“It’s kind of like a gentle breeze at first. It’s comforting and something I know. I don’t even notice it when it’s like that. But then the breeze can quickly become a nasty storm. There’re micro-bursts in Phoenix in the summer. I was caught in one once—in the car with Zach. He had to pull over off the side of the road and hug me until it went away. It came so fast I didn’t have time to prepare. It’s kind of like that. I can’t see anymore—all I hear is howling, and it scares every bit of me.” Her eyes sunk like she was about to go to sleep. She licked her lips, and he leaned forward a little more and caressed her bottom lip with his thumb. “But now I have you. You’re like that car and Zach. When the storms hits, I know you’re there, and you’ll keep me safe. You won’t open the door to the car until it’s all gone. That’s why I trust you.”
“If I could take the numbers from you—but only when they scare you—I would. It would only be fair that somebody like me takes them on. But maybe . . .” She looked around the room, deep in thought, then swished her head from side to side. “Maybe it would destroy me, because I’m not as strong as you are.”
“But I’m a man. I’m supposed to be stronger than you,” he argued. It made him hurt inside when she looked and talked like that.
“I’m not talking about your physical strength, although I’m sure you could kick my ass in the gym any day. I’m talking about your spirit—your soul. I swear you’re the best person I’ve ever known because you . . .” Her voice faded out, then she looked away from him. A look of anger crossed her eyes. A few minutes later, after their drinks arrived, her eyes were back on him. “You know, Adam, you ask me sometimes if I like you.”
“Do you? Do you still like me?” His head picked up nice and straight, and he gripped the sides of the small cafe table. “Or do you like Zach more?”
“No . . . I don’t like him more—not even close. And with you—it’s more than like. I can’t even begin to describe the level it’s at. But no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, I can’t kid myself. I’m never gonna be good enough to be anywhere near you.”
“Don’t talk like that.” He extended his arm out and gripped her hand, then squeezed.
“I find that I wish more and more I was like you—exactly like you.”
“No, you don’t want to be this,” he said, looking down at his body. “This is broken.”
“But it’s not.” She scooted her chair closer and leaned over the table like she had a secret to share. “Don’t you ever let anybody say you’re broken. They have no idea what they’re talking about. You hear and see numbers? So what? If you had any idea of the horrors I hear and see, you’d know better . . . Keep the numbers if they help you. I would never want you to change, because you’re perfect to me,” she said it all in a hurried, hushed tone. Her hand was out of his, she sat up straight and mumbled a few things under her breath. He thought he heard some profanities in there.
He dragged both hands across the back of his neck, then clamped down on the tops of his shoulders. “I don’t understand why you think you’re bad. Nobody’s nicer than you—nobody! And my family is really nice to me most of the time. Stop talking like this. It hurts my ears.” He dragged his left hand down and put it on his heart. “And this too. If you’re bad, then I want to be bad, too.”
“I’ll never let you,” she said, shaking her head, then following it up with a sip of her water.
Their food arrived, and Adam stared at his plate of scrambled eggs with turkey and avocado in it. “None of this means anything to me without you.” His entire chest hurt—to think she didn’t like herself. “Do you still like me?”
“More than ever,” she replied, taking a bite directly after.
“Then if you like me a lot—and I’m glad you do—then you need to like yourself, too. Because I don’t like bad people.”
“That’s only because you don’t really kno—”
His hand hit the table, making her jump and cutting her off. “Not bad! Mari’s not bad. She’s good. And I do know you! So don’t say that.” His eyes stung with tears that were stuck inside.
She smiled for a second, then took a bigger bite and chewed in silence.
“Thank you for ordering me these eggs. They’re very good, and I hope it didn’t cost a lot.” He watched her shoulders smooth down and her eyes soften along with her mouth.
“You’re welcome. You deserve it.” She smiled and tucked her hair behind her ears before finishing the rest of her fruit plate.
“You do too. And before I forget, I like to watch you eat. It’s a lot of fun.”
She choked on her bite as she started laughing. Her shoulders rounded up by her ears, and her chest curled as she rounded over her plate. Her hand went over her mouth to keep her food inside.
She grabbed a napkin, wiped her mouth and waved for the waitress to come over.
Mari gave him a curious glance, a sort of mischievous smirk. “This man right here loves donuts more than the stars in the sky. Can you hook him up?”
“Boston cream!” Adam almost shouted and bounced out of his seat.
“Give him two,” Mari said. “He deserves it.”
After the waitress left, Mari put her fingers over her lips to tell him to keep it quiet.
He zipped his lips with his fingers, kind of bobbed up and down in his seat until he had those gems bagged and in his hand.
“Oh, good. You ate most of your eggs. This should work out fine,” Mari said.
They went to the front, she paid for the breakfast and drove him back to his car.
Before they parted ways, she hugged him. “Okay, you eat those donuts now. Don’t wait. And get rid of the evidence when you stop to fill up for gas. If somebody in your family asks where you got them, tell them I gave them to you. Okay?”
