Later that evening, Jess is relentless with her questions about the appointment and they leave Finn glued to the millionth season of Say Yes to the Dress to hide in Rey's room.
Jess's eyes are practically in her hairline and to Rey's undying horror, she flops over on the bed with Rey's pillow over her face as she laughs until she cries.
When she finally comes up for air, she swears, "I'm never having children if that's what can happen to you from it. No way!"
Rey shrugs and goes to the floor to start her exercises. Jess finally quiets down enough that Rey can hear the tv out in the living room again before asking the inevitable question.
"So the doctor was...?"
Rey shrugs, or shrugs as much as she can with her shoulders shoved into the floor by her awkward bridge exercise.
"He wasn't what I expected," Rey hedges. "A lot younger. And a man. That's all. I've never seen a male doctor for… that."
Jess's expression is unreadable, and she finally leaves Rey to work on herself in peace.
The exercises are boring and repetitive, but Rey can't deny she feels tired afterwards and lays sprawled on her bedroom floor. She was the youngest person in the group therapy room today besides Dr. R-Kylo, and while she still feels silly at needing therapy at all, she can admit it feels good to know what's wrong with her. She's not a lost cause.
And she got through it. Yes, it was awkward, but she lived. She's likely not the worst patient he's ever seen, not by a long shot.
Somehow this is a comfort even as another coughing fit overtakes her again and she sits up to grab a tissue.
The next morning Rey awakens face down with her head under her pillow and groans as she rolls over. Her hips and lower back ache from her exercises and she can't believe she's supposed to do them every day until her follow-up in ten days. Surely Thanksgiving is an exception, right? All she plans to do is lie on the couch and watch reruns and enjoy the silence with her roommates gone to their families.
She lingers in the shower, letting the water beat her sore muscles into something resembling comfort. It's then she remembers the other exercises she was prescribed.
"It's important to relax fully between each set," Kylo had told her. "Our muscles hold tension even when we're not using them, right? We need to train your body to be comfortable both at work and at rest."
Rey feels downright embarrassed to be thinking of him now as she's standing naked in the shower with her hand cupped between her legs, trying to feel the difference when she clenches and relaxes, timing her movements with her breathing.
"Make sure you keep breathing as you're working on this one. We can't have you passing out."
He'd winked at her again then, his brown eyes soft. She noticed they were a light brown flecked with tiny dots of green, and she wonders idly if he called them brown or hazel. He probably has some girlfriend, a very pretty, petite, sporty girlfriend who goes for runs with him in the park before it gets crowded, someone who doesn't sweat too much or go bright red in the face the way she does when she exercises. The kind of woman every parent hopes their son will make grandbabies with, one who runs races with their kid in a stroller and tells everyone how she's still getting back into shape even though she already looks perfect in her skin-tight running clothes.
Rey realizes she's holding her breath at these thoughts and stops what she's doing. Jesus, what does that matter? He's her doctor.
She shakes her head at herself and turns off the tap, reaching for her fraying towel around the edge of the curtain.
It takes a few days for the annoying soreness to subside, but Rey notices a difference in her body almost immediately. She still coughs, but she's ready to punch air in triumph when she manages to keep from peeing at the mall after a coughing fit wracks her. Passersby stop and ask her if she's okay and she waves them off with a stupid grin plastered on her face. These people have no idea how delightful this small triumph is.
Three days after that, she's ready to brave Zumba again and although she takes it easy, she's elated to be around her class friends once more. They missed her, she missed them, she missed sweating for an hour straight.
She flies too close to the sun with kickboxing the next day, though, and the setback has her furiously doing a double set of exercises on her bedroom floor.
The day of her follow-up appointment in early December dawns frigid and overcast, so while she bundles up against the cold, she takes care to wear better underwear and her cutest workout gear this time. She knows the drill now, and she's ready.
And if she bothers to put on mascara and a bit of lip gloss-well, that's because she's finally feeling better and is taking care of herself. It has nothing to do with Dr. Ren's nice-looking eyes and extra-large hands.
"You look good, Rey!" Kylo exclaims when she takes off her coat to hang it up in the gym area. "How're you feeling?"
She tells herself not to read anything into his compliment and to be modest in her assessment of her progress.
"A little better," she says. "What are we doing today?"
"Let's see your bridges," Kylo gestures to the mat in front of the mirror. "Then I may have some additional exercises for you."
Rey hopes she's hiding her weird disappointment that she doesn't need an exam as she drops obediently to the floor.
"Don't rush." Kylo stands over her with his hands on his hips. He's in the same black scrubs, but sports a flashy pair of black and red trainers this time that catch her eye. In her imagination, they were a Black Friday gift from his perfect-looking girlfriend and she hates that her stomach drops at the thought.
But… he's not wearing any jewelry, she observes. Not a ring on a chain around his neck like she's seen nurses do, or one of those weird, colored silicone wedding bands.
He drops to one knee next to her and corrects her with the lightest touches to her hipbone, then her buttocks. He slows her motion to nearly half the pace she'd set.
"There," he murmurs. "Remember- quality, not quantity."
Rey can't meet his eyes and she concentrates on the ceiling tiles.
"Perfect. That's better."
She practically glows at this praise and she chances a grin at him. Her heart thuds when he offers a small smile back before standing and retrieving something that looks like a torture device from a metal shelf of equipment.
He stretches a length of rubber tubing between his thumbs and his grin looks downright wicked now.
"Turn over on your stomach," he commands, and Rey's breathing quickens as he catches her feet to cage them with the band. She rests her head on her arms and tries to ignore the heat that's building between her thighs while he positions her.
"Now, I want you to squeeze your knees together-yes, like that," he settles his huge hand on the small of her back. "Then, slowly butterfly your feet apart and close them again. In…. and out… In… and out. Don't let your feet just slap back together- try to feel the resistance both directions."
