Skinny Boy ✔

Chapter 8: storms

The weather was getting warmer, and the temperature was leaving me in puddles of sweat each time I tried to do my toning or warming up at home. Some Fridays after school, when I didn't feel like being out and around people after 5 days of it, I'd carry out as much of my workout regimen as I could at home, and then relax in the evening. Those days were long gone. I often reminded myself of what that man at the gym had said: the gym would have to become like a home to me.

Replacing them were countless moments of mentally battling myself over whether or not it was worth it to go to the gym, or whether or not it would be a good idea to take a day off to myself. It was an exhausting process that always ended with me at the gym. It was the same arguments between to parts of my mind: the exhausted, and the obsessive. The same cycle of trying to measure the pros and cons while my mind was in a constant state of screaming at me to just get up and go. Sometimes there were other things that would weave their way into the process, like looking up motivational quotes, or when I was in a bad mood, I would sometimes result to self-deprecation.

If I can't make myself excited for progress, I can make myself scared of failure.

Time and time again, what I thought was the wiser part of myself would win the battle. And maybe it was the smarter part of myself. It certainly outsmarted me. But it was smart in all the wrong ways. It manipulated the way I thought, the way I acted, and had me at the mercy of the ways I felt. I did that. A part of me I shouldn't have succumbed to, did that.

One Friday afternoon, when spring was still wishing one of its last rainy fairwells before its departure, I was packing my gym bag when a knock echoed from downstairs. It was one of those days again, where I had a long week and wanted to stay home. As my sister answered the door, I hoped and prayed that it wasn't for me. Frankly, I wasn't in the mood to deal with visitors, and I certainly didn't want anything standing between me and my destination.

"Yeah, he's upstairs," I heard her say.

I lost all hope and sighed when I heard a familiar voice downstairs. Surely, the footsteps thumping up the stairs came seconds later, and so did a face to match the voice.

Garret.

A pang of guilt flooded through me when I felt the urge to roll my eyes at his presence.

"Hey! Sorry, are you busy?"

"Yeah, kinda," I said. Please tell me that my annoyance didn't seep through my tone.

"Sorry about that," he said, leaning his hand against the doorway.

It was such a simple action, and I shouldn't have thought anything of it. He was just acting chill at his best friends house. But that ever nagging part of me saw it as a barracade between me and the place I needed to be.

"What did you want?" I winced at how rudely that came out.

"I wanted to hang out. I've been trying to get a hold of you to see when you could, but you haven't answered your phone this week. Like, at all!" He was getting increasingly exasperated the more he explained something that I should have already understood. As if I wasn't feeling guilty enough, he threw one more fact in there that made every chance of me walking away from this looking like a good person impossible. "I've been trying to get the chance to ask you what you wanted for your birthday!"

Yep, I'm definitely the bad guy in this scenario.

"Oh," was all I could stupidly force out of my mouth before going back to zipping up my bag. "Listen, I didn't mean to ignore your texts." Lies. It was intentional. "I've just been really busy."

"For the past month?"

"Listen, I've been trying to bring my grades up, and the school year's almost done. Can't it just hold off until the summer? Then we can hang out and go do stupid shit as much as we want!"

As long as it doesn't interfere with my plans.

He let out a sigh, but before he could respond, I spoke again. "Listen, I appreciate you coming here, but you caught me at a bad time. I gotta head out now."

"Where are you going?" he asked. He was still a wall between me and the hallway.

"The gym." I looked over his shoulder at the area he was keeping me from.

"Again?"

"Yes, again."

I don't have the time for this. I'm wasting precious time!

"You've been there a lot."

"Yeah, so?"

You can make these observations another time!

"You're beginning to worry me, Nate."

I didn't like where this was going. I didn't like how vulnerable I was feeling. I didn't want to be vulnerable.

To be vulnerable is to be weak.

I only felt comfortable being vulnerable around myself and this new side of me I had discovered. Because this new side of me, this new strength I had found, could push away any weakness I felt, therefore pushing away any vulnerabilities that arose.

But right now? I was trapped. And like a dog who felt cornered, threatened, and vulnerable, I was about to bite.

"Worried about what? Me getting healthy? Me being active?"

"Yes!" he threw his hands up in the air. "Because you're so focused on those things that it isn't healthy!"

"You're just jealous," I scoffed.

"Jealous? Wow, Nate, I never pinned you as a prideful type of person."

"Well, I never pinned you as the jealous, overbearing friend, but here we are."

We both stood in silence for a few seconds, nothing but our huffing breaths and the rain played as a background track as we processed what I'd said. You could hear the sound of unseen thunder in the distance, and see the lightning screaming in our eyes. It was all a choir put together screaming for sanity.

But with me, there wasn't much left.

He was the one to break the silence. The calmness in his voice almost killed me. "You know, if you don't wanna hang out, you can just spare me the time and tell me. Be straightforward for once, will ya?"

"That's not what I meant!"

Why am I saying it like I'm mad? Stop being angry! Show you care!

"Well it's sure as hell how you're acting."

"But I never said that! I just said I was busy," I thundered against the rain.

"Whatever, dude." He turned on his heel and began walking toward the door.

"That's it? You're just gonna leave it at that?" I called after him, trailing down the stairs not far behind him.

"Well what do you suggest I do, huh? Keep you here longer? You wanted to go, right? If you're headingout, there's no point in me staying."

"You could hang out with me," Jamie, whose presence we just acknowledged, called from the living room. I forgot he was in there playing video games. He probably heard our entire fight--or, at least, my loud arguing.

Garret said nothing more than a simple I'll see you around before walking out into the pouring rain.

"Or not," Jamie said.

Snapshot.

~