Balance (Off Balance 1)

“I pop the blisters and then cut the skin off all in one shot. I don’t wait for the skin to tear back and die.”

I grimaced. I wasn’t going that far tonight. Hayden began lighting the needle to sterilize it and prevent an infection, after which he planned to use it to pop my blisters. I’d had rips and blisters before, but never to this extent. I was always given time to heal my hands, so I never really had to treat my skin to this degree before.

“Do you have any other ointment in your bag of tricks? Like some antibacterial kind? I can use that.” My heart began to pound. I really didn’t want to do this.

“Yeah, but you know none of that will help.”

Hayden stepped back and I jumped down off the counter and reached for the filmy, plastic bag and began rummaging through it. Chap Stick, tape, scissors, socks, honey, a pumice stone, antibacterial ointment, all things used for rips.

No...

I pulled the stone out of the bag, but Hayden yanked it out of my hand and held it above his head.

“Give it back to me.”

“No.”

I jumped, trying to reach it, but it was useless. I was too short.

“Hayden, it’s one thing to pop my blisters and cut off the dead skin. It’s another thing entirely to scrub my hand. Just please give that to me. You’re not doing it.” I knew what would happen after.

The dreaded pumice stone. Fuck that. I’d never had to go that far with the stone, mainly because I never had a psychotic coach before like Kova, or gym hours like I did now, but I’d heard war stories, and it wasn’t something I wanted to test out.

Plus, they didn’t look terribly bad. I may have overreacted with how they looked.

“You know I’ll just be back here tomorrow, right?”

“Please,” I begged, my forehead bunching together. “Please, Hayden, I’ll take my chances. You can drain the blisters but no stone.”

Hayden’s eyes softened, pitying me. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do? I’m obviously not going to scrub the blisters, just around them to get the calluses off, but you need to start using it every night in the shower to toughen the skin.”

I shrugged helplessly, sighing. “I know, and I will after these heal.”

“Fine.” He cocked his head to the side wi

th a know-it-all look. “Are you a religious person?” he asked out of the blue.

Puzzled, I said, “I mean, we go to church on major holidays, but we’re not devout Catholics or anything. Why?”

“Because you’re going to need the grace of God on your side tomorrow. I’ll be praying for mercy and that Kova will go light on you. Now give me your hand and let’s work on those rips.”

Yesterday morning when my alarm went off, the first thing I did was remove the socks. The swelling on my hands had gone down tremendously, and the redness on my wrists looked almost healed. The nipple cream was like a magic potion. After practice, I had Alfred take me to the nearest pharmacy to buy every tube I could get my abused hands on.

Much to my surprise, Kova took mercy on me and gave me a day off from bars. It didn’t follow into the next day though, because when I walked into the gym this morning, he insisted we work on bars again first thing. He wasn’t confident I had learned my lesson.

“You should have popped those,” he said arrogantly in a thick Russian accent, eyeing my blistered hands. I swear, because I hadn’t popped them entirely, he’d do anything he possible could to make me suffer.

I was certain Kova was a sadist.

Reaching inside my bag, I pulled out a string of tape Hayden had prepared for me. He cut some pieces and showed me how I should apply them to cover my blisters since I wouldn’t be allowed to use my grips. “Can I at least use this?”

Kova stepped over the cables and looked down. “Go ahead, it won’t help though.”

I ignored his flippant tone. Anything would help at this point. I looked at the rest of the team girls, envying the grips they had covering their hands. Placing the strip over the blisters, I ripped a piece of tape from the roll with my teeth and layered it. I was tempted to tape my entire hand, but I wasn’t that ballsy to take the chance of getting yelled at and being forced to remove all of it and go bare skinned. I repeated the same method on my other hand and then applied chalk. Lots and lots of chalk.

“Did you stretch out this morning?”

I nodded.