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Lily practiced yoga because it was calming, a safe space she had carved for herself away from the spirit of competition she'd had force-fed down her throat for most of her life. It pulled her out of the world of physical attachments and connected her to something deeper that she'd never felt before, a resounding sense of security and warmth that her parents had never provided. It was a home that she'd made for herself, and a feeling that repeated whenever she made contact with someone who was pack.

Except she'd mucked it up, and part of her pack was hurt by her actions, and everything good she'd felt before had been torn out from under her, leaving her breathless and gasping for air in the aftermath. In moments like these, there was no solace to be found in connecting to the spiritual or letting herself go.

There was, however, solace in working her muscles until they screamed.

She'd started feeling the urge to climb again and knew that the moon's cycle was coming back around, that there was nothing she could do about it, that in a week's time she'd be heading to the Otherworld again. That tension manifested as an ugly itch in her arms and legs, and the only way she could clear her head was to relent and find a rooftop or tire herself to the point of exhaustion. It was easier just to climb, but she'd already been at the gym when it struck her, and so she found the nearest bar and began to do pull-ups, as many as her gangly arms would allow before she nearly dropped from the air. After a moment to rest, she pulled her legs up and dangled from the same bar, doing as many crunches as her abs would allow. When her stomach felt completely on fire, she unraveled from the bar and began to do pull-ups again, quickly and with force.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

It took Lily a moment to register that she was being spoken to, and a moment further to actually stop her routine, breathing heavily as she lowered herself to the ground on shaking arms.

"Maybe that was the point," she greeted dryly, wiping the sweaty bangs back from her forehead. The look she gave Thorne was a nervous one that lingered a moment too long on his torso, where last time she'd seen him his insides had become his outsides on her watch.

"So how goes it, boyfriend-in-law?" Lily asked, her eyes darting back up to his and eager for a reprieve from her memories of Blackfriar's. "You're looking awfully spry for someone who played the part of human emery board."

s**t. Shouldn't have said anything. Lily's lips pursed, but she made no effort to retract her statement.

Lily's eyes widened and she murmured "oh s**t" softly under her breath. "I'm sorry," she stammered, "I didn't know." She'd been ignoring Lucas for the most part, excepting the odd text here and there from their group chat. It was still too touchy a subject for her to admit she needed to apologize for her actions there.

"I, uhhh, I feel you there," she murmured, trying her best to get the conversation back on track. "I was out of it for a while after the...the thing." She reached for her own towel and bottled water on a nearby stool, wiping her face. "But it's about that time again and I...yeah, steam to burn off is a good way to put it." Insatiable need to climb was perhaps a better way to put it, perhaps, but Thorne didn't know her like that, didn't need to know her like that.

Lily did her best to laugh, but it was quick to fall, something off-kilter to the tone of her voice. "I think I can understand wanting to be a safe distance away from the exes. Been there, done that, deleted some numbers along the way, it's always a shitshow when there's feelings involved."

When he warned against hurting herself, Lily's lips pursed into a tight-wrought frown and her eyes darted away, as if looking at him might betray some secret she'd been keeping. "I know," she responded defensively, her shoulders hunched as she looked down at her water bottle. She wasn't looking for a pity party, or for someone to feel some empathy--what she felt sucked, she wouldn't wish it on anyone, but at the end of the day, she had come there with the intent to burn herself out, to work until she couldn't feel anymore, but that wasn't the same as hurting herself...was it?

Her brain went around in circles as she considered the rhetoric of it all, and ultimately decided that she didn't care what it meant. Lily shook her head and downed the rest of her water in one go.

"Trying's a word you could use for it," Lily shrugged, doing her part not to make eye contact. "Chaos nightmare hell might've been better, but I mean hey, maybe I was just overreacting." Biting her lip, she glanced up at him, and then away once again. "I'm glad you're okay, though."

A spotter. Just the idea, the thought of support from the outside world was enough for something in her throat to catch, and she coughed to kick away the sudden impulse for tears, for everything to overwhelm her all at once. You weren't supposed to cry at the gym unless you were soft. Lily might have been covered in sweat, her skin blotchy and her hair matted, but she wasn't soft.

"Sounds good," she finally stammered out, grabbing for her hand towel so she could begin wiping down the bar. "Have...fun? Or, like...enjoy...bathing...?"

At a loss for an appropriate way to disengage from their conversation, Lily shrugged her shoulders and focused intently on cleaning off the equipment she'd used.