Faye
I fumbled with my keys, unlocking the apartment door and dropping onto my worn out sofa as soon as I was in the living room, sighing loudly as I did so. The apartment was eerily quiet; Ella, my roommate, obviously wasn't home.
"ELLA!" I shouted, just to make sure.
When I heard no answer, I decided to watch a movie since I had nothing else remotely interesting to do. I decided to watch mean girls for the hundredth time.
• • •
Halfway through the movie, I heard some loud and obnoxious giggling coming from just outside the door. I rolled my eyes: it was probably Ella on her way back from another wild night. My mind wandered back to the many months when I had been stuck in that same cycle: getting wasted every night, waking up on a park bench in some random place every afternoon, finding my way home every evening and doing it all again the next night. I hurriedly pushed the memories to the back of my head; I didn't fancy taking a trip down memory lane in fear of being reminded of what caused that cycle.
I cautiously made my way over to the front door, hearing Ella's muffled voice shouting at inanimate objects. "Open!" I heard, followed by fits of giggling. I rolled my eyes, imagining her shouting at the door.
As soon as I opened the door, a still very drunk, platinum blonde haired girl stumbled through on dangerously high, spiked stilettos. Ella.
I helped her over to the sofa, switching mean girls off with a sigh. I forced Ella's death trap shoes off her feet and dropped them to the floor, covering my roommate with a blanket and placing a bucket next to her before stalking out of the living room.
I decided that instead of moping around the flat all evening, I would spend some time at the gym. Working out always gave me a chance to clear my head of everything around me, which was why it was my form of therapy when everything happened.
I quickly changed into my gym shorts and a tank top, putting some jogging bottoms and an old sweatshirt on top. I put on my trainers, grabbing my phone, earphones, keys and boxing gloves and stuffing them into my gym bag before walking out of the flat and locking the door.
"Shoot."
I face palmed as soon as I left the building. It was 6:30 in the middle of October and I was out in jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt.
"Oh well," I muttered as I spotted the bus approaching from down the road and realised that I didn't have long to catch it. I jogged to the bus stop, hopping onto the bus as soon as the doors opened and taking a seat at the back after showing my bus pass to the driver.
As soon as the bus stopped, I stepped down after thanking the bus driver. I walked into the familiar gym, greeting James, the man at the front desk. Wasting no time, I rushed into the large, deserted training room, looking around and taking in the huge mirrors covering every wall and the heavy punching bag hanging from the ceiling.
• • •
The only sounds in the room were my heavy breathing and the rattling of the chains as my boxing glove fiercely hit the heavy bag again and again. Sweat ran down my face but I never stopped punching, aiming a few kicks here and there.
I had been told countless times that boxing wasn't very ladylike, but I honestly couldn't care less. When everything happened, boxing was my only cure; therapists hadn't helped anything. I was able to take all my anger and pain and put it into attacking the punching bag, and it felt good. I felt tears well up in my eyes as the memories resurfaced but quickly pushed them back. I hit the bag harder, the chains creaking from my ruthless punching.
