Boot Camp, page 5
“We keep going.”
“But I thought you said that was the challenge . . . ?”
“We’re going to run through a few dynamic stretches now,” he says, leading me away from the shoreline. “Let’s start with ten walking lunges and ten jump squats.”
I’ve never even heard of walking lunges, and need two different demonstrations to get it down. But by the fifth one, I understand why I never tried them before—my butt, legs, and even my back ache. The jump squats bring back suppressed memories from high school gym class, and by no surprise they’re even worse than I remember them.
“My legs—ow, shit, they burn.” I’m unable to complete more than seven without feeling like I’m going to tear a muscle somewhere. I bend over and wince, rubbing my already sore quads.
“Can we lighten up a bit? It’s only the first day.” I throw in some puppy eyes to appeal to his emotions.
“They’re supposed to burn,” he says dryly, his thick arms folded over his chest. Eventually, the soft eyes get to him, and I realize why they’re Ava’s favorite trick. “You get a minute to rest, and then we’ll continue the next leg of our run.”
I take him by surprise when I fall to the ground, using my permitted break to its maximum. Ignoring the sand sticking to the backs of my thighs, I stretch out my legs and close my eyes, feeling the sun beat down on my face. For a moment, I forget Axel’s even there.
“That’s your minute,” he says, after what feels more like five seconds. Towering above my head, he holds out a hand, but I don’t take it and heave myself up. “Let’s go.”
I force my legs to keep moving down the next half of the beach, but my mind is screaming at me to stop and walk all the way home, knowing it’s not that far from here. Axel tilts his head to the right and notices my flustered state, appearing apprehensive, as I doubt it’s every day that he encounters someone breathless and drained after the most rudimentary of workouts.
He slows his pace down a notch but says nothing. My brain finds it oddly cute after the fourth time I feel his glance, but it’s probably mush after all this physical activity anyway.
“You good?” he asks when we reach the end of the beach.
“Need some water?”
“No, no, I’m fine. I just haven’t”—I cough into my sleeve, feeling some phlegm clog my throat—“run at all in years. Apart from a 5K I tried and failed to run in April, the last voluntary run I can remember going on was sometime back in middle school.” I rack my brain to be certain, recalling the innumerable times I avoided them in gym class or with Mom around the neighborhood. “Yup, definitely been that long.”
“And you are now . . . ?” he asks, alluding to my age.
“Eighteen,” I say, nodding once and then twice, “sadly.”
Even I’m realizing how tragic that sounds.
“Well, shit,” he mumbles, looking away in thought. “This is going to be a lot harder than I thought, isn’t it?”
“Now you’re getting with the program,” I joke, wishing I had a glass of champagne to toast to my impending misery and his soon-to-be perpetual annoyance. “We’re not running back, are we?”
His face goes blank as he stares off at the rolling and crashing waves, making me realize I’m not the only one regretting all my life’s decisions. “Give me a moment.”
Dragging his fingers down the stubble on his jaw, he mumbles something indistinct and then returns with a smile that seems to pain him.
“How does walking sound instead?”
Chapter Five
The next morning at breakfast, I soothe myself with an everything bagel about the size of my head. I deserve it after making it through yesterday alive, although my calves have seen better days. Simply trying to get out of bed in the morning was an all-limb effort that resulted in me face-planting on the floor.
I look up and lock eyes with Aspen, clutching her tray and trailing her eyes across the occupied tables in the dining hall.
Between blinks, I see myself any day Ava was absent in high school, my stomach sinking the way it would when I would find every table full and all eyes on me.
Once when I was a freshman, I was naive enough to take up Willow’s offer to sit with her and her friends, fooled by her singsong, Hey Whitney, come sit with us! Still an unseasoned bully at that point, she spent the entire time poking fun at the size of my sandwich. Then she stuck her leg out and tripped me as I went to throw away the half I couldn’t bring myself to eat, which I ended up wearing on my shirt for the next two class periods.
