We broke for water. The room hummed once, a quiet acknowledgment, and remembered it was supposed to be quiet. My shoulders had been behaving for almost an hour, a fact that made me unreasonably proud. Then Julius ruined the moment by raising his blade again, this time with a look that said the next lesson was about to hurt in a different way.
"Last piece," he said. "Stillness that hurts."
He did nothing. And his nothing ate all of my options. He wasn't heavy. He wasn't loud. He was simply the end of my favorite excuses. My first idea for a start died in my chest before it could be born. My second lived, but only because I made it excruciatingly boring. He approved by not moving. He took it away from me anyway, just to prove that his approval wasn't a form of safety.
"Put your center in his way," he had said. "Not your blade. Your blade is garnish. Your center is the meal."
