, and his fingers are definitely under my waistband now, not far, just a centimeter or two, but enough that there's no clinical justification, no anatomical reason, no textbook that would explain why his hand needs to be there.

I should say something.

I should move.

I should—

But I can't.

I can't.

My body won't obey me. It's somewhere else entirely, checked out, dissociated, leaving me trapped in this frozen shell while his hands keep moving and his voice keeps murmuring and the wedding ring keeps catching the light like a taunt.

This isn't happening. This can't be happening. He's Dr. Kevin Hartley. He gave a TED Talk. He helped Olympic athletes. He wouldn't—

"You have so much potential," he says.

His hand is fully under my shirt now. Palm flat against my stomach. Warm and heavy and wrong wrong wrong—

Move!

But my mouth won't open. My limbs won't move. I'm paralyzed, pinned to this table by some invisible force that I don't understand and can't fight, and all I can do is stare at the ceiling and wait for it to be over.

Just like—

Just like—

Stop—

"Marianna?"

Dr. Hartley's voice snaps me back.

He's pulled away. Standing a foot from the table, hands at his sides, expression concerned. Professional. Like nothing happened at all.

"Are you alright? You completely spaced out."

I'm shaking. When did I start shaking?

"I—" My voice doesn't work. I clear my throat. Try again. "I don't feel well."

"Was that too intense? Some people have strong emotional responses to deep tissue work. The hip flexors especially—they hold a lot of trauma."

"I need to go." I'm sitting up now, swinging my legs off the table, moving toward the door. "I'm sorry. I just—I need to—"

"Of course." He steps aside, giving me space. "Take care of yourself. And Marianna—"

I stop. Hand on the door handle.

"This is completely normal," he says. His voice is warm. Kind. The voice of a mentor reassuring a struggling student. "The body stores emotions. Sometimes treatment brings them to the surface. If you ever want to talk about it—process what came up—my door is always open."

I nod. Can't speak.

And then I'm out of the room, moving down the hallway on legs that feel like they belong to someone else, and I don't stop until I reach the bathroom, where I lock myself in a stall and stand there shaking, trying to remember how to breathe.

What just happened?

What the fuck just happened?

I press my hands against the cold tile wall. Force air into my lungs.

He didn't do anything wrong.

Did he?

He was teaching me a technique. His hands were where they needed to be. Mostly. And even when they weren't—even when his fingers were under my waistband, under my shirt—it could have been accidental. It could have been poor boundaries rather than... than...

I can't even think the word.