ayo it's your girl sarah back with another fic! this one is about TA!Harry and TA!Yasmine who hate each other <3 this is part one. it's 17.5k and has smut so just be careful.
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Saturday
Yasmine's arms strain as she pulls the tight cord, her therapist behind her, holding her hands out to make sure she doesn't move out of the bounds they've set. Yasmine's hands are nearly at her chest, face contorted with pain as she tries to keep pulling the cord towards her, tears erupting in her eyes. The machine is ruthless, but so is she. Her biceps need to work harder against the equipment. She needs to be better.
"Yasmine," her therapist, Kali, says. "It's alright. Let go."
"I've got it."
"We've already made progress from last week. I don't want you to pull something. Trust me." When Yasmine still doesn't let go, Kali rests her hands gently on top of Yasmine's slowly undoing her fingers. "Let's move on. We'll revisit it in a week."
Yasmine lets her pull the cord away, putting it back on the mat covered floor, her jaw tight with anger. "I had it."
"It's 20 pounds. We're not there yet."
"We did 15 last week."
Kali smiles at her patient, nodding. She holds her hand out and encourages her to grab it so she can pull her up. Once Yasmine is onto her feet, she steers her away, moving towards the bicycles. "I know, but it took us 3 weeks to get to 15 pounds. You're not accustomed to more than 15 pounds. Maybe we should go back to–"
"No." Yasmine sighs and rolls her neck. "I don't think I could do that whole routine. I promise 15 pounds for me is easy. Can't we do 17 or something?"
"Of course. We can even try for 18 next week. Do you want to work on the bike a bit before I let you go or are you tired?"
Pain spreads through her arm and looking at the empty bike waiting for her only makes her legs suddenly ache as well. The tensions built up has caused her to limp and just the mere thought of breaking a sweat on them makes her want to lay down on the cold floor and cry and ask one of her parents to come pick her up like she's in the 5th grade again and it's the evening of her graduation dance and her date has been caught dancing with her enemy from another school. That actually happened.
Yasmine is in charge of what hurts her and what doesn't, so she raises her head towards her therapist and says, "I don't think I can do the bike today. I still have to drive home and my arms are actual jelly."
Kali nods sympathetically. "Of course. Let's try this again next week. I'll give you a list of new exercises to do." As she walks Yasmine out, she grabs a sheet of paper from the front desk. "How are the yoga positions? Difficult?"
"I feel like my legs are more flexible than my arms." She flexes her right arm, the most injured one. "I don't know what I'm going to do about this. For my job, even typing too much is painful. I have to resort to giving the students physical homework and all the other TAs work primarily on the computer. It's just hard for them to adjust, but the pain in my arm doesn't agree with typing all the time. It feels like fire. And don't get me started on working on my desk for hours on end."
Kali does the same thing she always does. She nods sadly and pushes her lower lip out, running her hand over Yasmine's non-injured arm. "I know. We're working, though! We're getting better. I remember when you weren't even able to do 10 pounds! And now look at you. On your way to 20 pounds. That's progress, and I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but it's really something. You got hurt 4 months ago. This is good!"
