Page 74 of Gigi and the Gym Rats

“Then what do you mean?”

“That you think your whole life has to be like that,” Bee says. “Regimented. Healthy. Planned.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You miss out on all the fun,” Bee says. “You let your heart die.”

“My heart is good, all the fiber?—”

“Stop… being so literal! I am talking about your emotions, woman. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Better hurt myself now,” I whisper, “than give it my all and lose myself later.”

21

GIGI

With my mind made up and my number in Ronald’s phone, and his in mine, I feel more relaxed. Like,hey world, I’m doing my part. I’m trying to be what I was meant to be. Look at me go.

I guess this is what patting yourself on the back feels like.

With this good feeling buoying me, I’ve been skipping through life over the past few days. And now it’s Saturday and it’s the weekend and things are bound to get even better.

“I’m so happy for you, my darling,” my mom says, her voice coming thready through the cell as I cross the street after work, returning home. “When are you meeting with this boy again?”

“I don’t know, Mom. We haven’t made any plans to meet again yet.”

“Why ever not?”

“We thought to talk on the phone first, and we’ll see.”

“Oh, honey, don’t stick to the phone. You won’t get to really know someone unless you are in the same room as them.”

That’s faulty advice, and she must know it, because she falls quiet for a bit. We lived with Dad in the same house for how many years and yet never really knew him, as it turned out.

“How is Travis?” I ask in the silence as I wave at Sawyer through the window of the Book Café and open the building door.

“Oh, you know,” my mom says. “Same. Maybe if you talked to him?—”

“No.” I press my lips together as I climb the stairs, not to say anything I might regret.

“It’s just… he loves you and he might listen to?—”

“Mom, he’s a violent alpha who drinks. I don’t want to talk to him or see him. I’m…” I stop, my key in my hand. I’m panting and it’s not from exercise. The silence between us has nails in it. “I’m scared of him.”

“He has never touched you,” mom says quietly. “Never hit you. I asked you.”

“Mom…” I press my forehead to the door. Travis did hit me. I never told her and she doesn’t need this, not now.

“You know he changed since Dad passed away.”

“No, it’s been going on for longer than that,” I say. “He needs help. You and me, we can’t give it to him. He needs a therapist or something.”

Like Dad did, or he might still be alive now,I want to say,he might not have taken his own life,but again I stop myself before the words spill out.

“Fine,” Mom says and her voice wobbles. “If that’s how you feel.”

“Mom…” I hate fighting with her. From my family, she’s the one person I get along with. “Look…”

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