I groan as my eyes open from the blinding sunlight streaming through the window behind my bed, a major con of a room facing east. To my left, Martina is still fast asleep, the covers yanked up past her chin.

Being Natalie's roommate only lasted a solid two days, because by nightfall yesterday, she decided to bring something up.

"Whitney, I have something to tell you," she began, sitting cross-legged on her bed.

I looked up from my phone, my message to Mina still open. "Sure, go ahead."

"It's not you or anything, but I kind of... I kind of want to switch rooms."

Damn. I was expecting something far graver, like she was about admit she's secretly an axe murderer.

I shrugged. "Sure, I guess. Who do you want to room with?"

"Cynthia." Natalie said, referring to the petite girl. "I just feel like we understand each other a lot. Not that we don't, but I—"

"Honestly, it's fine, Natalie," I said, waving it off, "but who's Cynthia's roommate?"

"Martina. The pairing is—well—disastrous."

I could see why. Martina is outgoing and candid, while Cynthia seems more reserved and focused. The former had already grown on me, so this roommate switcharoo wasn't posing a problem at all.

"Hey, that works for me."

I sit up in bed and grab my phone. 6:50 a.m.? 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, I get up and head to the bathroom to get ready. I take my clothes and small bag full of toiletries and quietly walk to the bathroom, all to myself this early in the morning.

I wash my face and then pile my hair into a neat ponytail, before changing into a pair of navy leggings and a gray sweatshirt. Ten minutes later, I sneak out of the dorms. Bob never mentioned whether exploring is against the rules, so I'm going to live like it isn't, even for just a few minutes.

I walk across the grass in the morning shadows where no one can see me and slip through one of the entrances to the central building. Before I walk in, I catch a girl lurking in the corner, her back turned towards me. She senses movement and turns to stare straight at me, a large caramel coffee with whipped cream in hand.

Where did she get that, and how can I get a hold of one?

"What are you doing here?" she snaps, hiding the drink behind her back.

"N-nothing. I woke up early and decided to get some early morning sunshine."

Morning sunshine? What am I, a senior citizen?

She purses her lips and crosses her arms. "Are you trying to leave?"

"Leave? Uh...no?"

She smiles to herself and scoffs. "I tried to last year. They made me come back this summer because of that." I take note of her appearance: tangled, wild red hair, a large chest, and sweatpants riding way too low to be fashionable. "There's no escaping here, Whitney. It's like fitness jail."

"First of all, why are you telling me this? No one forced me to come here."

She laughs, taking a large sip of her drink. "Because you seem to be the only one worthy of my warning here: lazy but smart, maybe even a little adventurous. Why else are you out at six in the morning?"

I'm beyond weirded out, backing up a few steps. "I think we're done here. But good luck with your"—I make an air circle with my finger around the sugary monstrosity in her hand—"fitness aspirations."

She shrugs and takes a few steps back towards the dorms, finishing off the last drink. "Consider yourself warned," she says, "but just remember, it's endless here. The same stupid workouts, the same disgusting food, and some of the biggest bitches you'll ever find. You decide which will break you first."

Her words increase my paranoia even more as I continue across the grass, making a beeline for the back entrance of the central building. The air is crisp and cool inside, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I sneak down the hallway and find a large gym full of a plethora of exercise equipment: ellipticals, stair climbers, stationary bicycles—mostly machines I've never used before, apart from the treadmill. Next to it, I see a weights room and beside that a yoga studio. I thought I'd find something more exciting, but my hopes are crushed.

As I keep walking down the hall, I notice a detour to the right and hear a steady boom, like someone punching something over and over again. Curious, I walk farther down the hall and peek through the half-open door.

Axel pounds a punching bag, using blows that could knock someone out cold in an instant. His shirt is soaked in sweat, and a heavy beat blares in the background, fueling the force in every punch. Then he stops, muttering something incoherent, and he whips his head around, his chest heaving up and down. I feel my heart beat twice as fast, and I dash away to the exit. No way will I let him see me stalking him in his early morning workout.

Not that I was planning to in the first place.

"There you are!" Martina exclaims as I walk back into her room, still spooked. She's already made her bed and gotten dressed, donning a cute yellow workout set, and fiddles with her sleep hair in the mirror. "Where were you?"

"Just went for an early morning stroll," I say, sliding my hands into my sweatshirt pocket. Who uses the word stroll, Whitney?

