He turned.
Looked at me once — the filing look, but different. Taking inventory, not of what I was, but of where I was. How I was standing. What I was working with.
"Show me your hands," he said.
I held them up.
He crossed the room and took them — both hands, one in each of his, turning them palm-up. He was looking at the mark first — a brief assessment — and then at the rest. The calluses. The scrape on my wrist, already healing faster than it should, which I filed away. The particular tension in my fingers of someone who had been making themselves useful with their hands for years.
"You've never trained," he said.
"Never had reason to," I said. "Or so I was told."
"You were told a lot of things."
"Yes."
He let go of my hands.
"We'll start with how you fall," he said.
"How I fa
