There’s a shadow behind her eyes that wasn’t there at the beginning of our session. But it could just as easily have nothing to do with me—she did say she’d been having a rough week, so she probably has a lot on her mind.

Part of me wants to ask, if only because I want to help lighten the load if I can, but I decide to let it go.

“Same time next week?” she asks as she drags a towel across her forehead when we’re finished.

“Yeah, that should work for me. Thanks.”

“You’re doing well. Way better than I would’ve thought at the start, honestly.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”

Hannah laughs, her eyes twinkling.

“It was,” she says and leaves it at that as she starts rounding up the mats and resetting the room to close. I help her as usual, then wait at the door while she takes a quick shower. The hiss of the shower stops and I hear her rummaging around for a while, then her phone rings.

“Hello?” she asks as she answers it, her voice echoing loud and clear from the tile locker room. I know I shouldn’t be listening, that it’s none of my business, but short of leaving the building or plugging my ears, there’s nothing I can do to avoid overhearing it.

“Yes, Aaron, I didn’t forget. Saturday at seven. I’ll be there,” she says, and a rush of ice fills my chest when I realize what’s happening.

She has a date with that Aaron guy this weekend. The one she said she wasn’t interested in getting back together with.

“We’ll definitely need reservations. It’s Altitude. That place is always packed,” she says, and I file away the information without thinking. “Listen, I just got out of the shower at the studio, can we talk about this later? Yeah, I’ll call you when I get home. Bye.”

A few minutes later, Hannah emerges from the locker room with her still-damp hair tied in a ponytail—and her face flushes when she sees me. Her eyes widen a little, as if she’s suddenly realizing how small this place is and how likely it must be that I overheard the entire conversation she just had.

“You heard, didn’t you?” she asks, her voice low.

I shrug. No sense in denying it.

She sighs and twists the end of her ponytail between her fingers. “It’s just dinner, not a real date. I didn’t even want to go, I just said yes to get my mom off my back. She really wants us to get back together.”

Her words come quickly, almost desperately, as if she wants to make sure I believe her.