Page 35 of Unloved

My feet falter just as I reach my locker.

“What happened?” he asks.

Letting my head fall against the cool metal, I close my eyes and tell myself to breathe.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.

I don’t want to talk to Arlo. I don’t want to talk toanyone.

“Call Jenika,” he says. “I know you don’t want to. I know you want to be alone and just hope whatever it is disappears.”

I both hate and feel justified in my mood that Arlo knows exactly what I’m feeling.

“Just take a minute. Call someone, or call someone later,” he says. “But finish your workout. I promise you’ll feel better after it.”

I don’t believe him, but I don’t really have any other options. I’m still finding my feet and don’t have anything else to do that I could positively occupy my time with.

Turning my head, I meet Arlo’s brown eyes and continue counting.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.

“Does it always feel like this?” I ask. “Like you’re just one life event away from everything falling down around you?”

“I want to say no, confidently. But we’re all different. Our triggers are different and our healing and recovery are different.” He runs a hand over the back of his neck, and I’m reminded just how far out of his comfort zone Arlo is right now, giving me advice. “You’re trying, Rhys. It’s the only thing that matters. Just don’t stop trying.”

He squeezes my shoulder before making his way to the exit. “I’ll see you back out there.”

It’s not a question but an expectation, one I will do everything in my power to meet.

I look at my father’s message one more time and then throw my phone into the locker to avoid looking at it again.

I don’t need his words taunting me on my own time.

After pushing myself harder than usual, I finish my workout an hour and a half later and I’m grateful that Arlo pushed me to stay.

My muscles are heavy, my body exhausted, and my thoughts have slowed down to a manageable place. I trudge back to the showers, feeling less anxious and aggravated, thoughts of my father pushed to the background where they deserve to be for a little while longer.

I let the hot spray release what tension is left over and feel a sense of pride bloom inside my chest. It was one step. Probably small for a lot of people, but for me it was one completed step. One that I have failed so many times before.

After I dress, I take a seat back down on the bench in the locker room and retrieve my cell phone.

I type two messages.

Dad, nice to hear from you. Tell me where and what time.

And the next to Samuel and Lennox

Are you both free tonight?

* * *

It’s a change of scenery tonight, and truth be told, when I sent the message, I was apprehensive to what their response would be.

Every other night it had been us at Lennox’s house, with the rest of the crew coming and going as they pleased. Tonight, something told me that maybe, just like me, Lennox would want to be alone too.

The doorbell rings and nerves race through me at record speed. I enjoy spending my time with Samuel and Lennox, probably a lot more than I should, or more than made sense, but it all comes so easy with them.

Silences are comfortable

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