Now she sits at a table between Joanna and Adriana, swirling her spoon in a bowl of oatmeal and making eye contact with no one.
What a joke.
“Hey, Aspen!” Martina calls, waving her over. “Come sit with us.”
Her brown eyes light up, and she advances towards us. I make room for her next to me at our small circular picnic table, hoping she’ll become another camp friend.
“Gosh, I was so worried I was gonna be stuck sitting alone again,” she says, setting down her tray with an omelet and a glass of orange juice. “How are you guys holding up after yesterday?”
Martina pushes away her empty plate and rests her fist under her chin. “Pretty good, all things considered. My guy’s Ryan, and he’s beyond chill. He spent half the session trying to get to know me or cracking stupid jokes. I gave him a pass on the humor because he’s nice to look at.” She wiggles her eyebrows.
“That’s gotta be nice,” Aspen sighs dreamily. “I’m stuck with this cynical blue-haired hippie who already told me not to expect to have any fun here.” She looks at my face, noticing my grimace. “What about you, Whitney?”
“Let me put this out there. Is he hot? Hell yeah. Are we going to get through these next five weeks without wanting to kill each other? Hell no. I’m not sure what degree of athleticism he was expecting, but this”—I gesture from my head to my toes—“was not it.”
“Come on, Whitney, you don’t seem that bad at exercise,”
Martina says sympathetically. “It’s not like you finished last place in our run yesterday.”
“Yeah, because I thought that was all the running we were going to be doing. Are there actually people who enjoy that sport, or have I been living a lie all these years?”
We chatter for the next half hour while the dining hall slowly thins out. I offer to take our trays to the return area by the entrance, and on my way there, I pass by Willow’s table. I do all I can to avoid direct eye contact with her, but I still feel the flames of her glare on my cheeks.
“Do you know that girl?” Joanna asks Willow, just loud enough for me to hear.
Willow shrugs. “Sort of, I guess.”
Sort of?! I drive my teeth into my bottom lip to prevent myself from blurting out the truth, close to piercing the skin.
Before I make any bad decisions, I turn on my heel and pound the tile as I walk out of the dining hall. With Aspen trailing her, Martina catches up to me and asks what’s wrong. I tell her it’s nothing and begin the sloping march from the dining hall back up to the center of the camp, cursing as my thigh muscles constrict.
At this point, I’m convinced everything here is designed to make us exercise.
We make a pit stop at the Central Building, where a giant screen mounted on the wall of the hallway lists our schedule, including the where, when, and what of our workouts; the dinner specials; and the evening activities. I’m hoping this evening’s game of capture the flag is optional, as I’m already dreaming of a nap, and it’s only nine in the morning.
“Rope climbing,” I read dryly.
“Kickboxing,” Martina says, clasping her chin. She squints and adds, “That one does sound kind of cool.”
Aspen stands on her toes to even see the screen. “What’s miscellaneous cardio on the beach supposed to mean?”
“It means you try not to die,” I say, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Best of luck.”
I’ll probably need it even more than you, I don’t say as we all burst into laughter again.
Halfway through my trek across camp, I smooth out the lines in my black T-shirt and readjust the angle of my high ponytail, oddly preoccupied with my appearance for a rope climb in the middle of the woods on a humid day. Maybe I would care less about how I looked if my trainer couldn’t pass for a part-time fitness model, yet another wrench thrown into this experience.
It’s not like he’s ever going to look at you that way, that cynical part of my subconscious tells me, and I don’t disagree, knowing I’m about as inexperienced and awkward as it gets around the opposite sex.
With a little more trudging, I spot Axel on the opposite side of the road leading up to the beach, leaning against the trunk of a tree with his arms folded across his chest. I try to even out my erratic breathing before I walk up to him and shoot him a tight smile.
“Hi. Hope you’re doing well.”
In response, he presses his lips into a firm line and nods.
“Sleep okay?” I nod, recalling my dreamless eight hours. “You’re gonna need it.”
