The first training session with Marlon had ended with me face down in the ground, and the aftermath wasn't being shy about making itself known.
Summer had gotten the collar off, and that had helped, the immediate return of everything the thing had been suppressing had felt like surfacing after being held underwater for too long. But the relief only went so far. The weakness the collar had ground into me over those hours didn't just evaporate the moment the clasp came loose. It clung, stubbornly, layered underneath the more straightforward pain of Marlon's actual strikes, which had their own detailed catalogue of complaints to file. My abdomen, especially, had well suffered…
Marlon had also mentioned, that tomorrow would be harder.
I believed him completely. And somehow that didn't bother me the way it probably should have.
I stood in the park with the collar in my hand, just looking at it for a moment. It was lighter than it felt when it was on, small yet so powerful.