"Oh, well, breakfast is being served soon. Then it's off to fitness torture."

"Torture?" I question, raising a brow. "I thought Austin was going easy on you."

She clucks her tongue. "Apparently not yesterday. He and your guy must be tight."

Welcome to my world. I roll out my sore shoulders from yesterday's rope session and hear a ghastly crack.

After eating a less-than-satisfying bowl of oatmeal and mingling with a few different girls, none of whom are Willow, I meet up with Axel outside the central building. He smells like a fresh shower, the ends of his hair still damp, a look opposite to the one he was sporting this morning. I still feel odd having seen him outside of our sessions; maybe because watching him made me curious about who he is sans the trainer persona.

"What are we doing today?" I ask, adding a little pep to my voice. Something has to counter his signature dry stare.

"Something a little different," he says, setting out.

I leap ahead to walk beside him. "Is it as cool as rope climbing?"

"Nope."

A few minutes later, we approach our destination: an endless array of nothing. The land is on a steep incline, slightly rocky with sparse patches of grass—from nature or the abrasion of many walkers before me, I don't know. All I know is that these kinds of hills were made for personal hovercrafts, if they existed. No one before me has seemed to honor the lazy portion of society and invent them already.

Axel instructs me to begin stretching. "I may be able to solve your aversion to running," he says mid toe-touch, "with sprinting."

I shoot upwards. "And that's going to help how?"

He gets a little closer to my face, overwhelming me with his perfectly symmetrical features. I wonder what it must be like to have two good sides, as the Lord knew I would have never been humble if he'd sent that blessing my way.

"You, Whitney, are not a bad runner."

"Aw, thank yo—"

"In short spurts. Anything more than a quarter mile, and you're hopeless." Any trace of a smile vanishes from my face, surprised by his brusque tone. "But it's not really athletic ability you lack; you're like...a ball of potential energy. What you lack is the motivation to convert that energy into something you can use."

I blink, giving him a moment to revel in his crappy inspirational abilities. "Okay, while physics was my favorite class in high school, you didn't tell me anything I don't already know." His expression falls, and I add, "I can act surprised, though, if it helps."

"Finish warming up," he grumbles, narrowing his eyes. I oblige and run through the series of exercises we've completed before every session so far, surprised I'm already more flexible than I was three days ago. "When you feel ready, I want you to run up this hill at whatever speed you can manage and then walk back down to me."

I swallow at the incline. At the base of the hill, I take a large step, knowing it's only going to get worse from here. I suck in a short breath and keep going, hoping he doesn't change his mind about my "athletic ability" after the show he's going to watch.

Halfway up the hill, I begin huffing and puffing but force myself to keep going, my calves feeling the strain. Axel observes from the bottom, but a pair of black sunglasses masks his facial expression and shields him from the blinding sun shining in my face. Feeling oddly scandalous, I lift the back of my shirt ever so slightly and arch my back, giving him something else to look at for a second, before restraining myself. The damn shades conceal his true expression, but I swear I see a smirk.

"Giving up yet?" he calls, tipping down his sunglasses.

I roll my eyes, even though he can't see them, and sprint the rest of the way to the top of the hill. I permit myself a few seconds to rest, enjoying the slight view of the beach from here, before making my way down a little faster than I would normally walk.

"Not bad," he says. He hands me a water bottle, noting the fierce June heat. I guzzle half of it in seconds, quenching my parched throat. "Try it again, faster this time."

I repeat this exercise a total of four times before it becomes unbearable, the sun and thick humidity mocking my sweaty and aching form. While my pace increases with each journey up the hill, I can barely call this exercise "sprinting"—more like speed jogging with a side of self-loathing.

"Th-that was honestly n-not"—I pause to take a swig of water and heave out an obnoxious sigh of relief—"th-that bad." Bending over to catch my breath, I almost headbutt Axel and try to recover with a smile, but even that hurts the muscles in my cheeks.

He extends a hand, used to me by now.

"Let me help you put all this running into perspective," he says, trailing his eyes from my hot cheeks to my sweat-stained black tank top. "I'll use an example for the booksmart, not streetsmart. Correct to assume that's how you describe yourself?"

Ah, let me think. Straight As, meager social life, and a dweller of the suburbs since age eight?

