She rarely, if ever, asks about my life outside the gym. I don’t share, either. Did she Google me? If so, there’s a handful of tabloid stories about me and Tyler—I hope she didn’t uncover those.

I laugh nervously. “No. Why?”

Her face turns beet red, and it’s not from the physical exertion. She can do this workout in her sleep.

“I was just wondering because you’ve seemed kind of sad all week, and I wondered if you got into a fight with your boyfriend,” she mumbles, rushing to add, “I just wanted to see if you were okay, butnevermind.”

“Oh my god,” I mutter, more to myself than to her.

The last thing I want to do is to make a scene, because then Ryan will come over and ask what we’re laughing about.

“Hallie, no, that’s very sweet of you,” I say quietly, trying not to attract attention. “I appreciate you checking in on me. I’m fine, just a little tired, that’s all.”

“Got it, got it, got it,” she says. “Uh, sorry for asking.”

She dips backward into another crunch. “So, you’re single, then? I know my aunt is always trying to set up my older cousin,” she says, giggling.

“Hallie, focus!” I say, clamping down harder on her feet. “Ten more reps in this set. Let’s go.”

We make it through conditioning without any more forays into my personal life. When it’s time for her to move on to bars, she skips off to the changing room to grab her grips. I’m relieved she didn’t dig any deeper. I remember what it was like when I was her age. I knew that the girls I had grown up with had boyfriends, or at least dates to the winter semiformal. I opted for homeschooling instead of attending an actual high school, but even I heard rumors about my old classmates having sex, saying I love you, flirting at beer-soaked parties. I wondered if some people were born hardwired for it, the way I was primed for athletic excellence. I couldn’t fathom having the guts to do any of that on my own. (But a death-defying stunt on a sliver of wood? Sure, no problem.) I’m impressed that Hallie was brave enough to ask me about my personal life—and I wonder how much of her curiosity stems from wondering what it’s like to have a personal life at all.