He jogs up the grass without saying anything, beckoning for me to follow him. The new day brings more energy, but my strides are still heavier and far shorter than his are.
“You can do better than that!” he says as he approaches a clearing in the woods.
I force myself to his side. “Do you really know, though? I’m thinking these sessions will go a lot more smoothly if we share the same low standards for me, Axel.”
He cracks a white-toothed smile at my remarks, finding me entertaining for once. “Whitney, while my mental perceptions of you are—well—not what comes out of my mouth, I wouldn’t be your trainer if I kicked you while you were down.” He pauses and stares off into the distance. “You know what, I’d get fired if I did that, but we can pretend it’s because I’m nice.”
I let out a belly laugh, surprised I’m not even offended.
There’s a certain complacency that comes when you know you’re terrible at something, one that fuels the rest of our jog through the woods.
“Stop for a moment,” he instructs, and I do, trying to catch my breath. “Now follow me.”
We step onto a longer patch of grass, and the prickly blades tickle my ankles, sending a shiver down my spine. I have to remind myself it’s just nature.
Another prick.
Ew, ew, ew.
After a few more minutes of trudging, I make out wooden poles above my head, anchoring several thick ropes looming above a padded area of ground. A few feet away from the ropes are wooden blocks, resembling seats of some sort, but I’m unsure if that’s what they are.
“I don’t have to climb those ropes . . . right?”
Axel walks towards me and stands about a foot away from my chest. “We could try this, and maybe you might even find it fun, or we could go on that one-mile run I had in mind. Your choice, Whitney.”
“This.” The reply crosses my lips in seconds, almost as fast as it takes me to get to the foot of the rope. I drag my hand down the material, noticing it’s a lot smoother than I thought it would be, and then crane my neck to eye the top. “Would you catch me?”
“What?”
“If I fall,” I say, running my hand down the rope again.
A mischievous smile overtakes my face as I add, “I doubt your camp is in the mood for a lawsuit.”
“Catch you,” he muses. His eyes narrow as he continues,
“Yes. You can spare me the my-dad-is-a-lawyer-and-will-sue-your-ass speech.”
After this blunt reassurance, he demonstrates his technique, while I stand several feet from the rope. Axel springs up and grabs the rope, the muscles in his back visibly tightening as he pulls his knees closer to his chest. Hooking the rope around one foot, he steps on it with the other and extends his body, dragging himself upwards. He reaches the top in what feels like three steps. And then he stands in front of me again, his height and athleticism mocking my inept figure.
“What do you think now?”
“Yeah, that was great. You have impressive form—beautiful even.”
“No. I meant what do you think of rope climbing. Wanna give it a shot?”
Mortification consumes me, evident in my red-hot cheeks.
“I would give it a try, if you could show me how you did that”—I wave my hand in a circle in the air—“that levitating sorcery.
Something’s not clicking.”
“Come closer to the rope,” Axel commands, trailing behind me. I tilt my head up to stare at the top again, realizing it’s not that high up, but I doubt I’ll feel the same when I try to drag my feeble body up a few feet. “Grab it, one hand on top of the other, and get a good feel for the material.”
I do as he says. “Now what?”
“Let go, jump, and try to hold yourself up. No need to climb up yet.”
I back up about a foot and spring upwards. I latch onto the rope with one hand, while the other misses entirely. I’m too weak to bear my weight with one hand and stumble forward, catching myself before I fall on my face.
“Try again.”
Cheeks even hotter now, I give it another shot and manage to hold on with both hands. He instructs me to stay up there for several seconds, likely trying to get a feel for my upper body strength, but the joke’s on him. This might be the easiest exercise here so far, as my arm strength is stellar after four years of carrying around twenty-pound textbooks all day.
“Tired yet?”
“Nope,” I say, swinging my legs a little for entertainment. I quicken my rhythm. “Wow, this is almost fun.”
