Fit For You

Chapter 3: A Chance

I take a sip of my cappuccino and scroll through Colton's Instagram. It didn't take more than a few clicks to find him through mutual connections. Even though I work for a magazine that heavily relies on internet media, I am not an active user of such socials.

I am out at a cafe with Chris to interview a comic for my article. She's running late, thus, sparing us time to waste.

After seeing Colton yesterday, curiosity to peek at his life got me and here I am now: stalking him on social media during my working hours. He used to be a hotshot at school and it seems things haven't changed much. Well, here goes my faith in karma.

From what I gathered he attended a business school and is now working with his father. During high school everyone knew Colton came from a wealthy business family and was being prepped as its heir. It sucked how a bully like him got everything handed on a silver platter.

My hand reaches out to grab the croissant from my plate but I find it empty. I look up to see it between Chris's mouth and his fingers.

"Don't eat my croissant!" I yell at Chris, who is already halfway through my crunchy pastry.

"Ooh, the guy is hot," he comments, looking at my phone screen, "give me his handle."

I immediately hide my phone from him. "Don't peep!"

"Then give me his handle. I wanna ogle at the hottie too."

I scoff. "The hottie is my ex-classmate who was a pain in my ass throughout high school."

"What did he do?" Chris asks as he finishes my croissant.

I glare at him before answering. "He was just some lame bully who picked on me." It feels embarrassing to go into detail about how miserable Colton made me during those years, so I don't.

"I hate when beautiful people are mean." He sighs, shaking his head. "By the way, why are you going through his Instagram?"

I shrug. "I ran into him yesterday at a gym. He seemed pretty apologetic for what he did to me in the past... I don't know, I guess I wanted to see how he was doing at life. Sadly, he's doing too good."

Chris takes a long slurp of his iced macha tea before imparting his sage words. "The guy was a kid. Don't think too hard, accept his apology and move on. We all were some kind of shitty or cringey in high school. The fact that he's apologizing should be enough to let you know he's a changed person. Besides, holding onto a grudge is only going to age you sooner."

I'd agree with him if Colton was just some random guy in school who poked fun at me here and there like my other peers. But Colton Anderson was the one who started it all. Before him no one bothered with me. I even had a couple of people who I called friends. I was under the radar and thrived in it.

Colton made me the target for the whole school to bully, fat-shame, or simply ridicule. He made it his mission to torment me and used his influence over other students to make them follow in his footsteps. He was their leader, calling all the shots fired at me. There wasn't a single day when I wasn't subjected to his insults or some stupid prank.

"I'll think about it," I reply. I'd have a lot to think about before forgiving that Asshole.

"Wait, you told me you met him at some gym," Chris says, "when did you start going to gym?"

"I am planning to join one," I tell him. "But as my luck has it, I met my high school nemesis at the very first gym I was interested to join." AbsoluteFit, the gym that I visited, is on my way to work while also being near my apartment complex, thus making it the most convenient choice... well, until Colton.