My lame injury earned me half a day off: twelve hours of antsy relaxation I thought I'd spend not thinking about exercise. Instead, by six in the morning, I was itching to crawl out of bed and move again.

Who the hell am I now?

"Ready for a hike?" Axel asks, stretching his arms behind his head.

There's too much excitement in his voice for a trek in nature on a ninety-degree July day, but I've become increasingly aware that these days are numbered, so I shoot him a smile.

"Sure," I say and bend over to stretch my legs.

In the process, I realize I give him a show down my tank top and spring upwards at the thought. A trace of a smile plays on his lips as he continues loosening the muscles in his arms.

Then, his expression changes. "Wait, hold still," he says and takes a couple steps towards me. His fingers meet my exposed shoulder and flick something from my skin. I watch the small insect fly away and am surprised I don't scream and run in circles, saved only by the warm feeling rushing through me at the thought of his touch on my skin. He clears his throat, drops his hand, and the feeling disintegrates. "It was just a bug. Let's get going."

The trail is steeper than it looks, heightening my caution. Just the thought of hitting the gnarly bruise on my shin again sends a shudder down my spine. If that wasn't bad enough, I have to swat away a fly or a bee or whatever other demonic flying creature every few seconds, earning me a couple eye rolls from Axel. I don't feel bad for laughing in his face when a wasp lands on his forearm, and he lets out a yelp.

"A-are we any closer to the top?" I ask through a couple huffs, unable to catch my breath. I press my hands to my cheeks, and they feel like they're on fire. I pause and down half of my still freezing-cold water bottle, quenching my parched throat.

"Impatient today, aren't we?" he hums without turning around.

I can hardly make out a droplet of sweat on the back of his neck, while I look like I just hopped out of the shower. Walking as I sip on my water, I decide I might as well make this hike more enjoyable.

"You know, I've always wanted to ask something," I say, speed walking to catch up to him. Axel turns around, nodding. "How did you get stuck with me?"

He stops in his tracks. "What do you mean?"

I rest my hands on my hips, squinting as I look up at him. "I mean, how does the whole matching trainees with trainers thing work? Is there a streamlined process, or is this confidential information?"

"Not exactly confidential," he says, cracking his open his bottle of water, "more convoluted. Especially with certain trainees."

I wonder if "certain trainees" applies to me, with how many times I checked off "no" for the application's questions regarding athletic ability.

"So, do you have a say in the final decision, or is it up to Bob?"

He takes in a larger than normal amount of water and chokes halfway through swallowing it. He buries his face into the crook of his elbow and coughs erratically for several seconds, making me wish I never asked.

"No, it's not all up to Bob," he finally says, voice hoarse, "but as time has gone on, he's let me have more of a say in how things go around here."

Seeming to have opened a Pandora's box of curiosities, I now wonder how long he's been working here, what the girls he trained before me were like, and if his vague answers mean our meeting wasn't pure happenstance.

Am I making a mountain out of a molehill, or are these normal thoughts?

"Well, if it makes you feel better," I say much more softly, "whoever did decide on this pairing did a nice job."

He doesn't reply to my off-the-cuff remark—or say anything at all—for the next leg of the journey, making me want to take all my words back. But in a second, my embarrassment morphs into pleasant surprise when he stops before me and lessens our distance.

He dips his head down. "You remember a couple weeks ago how I told you that the things I think about you aren't the things that come out of my mouth?" I nod. He leans forward as he finishes his thought in my ear, "Yeah, that hasn't changed, but now imagine slightly...different thoughts."

I have no time to react as he backs off and continues trudging uphill, leaving me to take in the fact that he has the same unseemly ideas as I do. We continue in silence, until the end of our journey becomes less of a fantasy.

"Hope the view was worth the leg workout," Axel says as we reach the end of the trail.

The scenery is incredible from here, rolling green grass overtaken by a faint view of the ocean in the background. I try not to think about how far away we are from the center of the camp and how much we have left to walk, shifting my thoughts to the present.

"I've never actually finished a hike," I state, sitting down on the grass. Getting lost in nature's beauty, I realize that maybe my family wasn't all that crazy for enjoying them. "I always thought I wasn't missing out on anything."

"That's the funny thing about life," he says and lets out an empty sigh. "Some of us are hesitant to try new things because we don't know what awaits us—afraid life might disappoint, or we might disappoint ourselves. The others... Well, they experience everything, yet they never get the enjoyment of anything, too caught up in how everything that's already happened could have been different."

His words, uncharacteristically deep, hit too close to home, yet they seem to just miss the mark.