“Come down then,” he says, allergic to my amusement. He gestures for me to stand at the base of the rope again and pulls the wooden cube forward. “Sit down here.”
Damn, finally an exercise I can get with. Without hesitation, I slide to the middle of the seat and dangle my legs, relatively comfortable if not for the hard surface under my butt. Looking up, we lock eyes, and I notice his are a mesmerizing olive green in the sun. I can’t stop staring until he speaks.
“All good?”
“Yeah, yeah. Wait, why am I sitting down again?”
“It’s easier to practice the proper footing from this angle,” he says and stands by my side, about half a foot away. “Grab on to the rope again and push your knees up a bit.”
I hesitate, realizing how oddly suggestive this form sounds, but I remind myself he’s been appropriate with me this whole time. Doing as he says, I watch him bend down a little and grab the rope by my feet.
“May I?” he asks. I nod, despite my growing discomfort—not even because of this position, but because one wrong move could make this scenario either oddly sensual or awkward as hell. Axel remains professional. “Now, I’m going to show you how you should wrap the rope around your feet for maximum stability when you climb.”
He runs the rope down the outside of my right shin and lets it slide under my shoe before threading it over my left shoe. His thumbs brush my ankles as he pushes my feet together, and a shiver runs down my spine.
“Try lifting yourself up now, and keep your feet together.”
I begin to pull myself up a little but stop, worrying that I’ll lose my footing and tumble down again. “I’m still going to be down here, by the way.”
Slightly reassured, I force out a breath and yank myself up from my sitting position. With my legs fully extended, I keep the rope between my legs and feet, noticing how it creates a flimsy base.
“All right, good. Lower yourself down by spacing out your feet a little.” Although there’s barely any distance between me and the ground, he lets his hands float protectively in the air and gently grasps my legs as I return to my sitting position. “Let’s try it again and see if you can complete one pull.”
While climbing now sounds less abstract in theory, I’m not surprised when it takes multiple tries for me to even move a couple feet up the rope. Axel tries to offer some words of encouragement, even complimenting my arm strength from before, but
I underestimated the energy and willpower it takes to do more than just hang in the air motionless.
“Oh crap, oh shit.” I lose my grip and sail to the ground after trying another pull.
Axel grabs my waist, adopting a tight and protective stance that stabilizes me on my feet, and leaves his hands there until the hold becomes awkward—to him. On the inside, my heart flutters. I can’t help but swoon at how invested he is in my well-being, even if he is paid to do exactly that.
We take a break, and I sit down on one of the wooden cubes, propping up my leg. I take my hair out of my sagging ponytail, letting it flow down my back. For a second, it feels like Axel gets lost in the thick locks before he blinks and looks away.
Maybe I made that up.
“I’m sorry if I’m taking way too long to get all of this,” I say, breaking the quiet after a moment. “At this point, it’s not you; it’s me.” I wince, sounding like a character in a ’90s rom-com.
“Whitney, come on, you don’t have to keep justifying yourself,” he says. “I’m not one for the sappy stuff, but the journey of a thousand miles does begin with a one-mile run.”
“Isn’t it ‘a single step’?”
“To you,” he says.
He stands before me, holding out a welcoming hand. I take it for once and realize that there might be some light at the end of the tunnel: the long and winding one-mile tunnel, that is.
Chapter Six
My eyes open and take in the dim sunlight streaming through the window behind my bed. To my right, Martina is still fast asleep, the covers yanked up past her chin.
I sit up and fish for my phone on my side table. Six thirty in the morning? The earliest I’ve ever gotten up without the blare of my alarm in the summer is around eight. Since I’m awake, and there is no way I can sleep with all this sunlight shining in my face, I get up and head to the bathroom to get ready.
On my way there, I make out two figures through the window in the door leading out of the building. Drawing closer, I find Axel and a female trainer holding a gym bag walking towards the back entrance of the Central Building. I can’t see her face from here, only her long shapely legs in her athletic shorts.
