Rejection

I roll my shoulders, stretching out the sore muscles of my back, still feeling a little uncomfortable in this new body of mine.

You wouldn’t think that yoga could make you exhausted, but apparently it’s a thing, and it’s a thing that I feel acutely as the trainer claps his hands, saying: “Let’s move through Virabhadrasana Two again.”

Warrior Two. It’s supposed to be an easy pose, the kind of thing that monks and little Indian kids master by the time they’re four years old. I stand straight, facing the long mirror, and then jump, bringing my feet apart and raising my arms parallel to the ground, twisting my feet and my waist in a precise ninety degree turn. My right knee sinks me down into a lunge.

“More with the waist, push that left thigh down, we want it perfectly straight,” the trainer says, his hands gently shifting my body from a relatively comfortable spot into a position that makes my muscles want to scream.

I endure, forcing myself to go deeper into the position, ignoring the soreness. I’m going to push through this.

“Hold it, hold it,” the trainer says, circling around me, his hulking form move surprisingly lightly. I focus on one spot in the mirror, the center of my chest, willing my tailbone lower,
deep breath in, deep breath out, ignoring the pains blossoming through my trunk.

Physiotherapy is, I’m told, normally not meant to push to your limits. But I asked to be brought up to peak condition within a month’s time, and Dr. Kee consulted with some other experts in the field, and they apparently came up with this man.

This hell of a man whose got his hands on my ass, forcing me into just the perfect position to maximize the redevelopment of my muscles, to teach my body to coordinate once again, to overcome the scars of my past. I hate him and his precision, his unwillingness to let me just be, but it’s also the very reason why I need him.

I’ve also been told that this would have been a lot easier had I not gotten surgery across my face and arms just two months ago under Jessica’s knife. The surgery, Dr. Kee explained to me, was impeccably done, but it was done many hours too late, and it wasn’t done with the prospect of future cosmetic surgery in mind. He’s a miracle worker; I know that much because I’m still happy with how my face turned out. But it does mean that this recovery process is going to be much tougher than it otherwise would have been.

My leg begins to quaver.

“Your body will reject these new implants if you don’t teach it that they belong here,” the trainer hounds me, circling me again, pushing a finger into my chest. “You must master the body with your mind. Hold it. Hold it.”

I hold it until I cannot anymore, and then I hold it for what seems like an hour longer.

Eventually, the trainer nods, and I slump forwards, posture dropping into an unglorified doubled-over series of pants.

“Child’s pose,” the trainer instructs, and I gladly oblige.

I fall to my knees, curling into a foetal-like position, resting my head on the cool yoga mat. I hear the trainers footfall continuing to pace around me, and then it’s joined by another series of footsteps.

“Claude, how is the recovery going?” His voice carries a Korean accent that marks him out in my mind.

“It goes well, Dr. Kee. Everything’s going on schedule,” I say.

“Then Tiffany should be showing up any day now, yes?” he says, voice sounding from ahead of me.

I exhale slowly, still trying to normalise my heartrate, as the trainer has been teaching me to do.

“It will take some time,” I reply. “But it will happen.”

“I am counting on it,” Dr. Kee says, and then I hear his footfalls echoing off into the distance again.

I unlock the front door to see a despondent Ella Sue sprawled over the couch, scrolling on her phone aimlessly. She looks up at me when I come in and gives me a weak smile.

“What’s the matter?” I ask, closing the door behind me.

“They finally called back, after two days,” she says. “Got rejected.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, sitting on the couch by her head.

She crawls forwards the couple of inches necessary to place her head in my lap, and then sighs.

“I really wanted this one. Thought I nailed the role, the casting agent even asked me to do some extra lines, and then called in a producer or someone to watch…” She’s told me all this before, but I let her keep going. “But I guess it just wasn’t good enough, huh?”

I stroke her hair lightly.

“There’ll be other chances,” I say. “And hey, at least they gave you a call this time, right? That’s good. That’s progress.”

“I really thought I had it,” she says quietly, and then she falls silent, phone sliding out of her hand and clattering to the ground. She makes no effort to retrieve it, and I let it sit too, my hand running through her beautiful locks.

She curls her legs inwards and then looks up at me. I see the dampness in the corner of her eyes, the faint red spiderwebs lying beneath those nascent tears. I reach out and brush away a stray teardrop on her cheek. She gives me a faint smile.

She takes a deep breath.

“You know that thing we were discussing that day in the dressing room?” she asks.

“People trying to stalk me on Instagram?” I ask. “It’s no big deal. You don’t have to do anything about it if you don’t want to. I was just being too sensitive…”

“No, no, no that,” she says, shaking her head. She takes another deep breath, a sort of half-hiccup, and then she looks into my eyes with a steel that I didn’t thing she was capable of mustering. “The speculation about us being an item. A couple. Is that what we are?”

And I see, underneath that steel, a quiet desperation that only comes with the kind of hope that love could create.

Fuck.

My hands absently stroke her hair.

I knew this was coming.

And yet, could this have come at a worse time?

“No,” I say quietly.

It hits her like a collapsing building, her eyes closing, her face cracking in hurt, the tears spilling out of the corner of her eyes. I want to reach out, to brush those tears away too, but am I even entitled to that now?

She shakes in my arms, soft sobs escaping, tears wetting my pants, hands clutching my skin, the cushions of the couch, trying to get a grip on anything, and I quietly exhale, hating myself, knowing that this is the only way.

If only I were anyone else.

She suddenly looks up at me.

“You went to talk to Tiffany that day, didn’t you?” she asks. It’s not an accusation, but she’s looking for an explanation. Something. Anything.

“It wasn’t like that,” I say.

But it was, wasn’t it? I’d be lying to myself if it wasn’t a part of it.

“What do you mean, it wasn’t like that? What else could it have been?” she says blinking away her tears, the beginnings of an anger sounding at the edges of her voice. “I saw you when I came back to the dressing room. You looked… not spooked, but frazzled, like there was a lot on your mind, and I knew.”

“Yes, I did talk to her, but I swear, it wasn’t like that—”

“You might be able to lie to yourself, but not to me. She shot you down, didn’t she, and then you told yourself that you didn’t care for her anyways, isn’t that right? Well, you know what? Why should I do things any differently than her? Why do I need you? I could—”

“Ella Sue,” I say under her voice desperately, trying to get her attention, “Ella Sue, Ella, listen to me, please. There’s something I need to tell you.”

She pauses, losing momentum for a second. She looks at me questioningly.

And then I tell her everything.