“How’s your knee?”
“It’s fine.”
“Your face says it’s considering legal action.”
She gave a small laugh, then glanced toward the others. “I can’t keep up.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Everyone else is doing the full version.”
“Everyone else has been coming longer.”
“I’m holding them back.”
“No one is waiting for you.”
She looked uncertain.
I lowered my voice. “Here’s the secret. Half this room is too busy trying not to throw up to notice what anyone else is doing.”
Carol called from her mat, “I heard that.”
“You were meant to.”
I showed Janine a supported variation using the wall.
“Same muscle group,” I said. “Less load on the knee. You stop if there’s sharp pain.”
“But it’s easier.”
“It’s appropriate. Easier isn’t a moral failure.”
She studied me, then nodded. When the next interval began, she took her place at the wall. I stood and moved to the center of the room.
“Last round,” I announced.
A chorus of complaints answered.
“Your gratitude sustains me.”
I started the timer.
Iron & Ivy occupied the first two floors of a renovated warehouse on the edge of Lake City’s arts district. The building had exposed brick, tall windows, black steel beams, and a heatingsystem that treated consistency as a personal insult. The gym had started as a women-focused lifting space and expanded into cardio, classes, physical therapy, and community programs. Its membership included women, nonbinary people, queer people, trans people, beginners, athletes, retirees, and one small dog named Franklin who was not technically permitted inside but had achieved immunity through charm.
At seven ten, I finished wiping down Studio B and found Franklin waiting outside with his owner.
“You are not a member,” I told him.
Franklin sat.
“Emotional manipulation.”
His tail moved across the floor. I gave him half a protein biscuit from the emergency snack drawer.
His owner laughed. “You’re the reason he keeps trying to come in.”
“I reject that accusation.”
