Page 115 of Mommy

It’s been two days and sleeping in my bed has felt like being abandoned on a deserted island. I thought I had gotten used to being alone, but I have never felt as lonely as I did last night. Staring up at the water damage in my ceiling made me want to cry, and if my mom hadn’t been sleeping next door, I might have given into that urge. I’m only keeping it together to avoid explaining.

I even called in sick at work because I knew Shelly would sniff out that something was wrong the second I set foot on the grounds. She probably figured it out even though I stayed away.

You’d think I’d feel tired, but the opposite has happened. I’m restless.

With nothing to keep me occupied, my brain has kept wandering back into the house where I spent the last few months. Back to Posie and the puppies, to the flawless white walls and cream coloured rugs. And to Derek.

Don’t think about it.

Pushing the mental image of him away, I focus on the building before me.

It took me a while to get here, using the bus and not knowing the exact way, but I got here. My bag slung over my shoulder, I reached the one place I felt I could go.

Who would’ve thought that one day I’d be coming here willingly?

The girl that checks me in on the front counter definitely doesn’t look convinced that I belong here, but I don’t care.

The low bass of the music is audible even over my headphones and the beat somehow matches the lost frequencies from broken by Isak Danielson.

In the changing room I question my decision for the first time. Everything I do here reminds me of Derek.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

Pulling my hair up into a chaotic bun, I take a deep breath and stare at my reflection in the large mirror.

“You can do this.”

I have the obnoxious hope that after I’ve finished a workout I will feel better. It did the trick for me every time I’ve come here with Derek. Why should it be different now that I’m here with only myself for company?

It takes about 3 minutes of doing the actual workout for me to believe in what I was hoping for.

As agonizing as it is to do squats—and no, it’s not better when Derek isn’t standing behind me like a guard dog protecting my butt from getting uncomfortable attention—I do start to feel better.

Derek once explained to me that my body is producing happy-hormones when I work out, and that’s why people who do it feel better, but I was so focused on not dying that I never felt a difference. Or maybe my body was just producing happy hormones all the time, because I was actually happy inside and outside the gym. Maybe me feeling awful is helping me feel the difference between these hormones being produced inside my body now.

In a surge of confidence I load a little more weight onto the bar, eyeing the plates cautiously while taking a sip of water.

Unracking the bar feels like loading the weight of the world onto my skinny shoulders, but I grind my teeth and slowly lower myself into a squat position. The way back up has sweat beading in my hairline, my lungs desperately holding onto my breath as if by not expelling the air it’ll help me get back upright.

I’m still trapped in the cage, my hands just letting go of the bar when I realize my reflection isn’t the only one watching me. There’s a girl standing next to the squat rack and her bright smile is a familiar one.

Her lips are moving but all I hear is ‘we’re just playing love’.

Gnarling my teeth, I take out my headphones, turning to stare at the girl.

“That looked good.” The blonde says, her perfect smile still in place on her plump, pink lips.

Abigail.

“Thanks.” I mumble.

She looks kind of like me. A little bit. It’s like we’ve got the same core, but she got all the upgrades I never had.

Looking at Abigail is like looking into a mirror that shows me the perfect version of myself. Hourglass figure, flawlessly tanned skin, white teeth, dark lashes, electric blue eyes.

Today she’s got her long hair sleeked into a ponytail and it falls down her back in a perfect waterfall of platinum white.

Like me, she wears leggings and a sports bra, but her set somehow manages to highlight her curves where I feel like mine only make me look like a teenage girl in gym class at school.