“Okay, but I—”
She covered his mouth with her palm. “No buts. I don’t want you to get in trouble for any of this. I want to take all the blame. Tell them I invited you to the concert but you didn’t realize you didn’t have to be with me to buy the tickets.” Her hand fell away, freeing his lips.
“That’s kind of a fib,” he said, his foot scraping on the asphalt. He looked down.
“Okay, then tell them the truth. But make sure they know I didn’t send you home right away when I could’ve.” She kissed the corner of his mouth, cupped his chin, stared at the spot where she kissed him and rubbed the remainder of the moistness away with the pad of her thumb.
“I’ll see you at school on Monday.” Her hand fell to her side, but at the last minute she grabbed his hand and caressed it. “Be good like you always are.”
“I will. I’ll be so good, Mari. All for you!” He beamed at her as she got in her Jeep and drove away.
He couldn’t let her get too far ahead, so he jammed a donut in his mouth, almost choked on it, and hopped in the car so he could chase after her. A few minutes in, he remembered the other donut. This one he savored—he’d already gotten right up on her tail, so no more worries.
* * *
When Mari’s mom finished lecturing her after she found out where her daughter had been, they left each other in sulking, bad moods.
Mari didn’t bother to tell her mom where she was going, yet again. This time it was local though.
She pulled up at the gym. Sunday afternoon meant the place was dead.
As soon as she was on the elliptical, she wished she had skipped the salad at lunch. Her stomach wasn’t reacting well to even a little bit of food in it, and she was sluggish, but she powered through. Sweat was pouring off her, but her music was blasting, and for a few short minutes, she was able to think of something other than Adam.
In this moment, right now, all she could think of was her dad—what he was probably doing, surrounded by his mountains of junk. Her chest ached to think what it was going to be like when she went for her visit. It had been two years since her last stay there. And that last one, she ran out of time and wasn’t able to get through as many of his mass
ive piles. He needed help, and she was the only one he would let in the door of that house.
Images assaulted her of his monstrous belly heaped in front of him as he sat and watched hours and hours of sports in his recliner.
Move that fat ass, move that fat ass, move it! she brainwashed herself with each pounding beat. She dwelled instead on what it would take to never become her father.
When her thirty minutes were up, she hit the treadmill so she could run for twenty more and repeat that same mantra to herself again. She looked over, and her unofficial workout buddy, Jorge, was at her right.
“How’s it goin’?” he asked with a grin.
“Great. I lost another five pounds this last month.” She hadn’t seen him in a while. They liked to keep each other on track. “How about you?”
“Eight . . . Six-pack abs, here I come!” He smacked his abs, powered the treadmill on and took off at a quick walk.
She went straight into a run. Her muscles were already warmed up. Besides, in a few minutes he’d be running full-out, and she’d have to battle feelings of inner turmoil over how she’d never be able to keep up with him. That’s when she was stuffing her earbuds back in to distract herself from her petty thoughts.
“Hi,” a chipper tenor rang out on her left.
Her eyes flew open wide, and she turned to her left. “Adam—what are you doing here?”
“I missed you,” he said really loud.
“I missed you too, but you can’t just show up here. How did you even know where I was?” She gripped the bar on the treadmill.
“Sam told me you were texting her earlier to find out if I was okay and if I got in trouble from leaving to find you in Flagstaff.”
“I’m glad you didn’t get busted,” she said.
“Me too. She told me you were busy today, though—had to go to the Y. We figured that meant you’d be here, and we were right.” He wore a huge grin—one of a man that had accomplished something fabulous.
Her heart pounded so hard it was hard to breathe. “Are you here alone?”
“No. Zach’s here.” He jerked his head over his shoulder. Zach was sitting over on a bench by the free weights, talking on his cell.
She whispered, “Did they find out about the donuts I gave you?”
“No,” he whispered back and giggled. “And they won’t. I did what you said, and it was all fine! I played my music real loud, the numbers stayed away while I drove, and you kept me from getting a speeding ticket.” He started up his treadmill.
Looked like she was going to have a new workout buddy today.
“This should be fun. I only ever exercise with Zach, and he gets mean sometimes. He makes me lift more weights than I want to.” Adam walked like he was dancing—his hips moving more than necessary and his head too.
She looked his body up and down. God, she should shoot Zach, because Adam was absolutely a sculptured piece of art. If she wanted him anymore than she already did, she might implode and be sucked up by her vagina. It would at least be a little satisfying to have some attention. She grunted, since she had so many lurid thoughts floating in her head right now she absolutely couldn’t share. All of them involved him being stripped bare and her . . . Stop thinking like that. You like that he’s innocent!
She shoved her earbuds back in, turned the music down a notch in case he tried to say something to her, and she got the treadmill going at her usual speed.
“This a friend of yours?” Jorge asked her.
She almost lost her balance and had to grip the handles. It took a second to remove her earbud closest to him. “Yeah—this is Adam.” She looked at Adam next. “Adam, this is Jorge.”
Jorge leaned forward and waved. Adam scowled but waved back.
“I want her to be my girlfriend,” Adam told him so loud most of the room probably heard.
“Get in line,” Jorge teased.
