… ✦ …
He pushes me harder than anyone. I hate that it's the first time I've felt respected.
Derek Voss. Primary instructor. The announcement takes eleven seconds. I count them because counting gives me something to do with my hands.
He doesn't introduce himself. He doesn't shake my hand or explain the training schedule or tell me he's heard good things. He just looks at me the way you'd look at a wall you've been told to knock down … assessing, not impressed … and then turns and walks toward the training hall.
I follow. Obviously.
By midmorning I have a catalog. The way he says 'again' without inflection, like a door closing. The precision of his corrections … two words, no more, always exactly right, which is somehow worse than being wrong. The fact that he hasn't smiled once, not ev
