Holland
By the end of my session my arms were jelly and my brain was a tidy checklist: exits (east door propped), tape seams (clear), breath (low and slow), voice (from the ribs, not the throat). Todd fist-bumped me, said the word that always makes my spine stand up—“Proud”—and wandered off to terrorize a barbell. I showered in the packhouse locker room until the hot water convinced my forearms to forgive me, then started down the back stair in clean leggings and a soft sweater, hair still damp.
The house was in its late-afternoon lull—the kind of quiet that isn’t silence so much as a big animal settling. Somewhere in the kitchen June was humming to a pot; in the west hall I heard Jacek’s even tread and the click of his radio. I cut through the dining room for a glass of water and a lemo