Adam turned up the speed on his treadmill and stopped looking in Mari and Jorge’s direction.
Her heart clenched. She should’ve introduced Adam as her boyfriend so that conversation wouldn’t have happened. He was probably seeing numbers now. Was that safe while being on a treadmill?
Nobody was talking. Everybody was huffing as they ran, so she let it go. Adam at some point pulled out his phone and plugged in his own earbuds so he could listen to some music.
Mari was sandwiched between two gorgeous guys, almost battling for the most prowess evidenced by their speed. She was dumb enough to try to keep up.
Her legs ached, her lungs were about to explode, but she matched them stride for stride even though they were both much taller than she was.
After a half hour of absolute insanity, she hit the free weights and machines.
Adam hovered around her and was real jumpy. His energy was like nothing she’d seen before.
He zinged from equipment to equipment and lifted large amounts of weights like they were nothing. But what really had her aching—with not only stabs of sharp jealousy, but more so with a desire so thick and hot it ate at her veins—was when he climbed up the middle of the corner nautilus machine. He placed a strap on the center, had one foot anchored in it, grabbed the pull-up bar at the top, and did some kind of inverted, slanted, pull-up. It was the exact opposite of a push-up. His whole body was in a tight, slanted plank, and he managed to move his body up and down, performing about fifteen of them.
Her jaw hung open and she had to step away, far back, because when he got down, she was ready to take all of his innocence—every last bit.
Adam approached her. Zach did, too. “Hey, guys, I’m gonna go take the rest of this call in the car.” Zach waved and left. He hadn’t worked out at all, and by the looks of the way he was walking, it was a woman he was talking to.
Adam pulled his earbuds out and put them in his pocket.
“What else do you like to do when you work out?” Adam asked, exuberant as ever.
“Well, I . . . I sometimes go do the stair-stepper?”
“I’ll join you!” He grabbed her hand and pulled her along.
They got on, and she was cursing herself. What was she thinking? She was already wiped out.
But Adam was as ready to move that perfect body of his as when he first arrived.
They worked out side-by-side, listening to their own music.
After about twenty minutes, she stopped the machine, jumped off and excused herself.
She bolted down the hall and barreled her way into the ladies’ locker room.
Her stomach barely let her make it to the toilet in time.
“Stupid! So stupid!” she berated herself as she began to vomit profusely. She could feel it coming. Her ab workout was more extreme—everything was done in a harsher way because he was here, and she wanted to at least feel like she could keep up with him in some way. She’d never really be pretty, but she could force her body to be thin.
Tears gushed out. “Anything but this! No! No, goddammit!” She pounded a fist into the ground as she braced herself with her other hand on the stall’s wall. Her stomach contracted violently and another round came. She blinked but saw nothing in front of her anymore. Her head stung and pounded as horrifying images of dead people covered with vomit consumed her mind.
When she finished emptying out her stomach, the vision slowly dissipated. She slumped on the ground, cried harder than ever and slammed her palms on the floor. Her head had been a blanket of nasty images. Each worse than the next—all involving her horrific past. Some moments morphed into what could’ve been.
Vomiting always triggered these episodes—she knew this. And she also knew if she worked out way too hard, this could happen.
Dammit, she had to be more careful!
She heaved in as many deep lungfuls as she could.
There was a tap at the locker room door. “Mari, are you in here?” Adam’s sweet voice rang through the crack.
“Yeah—using the restroom. Be right out,” she managed to sputter through bile covering her mouth.
She pushed herself up to sitting, wiped her mouth off with some toilet paper, cleaned herself up and the rim of the seat, then flushed it down.
Thankfully she was alone when she left the stall. Most likely people heard and smelled someone throwing up and vacated as quick as they could.
Or maybe they fled when a man’s voice echoed in here. He was definitely brave, this guy, to try and check on her like this.
She gargled some water, washed her hands, spit and dried all up.
“Stop this! He’s out there waiting,” she told herself, refusing to look at her reflection. “You can do this.”
She stumbled a little as she dragged herself back out into the hallway.
Adam hugged her the second she was near him. “I was worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” she said, her arms stiff as she patted his back.
“Are we done working out?”
“Yeah.” She pulled away, kept her gaze down and retrieved her bag from one of the lockers. He probably smelled the residual puke on her.
You disgust him . . .
He kept at her side.
“What music did you listen to?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s a weird mix I made,” she said, sniffing back the tears. Would she ever get over how wonderful he was?
“I like to make remixes, too. Zach asks me to make some for him because he likes them so much.” He hopped next to her and turned it into a slight skip for a moment.
“Oh, um . . . Mine aren’t remixes. Just a random selection of music I chose to put on a playlist,” she clarified.
They stepped out into the parking lot, and in an instant, her stomach buckled again.
This time, there were few places to release it. She dashed over to a section of gravel between some spaced-apart bushes, and the second she was doubled over, vomiting, she was screaming, crying and rocking back and forth.
Not now . . . Not when Adam’s here!
It was too late. Those flashes of death and putrid smells were back. This time, she only saw the one person—the very real one—she didn’t want to see. It made her stomach clamp down worse.
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