Page 112 of Behind the Bars

“Elliott…”

“You worked with TJ, right? He trainedyou?”

“Only for a little while.” I rubbed my hands up and down my arms. “Why?”

“What’s your truth?” he askedme.

I tensed up. “What are you talkingabout?”

“Every person TJ has ever trained had to dig deep. They had to put a mi-mirror up every day to get to that place, to find their truth. It’s hard, and it’s scary to go to those places, but you have to find yourtruth.”

I swallowed hard. “I can’t. I can’t dothat.”

He nodded once and slid his hands into the pockets of his gray sweatpants. “I get that. So, let’sbox.”

I snickered. “What?”

He walked over to his living room and picked up a pair of boxing gloves. “If you don’t want to talk about it, at least get it out of yoursystem.”

“Byboxing?”

“Yup.” His stare stayed somber. “By boxing.” He handed me the gloves, then walked behind the punching bag, holding it still. “Ready?”

I slid the gloves onto my hands. “This is ridiculous.” I laughed lightly. “I’m really okay,Elliott.”

His eyes locked with mine, and his voice was low. “Ready?” he askedagain.

I stood up straight. “Ready.”

As I began to hit the punching bag, Elliott coached me. “Whatever eats you up at night, hit it. Whatever drives you up the wall, pound it out. Whatever hurts, make it hurtback.”

I started out feeling dumb, but the more he coached me, the harder I swung. Then it got to the point where I couldn’t stop. I hammered into the punching bag nonstop, my breaths uneven, my heart rate skyrocketing. I started kicking the bag as Elliottcontinued.

“What pisses you off? What drives you nuts? What hurts?” heasked.

Everything.

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I kept swinging, emotions swallowing me whole, and it wasn’t until my legs started to give out that I stopped. I stepped backward, about to fall to the ground, dripping with sweat, when Elliott was there to catchme.

“I got you,” he whispered, helping me over to the couch to sit. “I gotyou.”

As I caught my breath, he grabbed a glass of water for me. “Thank you,” I told him. “I actually feel…lighter.”

He smiled. “Good. And just so you know, Jasmine, I’m always here if you need totalk.”

“It’s really not that serious,” I told him. “I just spent so much time keeping things to myself to try to make my mother happy…I never really realized how sad it made me. I gave her my all and it still wasn’tenough.”

“What made youleave?”

I sighed, thinking back toit.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he sincerely swore, but I shook myhead.

“No, it’s fine, really. It’s not a big deal. You’re going to think I’mstupid.”

“No, I’mnot.”

I combed my hair behind my ears. “We spent years going for a big record deal. I was ready to give up, but Mama said I just had to work harder. So, I did. I spent more time in the studio with Trevor, and I’d pass out in dance studios. I hadn’t been eating a lot, was hardly sleeping at all, but I wanted to make her proud. I wanted her dream to come true, and then itdid.

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