The exercise is surprisingly hard and her glutes burn almost immediately. She tries not to hold her breath, but it's tough not to when she's nearly nauseous with exertion. She glances back over her shoulder and catches him looking at her.
"How many of these do I have to do?" It sounds whiny but she's tiring rapidly.
"As many as it takes for you to hate me." Kylo's answer is self-assured. "Probably three sets of fifteen to start. Then working up to five of twenty."
Rey groans without meaning to, and Kylo chuckles at her distress.
"This is nothing," he assures her. "You've got this!"
"You're a monster," she mumbles as her ass begins to quiver.
"Yes, I am." His tone is smug and she can tell he's enjoying this far too much.
His hand feels heavy on her low back and she concentrates on that instead of wondering if he's actually some kind of sadist to be liking this.
Two more weeks brings marked improvement.
Her coughing is more sporadic now, and she can endure a bout without frantically calculating the distance to the nearest bathroom just in case. Finals are just around the corner, and she huddles with Jess and her cousin, Rose, late into the night at the main library. They flirt almost as much as they study, and Rey reluctantly accepts the number of a guy about her height with the lean, sinewy physique of a climber.
"Maybe we can hang out after finals," he suggests while he puts his number in her phone.
"Maybe," she nods and hunches back over her laptop, chemistry diagrams swimming in front of her eyes. A month ago it hardly seemed possible she'd ever be attractive to the opposite sex again, so she takes this as progress even as she makes plans to ghost him.
"He's cute," Jess peers over the top of her own laptop. "You should go out with him!"
Rey shrugs. "We'll see."
Jess's eyes dance as she says, "Maybe you can ask him to wear some rubber gloves and feel you up."
"I'm never telling you anything again!" Rey blurts out at normal volume, earning them scowls from other students and a confused look from Rose, who is a freshman and new at the university.
"Rubber gloves?" Rose's nose wrinkles and her adorable face contorts. "Is that some fetish thing?"
"Oh my God, no!" Rey insists as vehemently as whispering will allow at the same time that Jess says, "Rey has a crush on her doctor."
Rose looks horrified and glances between them in disbelief. Rey's sure her own face is the color of the school mascot's fake fur and is about to explain when Rose says, her voice small, "There are male doctors for that? For your… ?" She glances at her lap. "Lady stuff?"
"He's a physical therapist," Rey clarifies. "I've been going to see him because I-I was having issues after the pneumonia. That's all. It's getting better."
Rose's face relaxes slightly but she still looks skeptical at this explanation.
Jess looks like she's trying to hold a bird in her mouth and Rey sneers at her roommate.
"What?!"
"You have such a crush on him. Finn thinks so too. And those exercises seem downright kinky."
"You're impossible!" Rey has had enough. She slams her laptop closed and begins gathering her notebooks and pens into her backpack. "You were the one who insisted I see a doctor in the first place, remember?"
"Rey!" Jess tries weakly but there's no stopping her. She's out the doors, past the security gates and onto the street before Jess can even stand up.
Rey walks alone, thumbs hooked in the straps of her bag, away from campus and towards home. The brisk air feels good against her heated cheeks and she realizes she's speed-walking. She slows her pace a touch and takes in the silence of the deserted campus, trying to calm herself. The leaves are mostly off the trees but the few that remain are lit from beneath by the streetlights and they look like a weird stage decorations, like they're not even real.
Why did it make her so upset for Jess to point out what she had suspected for weeks? She passes the health center and refuses to look up to the floor where the PT office is. What would she even see-it's past midnight on a weekday. There's no way Kylo is still there at this hour.
It could never work between them, Rey tells herself as she slots her key into their unit's door. Finn has passed out on the couch with the TV still on some shitty TLC show about an entire family of little people and she feels a wash of betrayal just looking at him, knowing he and Jess have apparently been discussing her non-existent sex life and blatantly-obvious-to-everyone-else crush on her doctor.
Alone in her room, she retreats to her pajamas- not that different than what she was already wearing to the library in all honesty- and then her bed, pouting with the lights off. The noise of the television on in the living room annoys her further but she refuses to bother turning it off lest she wake Finn. The American television programming is mysterious to her, and his favorite station's format seemed to revolve around brides, polygamists of various stripes, and sadly overweight people. Sometimes all in the same show.
Turning towards the wall, Rey pulled the comforter up to her earlobe. Was she being that obvious? Just because she doesn't hate going to her appointments doesn't mean she's in love with her doctor, does it? She was sick, she needed treatment, and now she's getting better from it.
It's only natural that she would look forward to seeing Kylo. He's helping her get better.
Rey scrunches down further until she's completely enveloped by her blankets.
Just because she thinks about him when she guiltily snakes her hand down the front of her pajamas, doesn't mean she's in love with him. Not because she's thought about his XL-sized fingers sliding into her all slippery with lube and wondered what other parts of him might feel like there instead.
She's already soaked when she reaches into her side table for her vibrator and tries to shut off the logical part of her brain that tells her it's gross to be thinking of her doctor like this, like a piece of meat and not a professional who was randomly assigned to help her. It just means she's feeling better when she pictures him bending her over his exam table, his gloved hands tugging at her waist and the paper crackling beneath her ear as she clings to the vinyl cushion. The door's locked so no one can come in, but she's terrified someone will hear what they're doing; how could they not, the way he's talking to her, one second telling her she's good and the next, promising to punish her? Her mind whites out then, her lower half pulsing before going limp and she rolls onto her stomach. She's breathing hard and the buzzing of her toy seems very loud, but not as loud as the silence after she switches it off, the quiet of being hopelessly alone as she tries to sleep with the muffled sound of reality tv droning from the living room.