"Are you sure those people are so different?" I ask. "Some people are scared of trying new things because of things that happened in the past. They keep holding them back, no matter how different a picture life paints." I don't have to look far to find someone who's fallen into that trap; she appears in my reflection every day.

"So, what's the thrill really worth then?" he questions, his eyes lost in a different world. "If you have to shed ten layers of life experiences to feel it."

"I don't know," I say, unsure if he really wanted an answer anyway.

***

I take a burning hot shower, staying under the water for longer than necessary. I dry off and stick my leg up towards the mirror, the bruise seeming larger, healing cut even redder. In some odd way, it feels weird to have had avoided a fall for this long, needing some stumbling block to remind me that I'm far from being done with this spontaneous fitness journey.

When I reenter our room, dressed in mismatched pajamas, I find Martina's designated half a mess of clothes.

"What the heck are you doing?" I ask and throw myself down on my bed, careful not to lean on my right leg. "You're usually so neat."

"I was trying to find"—She huffs and angrily shuffles through a pile of T-shirts—"this. Ugh, finally, I thought I lost it. It's my favorite bra." She holds up an elaborate lacy black bra, fit for a night out clubbing, not exercising.

I blink. "Well, you were definitely more hopeful about getting some action here. All I packed were ugly sports bras."

She chuckles, throwing her head back. "You probably have a better chance of bedding someone than I do by the end of this. I just like to feel sexy, even when I'm all tomato-red and covered in sweat." She scoops up a handful of clothes and lets them fall onto her unmade bedsheets. Sitting down, she glances at my tired face and gives me a small smile. "You sure you're good, Whitney?"

I cock my head to the side. "What do you mean?"

She shrugs. "Well, we haven't talked much since that team challenge, so I still don't know how you feel about how it ended." She folds a black band T-shirt and adds, "You're usually a wizard at them."

"I mean, I'm pretty okay physically," I say, rubbing my shin at the thought, "but emotionally, I can't get over the fact I had to accept help from Willow of all people."

"What's your deal with her? I mean, I've caught on to the fact you guys don't like each other, but I don't get what happened."

I slouch farther against the headboard, staring off at the opposite wall. "I wish it was just one thing that happened, not four years of continuous hell. You wanna know the funniest thing?" Martina nods, even though I haven't given her much to work with. "When I first started high school, we were friends. We used to spend our lonely lunches or free periods together and bond over dumb stuff, like indie bands or our hatred of English lit. And then second semester, she returned to school with an expensive wardrobe, a colorful vocabulary, and a brand-new set of friends. It was all downhill from there."

Martina catches on. "So, essentially, you became the victim of her sudden popularity."

I nod. "In one year, she'd transformed me from a neutral outsider to a complete social pariah. I'm thankful I always had Mina by my side, but when I think about, she never once stood up for me." I wince at the painful memories that I can only sometimes pretend don't exist. "Every week, there was something different to make fun of: my boring clothes, my good grades, my non-existent boyfriends, and oh, her favorite: my weight."

"Your weight?" She trails her eyes up from my legs to my face. "Please don't tell me you're here because her prepubescent ass convinced you you're fat."

Well, when I think about it...

"I just don't get it, Martina. And you know what, maybe I don't care to either, because what possible excuse can she give for treating someone like they're an indestructible archery target for four fucking years? And then, right after we graduate, her never-ending supply of arrows runs out. It makes no sense."

"Okay, can we quit the metaphors for a second? I'm getting lost." I snort in laughter, burying my hands into face. Martina crosses the couple feet between our beds and sits down on the edge of mine. "How about we just call her what she is? A conceited, coldhearted bitch, who you don't have to feel sorry for."

"I scoff and look down at my blue bedsheets. "Ironically, at one point, I did feel sorry for her. Her father died suddenly in the middle of sophomore year, and his death was plastered all over the local news—he was some important businessman, I guess. Willow spiraled after that."

She scrunches her face up and shakes her head, releasing a small sigh. "If shitty lives were a valid excuse, Whitney, I should be the vilest bitch to talk this planet." She lies sideways on my bed and stares up at the ceiling. "Half my childhood was spent in a hospital, watching my dad battle cancer, being told every day to expect the worst. Well, he lived, and an accident took my older half-brother, instead. I loved him, but he was Adriana's best friend, the only person that kept her down-to-earth. Now, years later, I force myself to be cool with her personality, but I know exactly where it comes from just as much as I know the old her won't ever come back."

Her words reduce me to silence, making me realize how easily some people can hide their pain. As I think more about my life, I wonder if my obstacles were easier than other people's. After all, while living in Willow's special hell, I still had my two parents, my older sibling, and more privilege than others could ever dream of.

But, at the end of the day, misfortune isn't a contest.

Because what does being a nice person cost anyway?