"Yes," I say and mutter under my breath, "valedictorian, actually."

"Impressive," he hums, still hearing me. "Here's the question. Why when you take a test and realize it's seven pages long, on several topics your teacher never covered, and nothing like the practice one, do you not just walk out of the classroom?"

I wrinkle my brow, setting my water bottle down on the ground. "Because it's not normal to do that...?"

"But what would happen? It's not like walking out of a test is a punishable offense. You won't get kicked out of school—well, maybe a detention if your teacher has a stick up their ass—and you're definitely not breaking the law. So, why?"

I think for a moment, recalling my hellish calculus midterm last winter. "Because even if the test is difficult, you put down what you know and try your best on the remaining questions with what you know. And then, if you still don't know shit, you leave a small note for your teacher on the corner of the page to evoke some sympathy from them."

Even he laughs at that. "And what's the point of doing all of that? No one takes tests for fun, unless you're that weird."

"To get an A," I say, knowing nothing else.

He holds up a finger. "There you go. Think about all of this running like a really shitty test. It's not fun, so as long as most of it seems foreign, but you have to keep going at it. Use the strength you have, even if it's not much, to push yourself to the limit. Even if you're not perfect the first time, study your strengths and challenge yourself in the same way, and the next test will feel less traumatizing. And the next, not so bad. And the one after that, maybe even easy." He takes one step closer to me, losing me in his eyes. He brings his mouth to my ear and says much more softly, "And then one day, you might even get your A."

***

After dinner, Cindy calls us to the yoga studio for a "fun" group activity. Whenever a person of authority utters that word, I know whatever we'll be doing will be the exact opposite.

"This should be enthralling," Martina jokes, sitting on a yoga mat and adjusting her skull-patterned leggings.

"Alright girls, before we begin, let's all take a few deep breaths," Cindy says, sitting at the front on a pink mat. "In and out, in and out."

Mm, burgers....

I fight relaxation, knowing Willow is only two feet away from me, sitting next to Adriana. I feel her eyes on me even when mine are closed and open them. I look anywhere but her and notice the red-haired girl from this morning is nowhere to be found.

"And out, and we're done," Cindy says. "Let's start with a fun icebreaker. If you could please say your name, age, and why you decided to come here, that would be great. We'll start with you." She points to the model-like brunette, sitting to the right of Adriana.

"Me?" she asks, as if Cindy implied anyone else. She clears her throat. "Okay, um, I'm Joanna, I'm eighteen years old—just graduated high school a couple weeks ago, actually." A couple of enthusiastic nods pop up around the room, most of us seeming to be around the same age. "Well, can I be honest? I came here because I need to get hot before sorority recruitment in the fall."

Adriana perks up. "Wait, you want to rush? Me too!"

A lot more girls than I thought are into Greek life, making Martina gag. Cindy quiets everyone down and points to the next girl, quiet and curly-haired with huge brown eyes.

She gives us a weak smile. "I'm Aspen, I'm seventeen, and I came here because I think I'd look good with abs, though I don't think that's going to actually happen. A girl can dream, right?"

"What a mood," Martina whispers to me, shooting Aspen a smile. She shyly nods and looks back at her hands.

Miscellaneous answers ensue, mostly involving losing weight or becoming better at certain sports. Cindy finally pauses on Willow, who seems more interested in the floor than this activity.

"Oh," she says, looking up, "I'm Willow, I'm seventeen, and I..." She stares right into my soul, making my skin crawl. "I came here because I thought this experience might make me a better person."

No one understands what she means by that, some even giggling, but Willow doesn't find it funny. Neither do I.

"Okay, that's great. It's always good to set less tangible goals." Yeah, more like im-fucking-possible ones. Cindy tries to avert everyone's attention from Willow by clapping her hands and then gesturing to me. "Last, but not least, you."

I swallow hard, wondering if I'm reading too much into Willow's intent expression. Martina nudges me with her elbow, forcing me to look at everyone else.

"Okay, guys, I'm Whitney, I'm eighteen—also just graduated high school. And I came here because..." I trail off in thought, wanting my answer to be somewhat memorable. I look into the only pair of eyes that matter. "Because what better thing to do the summer before college than get fit and make some nice, lifelong friends along the way? Right, everyone?"

I send Willow the faintest smirk before turning to the rest of the crowd, realizing maybe it won't be so hard to turn the tables.