Page 18 of Not That Impossible

Nope.

Scowling, I looked up and inadvertently made eye contact with Ed at the back of the room. He valiantly tried to speed up. I could hear his knees crackling from here.

Feeling bad, I called out, “Ed, great job! You’re doing great, remember to stay at a speed where you’re having fun. Because that’s why we’re all here, am I right?”

I surveyed the room. They were giving it their best, but not many of them looked like they were having fun. I glanced at the speedometer. While I’d been distracted thinking about Adam, I’d crept up to a brisk twenty miles per hour.

Time to take it down before I killed someone.

“Okay, that is more than enough of the fast stuff,” I yelled. “Let’s wind it down to a gentle cycle along a country lane! The birds are singing! There’s honeysuckle and shit in the hedgerows! Can you feel that lovely warm summer sun? Is this Chipping Fairford in February? No! It’s June and we are in Italy! We are in Tuscany! Great!”

Everyone looked relieved as we slowed to a gentle ten miles per hour. And then more relieved when I told them all to take the incline down to zero.

I changed the music to Enya, which was very popular for cooldowns with this crowd, and looked at my phone again.

Still nothing from Adam.

For the rest of the session, I gave the room my full attention. Most of the class was back to smiling by the time we’d finished. I got a couple of frosty side-eyes as the group dispersed and a full-on glare from Ed as he limped dramatically past me, but on the whole, it was fine.

In the break room, I threw myself onto the sofa and got back on my phone. I skimmed through the conversation with Adam.

It wasn’t much of a conversation. It was a string of messages, all from me.

Adam had left me on read.

Me

Hey! I need Liam’s number!

Hellooooo

Okay, you’re probably busy at work. Lemme have it when you have a sec, k?

Adam, I know you’re reading these. Gimme Liam’s number!

Still nothing.

I was trying hard not to be upset about being ignored.

I kind of had a problem with it.

In general, and in particular with Adam.

The thing was, my life hadn’t gone exactly to plan. More precisely, my life hadn’t aligned with my parents’ plan.

My dad was an accountant and my mum was a big deal in an investment bank in London. Their plan was that I should follow in their footsteps: be incredibly intelligent, get the highest possible grades in my A-Levels, get into Oxford or Cambridge, and spend the rest of my days working as an accountant or a hedge fund manager.

If I couldn’t manage that, they’d settle for me being a neurosurgeon.

I still get the cold sweats when I remember the day we learned my A-Level results. It’s not like I’d had a stellar academic career up to that point, and had fallen at the last hurdle. I was a solid C-student and always had been—andthatwas when I could sit still long enough to concentrate. How I was supposed to suddenly pull some A’s out of my arse, I don’t know.

With my unimpressive exam scores I couldn’t get into any university, let alone Oxford.

My parents were disappointed, they sat me down and told me all about it in uncomfortable detail, and then they washed their hands of it and left me to my own devices.

Mrs Blake had pushed and shoved me into signing up at the local college in Witney, and my P.E. teacher had always said that I’d make a great personal trainer. Since they were the only two adults who’d ever had anything positive to say about my abilities, I ended up studying fitness and nutrition, and became a personal trainer.

Meanwhile, Adam went off to enjoy his glamorous life in Cambridge as a student and part-time model, and he didn’t have time for me. He came back to Chipping Fairford to visit his mum. I went over to Cambridge once or twice. It wasn’t the same.

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