Page 14 of The Weight Of It All
He grinned. “Nope, no dying today.” He held his hand to me and pulled me to my feet without any effort. “You did great.”
“Can we go back to blinking? My eyelids are about the only things that still work.”
He blinked once for yes.
I laughed and let my head fall forward, a mix of exhaustion and relief that my second official training session was finished.
“You did real good today, Henry.” He spoke to me?and to all his clients, I presumed?like I was the only person in the room. “For the next two days, do some gentle walking, gentle stretches. Give your body a rest, but try not to be still for too long. And I’ll see you on Sunday at eight o’clock, yeah?”
I nodded. “Yep. If I’m not dead.”
“I’ll text you tomorrow to see how you’re getting on. Is that okay?”
“Sure. But isn’t tomorrow your day off?”
Reed nodded. “Yep. I have Wednesdays and Fridays off. But I don’t mind.” He perked up and gave a mock salute. “It’s my duty as your personal trainer.”
I found myself smiling at him. “Sure. I better get going. I gotta go home and get showered and into work by nine.”
“We have showers here.”
I blanched. Never in a million years would I shower where anyone could walk in and see me. “Uh, no thanks.”
Thankfully Reed didn’t push it. Maybe he saw the fear on my face. He looked at his watch. “Shoot. It’s eight o’clock now.”
“Ten minutes to home, twenty minutes to shower and shave, and fifteen minutes to drive to work. Believe me, the longest part will be the walk from the elevator to my desk.” I did my best rusted Tin Man impersonation, though I wasn’t acting, and walked/shuffled out of the gym.
And by the time I fell into my office chair, the familiar yet still-surprising-at-every-turn muscle pain mowed me down again.
Friday nightI did nothing but eat grilled chicken and salad, wishing it was pizza, wishing I didn’t hurt like hell, and wishing Graham hadn’t left me. Saturday morning, even though I could barely move, I pottered around the apartment gathering up the bits of pieces of what remained of Graham’s belongings. Well, anything below the knees could bloody well stay where it was because I couldn’t bend down that far to pick it up.
By eleven o’clock, the dining table had a neat little collection of his things: his favourite coffee mugs, a red glazed bowl he bought from the Queen Victoria Markets from one of our many trips to Melbourne, a stack of DVDs which he clearly forgot to take with him, a pile of neatly folded clothes?most of which I had bought for him?some old books, an umbrella, some shoes, and a bunch of stuff from the bathroom vanity.
When he’d moved into my apartment, he hadn’t brought that much stuff with him. No furniture, just mostly clothes and personal belongings, a box of kitchen utensils, and odd plates and cups. He left all his old mismatched furniture for his old flatmate when he’d moved out, considering I had everything we’d need.
But eight years later, there were now very visible gaps around my apartment of where his stuff used to be. The curved designer chaise he’d paid a small fortune for, the floor lamp which I always thought looked like a giant butt plug, the canvas off the wall in the hall, the centrepiece vase from thedining table…
There were also very visible gaps in my life. Eight years is a long time to spend with one person. We mostly had different social circles but there were some mutual friends, and I wondered idly who’d get whom in the split. I’d spoken with most of our closest friends during the week. Some were shocked at the news we’d broken up, some didn’t seem too surprised at all. Like Colin and James, from their reaction, I gathered they knew it might have been coming for some time. Graham must have told them long before he told me, and I figured they’d be on the Graham side of the divide when the dust settled. And that was okay. Sure, they were great guys, but they’d always been closer to Graham.
With that in mind, I fished out my phone from my pocket, scrolled through recent calls, and hit Anika’s name. She answered on the second ring. “Hey you.”
“Hey.”
“How are you today?”
“I’m going through the things Graham left behind.”
“Oh. Did you need me to come around?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“Gonna sell them on eBay? Or perform a ceremonial burning?”
“Well no, I was going to call him.”
“Oh, Henry,” she said quietly. “Don’t do that to yourself. Burning everything will be much more therapeutic. I can bring around some petrol if you like.”
“I’m not going to burn them.”
