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CHAPTER ONE

A WAVE OFcool air washes over me as I enter the small building, and I say a silent prayer that the people milling about inside can’t see the remnants of smudged mascara from my crying session on the drive here. Hell, even if they can’t see my smudged makeup, my puffy, red eyes and the lack of my usual partner will do the trick to tell everyone,Hey, I got dumped!

It’s been an entire month, yet here I am, still crying over the douchebag that cheated on me.

But I’m here now, which means I’m getting better. The gym used to be a place of solace for me, but I haven’t been able to gather the courage to come here since the breakup. I’ve been too afraid to run into Brady, and it doesn’t help that we both have memberships to this small, privately-owned gym. Even though I’m not fond of the larger chain gyms around town, I had briefly considered getting a membership at one just so I could avoid him, but screw that. I refuse to change such a big part of my life and inconvenience myself just because Brady decided he’d rather fuck some hot, skinny, blonde chick. This should behisproblem to deal with, not mine.

“How are you today, Ivy?” James, the owner of the gym, is leaning over the front desk, in the middle of showing something to the kid working the computer, and he’s staring straight at me. My heart skips a beat. Those eyes seem like they could look straight into my soul, and Ireallydon’t want any attention right now. The muscles and tendons in his arm shift as he lowers his arm from whatever he was pointing at on the screen.Impressive.

“I’m fine. How are you?” I cast my eyes down and try to keep my voice casual, but it doesn’t work. My tone is raspy and uneven from crying, but I hope he doesn’t notice since I rarely speak to him anyway. The last thing I need is for him to notice I’m upset, because I definitely don’t want to talk about my feelings, especially not with this man, who is intimidating and attractive as hell, 6 feet of carved, defined muscle and dark hair. I don’t think I’ve spoken ten words to the guy in the past year, even in passing pleasantries, so I don’t know why he’s decided thatnowis the best time to speak to me.

“I’m good, thanks,” he answers, and I can feel his gaze still on me. I scan my membership card quickly, still avoiding eye contact, and hustle over to the treadmills while putting in my headphones. I click “play” on my metal playlist to hype myself up and start my cardio.

I’m not used to coming here so late, since Brady and I always came together when he got off work at 5:30. It’s 7 p.m. now, which means I should have no issues avoiding him as long as he sticks to his previous schedule. I’m sure he hasn’t given me a second thought since we broke up, anyway.

As I walk to the heavy beat of the music, I subtly look around at the few other people occupying the room. I like the placement of the treadmills, because they sit along the back wall but face the floor-to-ceiling mirrors across the room, giving me the perfect spot to people-watch while blending into the background. It’s not nearly as busy now as it had been at the time Brady and I would come, but I already miss some of the familiar faces. It’s an entirely different group of people here at this time of day, but the demographics are still mostly the same. Lots of guys with bulging arms wearing t-shirts they’ve chopped haphazardly into tank tops. There are only a few women, but the ones that come here are almost always the awe-inspiring hardcore fitness junkies who wear matching sports bra/shorts sets that show off their toned bodies.

It has occurred to me more than once that I don’t really fit the target demographic here, but I really don’t mind. I spent all of my teenage years and the first few years of my twenties hating my body and wishing I could be thin, toned, and lithe, like the models I pored over in magazines, reading the accompanying articles like “Twelve simple diet tricks to make you lose 30 pounds in one month!” Now, at twenty five, I realize that not only is that model standard virtually impossible for my body type, but it simply wouldn’t make me happy.

So I’m technically overweight, and I don’t have a flat stomach, and my thighs squish a little (or a lot) when I sit down. But, aside from the past month of heartbreak-fueled inactivity, I exercise often. I’m strong, and I try to keep myself moving and healthy.

I’ve learned that life’s too short for me to say no to the fun little things that add a few pounds, like Sunday ice cream trips with my little sister or late-night pizza orders after a night of drinking with friends. I love myself, and I love my body because it’s the physical culmination of everything I’ve ever been through. My body has been my home no matter where I’ve gone and what I’ve done. And for that, I celebrate it and what it can do. I exercise not only to challenge myself and feel good, but also to honor the skin I’m in.

I realize I’m accidentally getting lost in my thoughts when a man at the front of the room catches my eye in the mirror and drags me back to reality.Whoops. He flashes me a smile, probably thinking I’m checking him out rather than zoning out, then resumes his bicep curls while I awkwardly look down at my phone and pretend to send a text.

I adjust the treadmill incline to a even ten once the timer hits fifteen minutes and keep walking, feeling the burn almost immediately in my calves and thighs. I watch my reflection in the mirror across the room as I trudge along, my messy ponytail swinging back and forth behind my head. I love how curvy my legs look in black leggings, and I can at least pretend to be somewhat cool in my old 2018 tie-dye Warped Tour t-shirt.

