Skinny Boy ✔

Chapter 22: big questions

I got a second date. I not only had a successful first date with Chelsea, but I got a second date with her too. Then the second date turned into a third one, and next thing I knew, by the end of July we were planning on a fourth date. 

I'm not going too fast if I ask her to be my girlfriend, right? I asked myself as I combed through my hair in the mirror with my fingers. I mean, we've only known each other for a month! I'm taking things too fast, aren't I? What if she doesn't want to date me? She's going to a charter school when school starts back up, so what if she plans on this being a summer fling and nothing else? 

Sooner or later, the anxious thinking went away, and my irrational worries about Chelsea were replaced with irrational worries about my body. I went from checking my hair, to checking the same section of my body. 

Just like opening a wallet over and over again doesn't make money appear in it, repeatedly checking the same muscles and bones doesn't make them change. I knew that, and I wasn't expecting them to change. I knew I'd have to work for it. But something deep inside me keep pushing me to check again, not to see if it changed, but to observe and stare at in shame. Unlike with checking your wallet and finding it still empty, looking at those same spots left me with more than a little disappointment. It left me with an un-explainable desire to break down screaming and crying. 

Man up. Instead of thinking about it so much, just do something already! Do something more! Fix it! 

I knew what I needed to do: something more. 

~

An extra hour, every gym day. Five hundred to a thousand more calories, every day. Fifty pounds added to the dumbbells, 25 to the barbells, and five more reps for each set.

I wasn't just sweaty from the early August heat. I wasn't tired from staying up late into the night playing video games with my best bro like I should have been.

I was thoroughly and utterly exhausted. My muscles ached, my bones felt ready to give in at any moment, my tendons were on the verge of snapping. Every morning I woke up with sore muscles, dreading the day ahead of me, but nevertheless, willing myself to get up.

On days that I found it particularly difficult to pry myself up out of bed, I would let that voive in my head run rampant, unhinged. While I usually tried to pacify myself with assuring that I would do something, and that something would change, I knew that the only way to make these running thoughts stop was by getting up and putting in the work.

While this happened on occasion, there was one thing that occurred every morning without fail. Every day, as the sun had just begun to peek into my room, I would head straight to the closet door, open it, and stare at myself in the mirror until I hated myself enough to go to the gym.

It was an exhausting routine, as I started it before anyone else was awake. It was only me, my thoughts, and the roaring silence of the isolating room around me, all reflected back to my eyes in an ugly picture called the mirror. 

This method of motivation worked every time, without fail. 

~

There was one particular morning, just a few sunsets and sunrises away from when I'd ask Chelsea to go out with me, when I was ready to throw in the towel. Just take a little break, that's all I wanted to do. Go a week without so much pressure on myself, without the strict, rigid rules of the routines I had plastered into my life. But the more I lingered on the idea, the more guilty I became. I wasn't a quitter, so why was I acting like one? 

Man up already! I told myself. What would Chelsea think? Would she really want to date a pathetic, weak, cowardly quitter who couldn't pick up his slack? 

No, she wouldn't. She would want a man who can bench press double her weight. She would want someone who can protect her, make her feel safe. A skinny boy can't do that. She wouldn't want a skinny boy. 

At least, that's what I thought. 

~

In spite of all my worrying and panic, the forced-out question was only answered with a smile and a happy girl. My facade of confidence worked; I got a girlfriend! 

So why wasn't I finally at peace? Why was it that getting the big question out of the way only pushed forward a dozen more worries? 

I had the girl. I got the abs. I gained the weight. I gathered the compliments. I accomplished goal after goal after goal after goal. I achieved so many things. The boy I was only six months ago would have been envious of where I was now. But for me, that little taste of victory wasn't enough. It could never be enough. I would never be enough. The entire month of August not only brought with it a late wave of summer heat, but also, a time in my life where I really was spiraling out of control. 

For every victory came two reasons to hate myself. For every accomplishment came three things I wanted to change, inside and out. No one could see it, because I was great at hiding and making excuses, but I was breaking apart.

I was drowning in steroids, breathing in sweat, fueling and burning calories, treating food as a tool more than a necessity. In my mind, the real necessities were testosterone and protein. Walking a path paved with pins and needles, all ready to inject me with the juice I so desperately needed to keep going. Cardio was what kept my heart beating, the rigid schedules were what kept my mind from going crazy. 

Nearly every moment of my day was consumed by my obsessive lifestyle. But this was no longer a lifestyle, it was my whole life.

Yes, I was breaking apart, but a point in my journey that would shake my life until it crumbled was just around the corner. 

~

Cliffhanger (I guess). Sort of a slow chapter, but it really shows the terror and obsessive thinking going on in Nate's head, even in the most mundane moments of his days. 

Thanks for reading. Thoughts? I really appreciate the comments; they make me feel like people get what I'm trying to write.