Page 47 of Resistance Training
Meanwhile, my third training session with Brad came and went, with about as much sexual tension as a dentist appointment. My dentist is not hot. I have no idea what changed between the second and third session, aside from my asking Brad to go to dinner with me. And I still can’t believe it made absolutely no difference to him that I didn’t sleep with Other Brad. But yesterday we only talked about the exercises. There was no eye-boning, no banter, no joking around at all. He never commented on my objectively hot baseline selfies for tracking how much hotter I’ll be getting over the next three months.
He was wearing an ultra-tight black tank top and gray sweatpants that were deceptively plain and simple because they hung from his hips and hugged his ass and crotch in a way that complicated everything.
He didn’t hold out his hand to help me up from the mat at all, not once. He didn’t even touch me with a finger to make any adjustments to my form. He very much did not assist me with my stretches.
When I sent him pics of my food, ever since Wednesday night, he just replied with thumbs-ups or emojis, which is universally acknowledged to meanI have no feelings for you, so please find someone else to have sex with.
By Friday afternoon I was trying really hard to get any kind of reaction from him at all. I would have been thrilled to get a thumbs-downemoji for a change. I sent him a photo of a leather shoe and told him the cow was grass fed and raised without antibiotics or growth hormones.
No response.
Nada.
I sent a photo of a live squirrel outside my house. It was standing on its hind legs, clasping its little hands and staring at the camera. Super cute.
Nothing.
I felt so guilty about joking about eating it that I went back outside to leave a little bowl of unsalted peanuts for the poor guy (the squirrel, not Brad).
I would have left out a bowl of peanut butter–flavored protein powder for Brad.
I don’t even know what was more infuriating—his cold demeanor, his hot body, or the fact that my vibrator died and I didn’t have any spare batteries in my house.
This morning I took a picture of a weird, crooked, uncircumcised penis that I found on the internet. No response. No thumb of any kind.
But it’s fine, it’s all fine.
He is cold and it’s nothing more than a personal trainer–client relationship between us now and I can live with that.
I have closure.
Ish.
I can move on.
I will re-download an app or two in the next couple of days, but first I need to buy a paperback or ten for my new bookshelves. And I mean, if I can’t meet an interesting guy in the largest independent bookstore in the world, then where in thisGodforsaken world can I meet one? I walk in and inhale deeply. It smells like books and coffee and hope.
I’m here to get a John Green book. Nonfiction. Not the new one that everyone’s talking about now, the one that came out a few years ago,The Anthropocene Reviewed. I was too busy screwing around in Seattle when it was released, and then I was too busy being told by Jeremy that going digital is better for the Earth.
This is a four-story building on an entire city block. The rooms are color coded, the floors are cement, the bookcases are unfinished wood, the ceilings are exposed, and I can’t believe I don’t come here more often. It was the reason I was most excited to move to Portland with Jeremy, but he refused to come here with me, which shouldn’t have surprised me since he didn’t believe in owning books that are made of paper. So this is only the third time I’ve been here, and I remember being melancholy the first two times I came here as well. Not because of Jeremy. I’m realizing now that it was because I wished I could be here with Bradley, but at the time my brain wasn’t letting me consciously think about him.
Now I’m melancholy because I can’t stop consciously thinking about him and how much I hate that he won’t let me bite his butt cheek just one time.
Sighing, I look up at the overhead sign near the entrance to figure out where I’ll find my John Green book. It’s nonfiction, but it wasn’t on the new nonfiction or best-selling nonfiction shelves. There’s no nonfiction section listed on the guide, nor is there a section for essays. There also does not appear to be a section for books of essays that are expanded from podcast episodes wherein a human reviews human things.
I decide to browse. Browsing is my best option anyway. It is, after all, the only way to truly experience a bookstore. Even one that’s sixty-eight thousand square feet. Especially when I hateasking clerks for information because that would require talking to another human being and I’d rather talk to a book.
So I browse.
I wander.
I glance at various men’s behinds and feel sad because they don’t give me even half a percent of the jolt I get when I look at Brad’s behind. I bet their brains wouldn’t stimulate me anywhere near as much either. If I asked them what they thought of a book they’d probably just say something dumb like,It’s really good. Boo. Give me something to work with.
I wander and browse some more, picking up a copy ofEast of Eden. Then I grab a copy ofA Little Life, because the guy on the cover looks as sad as I feel about never getting a chance to touchBrad’s butt. I see a couple who are holding hands. They’re around my age, adorable, and clearly very much in love. I take a right and go down another aisle so I don’t have to look at that shit. No, thank you.
And then I go by another aisle and I stop in my tracks and walk backward and then hide behind a bookcase, because two aisles down I spy the outline of a behind that thrills me one hundred percent as much as Brad’s behind does. Because it is Brad’s behind. And one of his beautiful, veiny hands is holding a copy of…The Anthropocene Reviewedby John Green.
It’s a sign.