I’m sweating by the time I finish my thirty-minute incline walk, and I take a long swig from my water bottle before wiping down the treadmill and walking to the other side of the gym to do my strength training. It takes me a minute to realize that I can’t do my full routine anymore because that assface Brady isn’t here to spot me. I don’t want to ask anyone else, either, because I’m not even passively familiar with any of them.

I decide that I can skip squats for today and do everything else in my routine. No biggie. I’ll be dying of soreness tomorrow anyway, and maybe within a couple weeks I’ll be friendly enough with one of the regulars to have them spot me.

I make my way through the machines for training my lower body, deciding to save the fresh hell of upper body workouts for tomorrow. For my last exercise, I go the the free weights section, grab two dumbbells, and start a set of stationary lunges. I look at the wall-length mirror to my right to check my form, and I can feel eyes on me. Finishing my first set of lunges, I glance in the mirror again to scan the room behind me, trying to figure out if I’m just being paranoid or if someone really is looking at me.

I catch his gaze and look away quickly. James, the owner, is staring at me, and he looks . . . Confused? Concerned? I don’t know. Whatever. In my peripheral vision, I see him run his hand through his dark brown hair before I fully look away.

While I normally wouldn’t care about someone watching me, James has always been intimidating to me since Brady and I got memberships here over a year ago, but I can never figure out why I feel so on-edge around him. He’s definitely attractive, but that’s not usually something that phases me much. Maybe it’s because he’s so reserved and quiet; he’s made polite conversation with Brady before but never seemed to volunteer much information, and he usually just gave me a polite nod of acknowledgment, so it’s weird that he greeted me by name tonight. I think I remember Brady saying something about James being former military, but I’m not sure. Maybe my weird aversion to authority makes me nervous around him. He is probably close to my dad’s age, after all.

I quickly do my last two sets of lunges, still feeling his eyes burning into me, before I return the dumbbells to the rack and finish what’s left of my water bottle. I’m already feeling so much better than I was a couple of hours ago. The physical exertion has given me that odd rush of endorphins mixed with exhaustion, and it’s a release I’ve desperately needed. I know I’ll sleep like a baby tonight, and hopefully I’ll drift off quickly without my mind wandering back tohimlike it has every night for the past month. He doesn’t deserve my thoughts. Not anymore.

“Where’s Brady? You two always come together.”God damn it. James is still at the desk as I go to leave, and I reluctantly meet his eyes. He stands like a statue, solid and chiseled, with an aura of absolute authority about him, despite him being a man of few words.

“Uh, well, we kind of broke up . . .” I answer. His face is unreadable, though I think I detect a hint of concern, and it irritates me. I don’t need his pity. I’m waiting for him to say the same thing everyone else has said:Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.But he doesn’t.

Instead, he asks, “Are you okay?”Well, shit. Now I’m not.I can fake being happy, or at least apathetic, but if someone asks me if I’m okay, it reminds me that I am most definitelynot okay.The fact that he actually seems to care at least a little doesn’t help my emotional reaction.

Tears burn at the back of my eyes, but I flash him a fake, reassuring smile. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I say before rushing out the door and into the parking lot.Real smooth, Ivy.

I GET BACKto my apartment and peel off my workout clothes before getting in the shower. Despite the small hitch at the end when James asked about Brady, the workout really had helped me feel better. And now that I had finally forced myself to go, I’m sort of disappointed in myself for waiting so long.

As I wash the sweat and grime from my body, I think about my plans for the rest of the week. I’ll definitely go back to the gym tomorrow, but I’ll have to tone it down on the treadmill; My legs already feel like Jell-O, and I’m sure tomorrow they’ll feel even worse.

James pops back into my mind, and I try to push the image of him away. He had looked at me a lot today, and it made me uneasy, like I was under inspection. He’s barely spoken to me the entire year that Brady and I have come here (though, he wasn’talwaysthere when we went, I guess), so why did he seem to have such a newfound interest in talking to me and making sure I was okay?

I weigh the idea that maybe he just didn’t recognize me at first, but that couldn’t be it because he addressed me by name when I came in. He must not have spoken to Brady recently, though, since he didn’t know about the breakup, which has me hoping that Brady got a membership somewhere else to avoid me.

After throwing away our two-year relationship to hook up with some random chick, heshouldfeel bad and avoid me. Fuck him.

I do some stretches after I get out of the shower and throw on some pajamas, then drink another bottle of water for good measure before turning on some old Disney movies and sinking into the couch. Against my better judgment, I type Brady’s name into the Facebook search bar. Even though I deleted him from my friends list, his page is still public, so I can see everything he posts. I’m not sure what I expect to find, but it’s definitely not that his relationship status is already changed back to “in a relationship.”Seriously?

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