Page 11 of Anxious Hearts

Finn held his thumb over the send icon. He read the message again. Hey, Ash. I’m heading down to the gym if you’re keen.

It was okay. Not too forward, not too desperate, not too suggestive. Just an invitation to work out as Ashley had proposed. Kelly had been on his back from the minute she’d returned from her date with that Eli bloke, telling Finn it was time for him to uphold his end of the bargain.

The idea of Kelly out with Eli rankled him.

He didn’t know why. He and Kelly would never be a couple; that had been decided long ago.

Still, he couldn’t get rid of the small but persistent sting when he thought of Kelly and Eli together.

It was like an insect bite that only grew more irritated if he scratched it.

He was hoping a workout with Ashley would take the heat out of the sting.

She responded immediately : For sure! See you there . Her message was accompanied by a winking smiley face emoji. What the hell did that mean? Why was she winking at him?

There was a handful of people at the gym.

The guy from the fifth floor was on the treadmill and Finn gave him a nod.

He ignored the others, though he knew some of them were watching him in the mirrors; it was easy for people to stare at a celebrity in a gym.

Ashley wasn’t there yet so Finn put his water bottle in a pigeonhole locker and began to warm up.

He swung his arms loosely and stretched them one after the other across his chest. He bent forwards, running his hands down the front of his legs.

A wave of prickly heat swept across his body. ‘Oh, fuck,’ he whispered. His breath wouldn’t go any deeper than the top of his chest and he could feel a bead of sweat run down his back as he straightened up.

Finn was wearing the wrong shorts.

These were his home shorts, not his gym shorts, and because he’d worn them out of his apartment, they would now be contaminated by the outside world.

Thankfully, he hadn’t yet come into contact with any of the equipment, so the shorts weren’t ruined.

He could still get away with washing them twice on an extended cycle and they’d be fine.

But he needed to get home immediately and change into his gym gear.

Finn extended one leg as though he was heading for the door then rocked backwards and forwards from his front foot to back, unable to take a step.

He knew this was absurd. In his heart of hearts, he knew that people wore their gym clothes around the house every day.

But the thought of training in his home clothes and then wearing them inside his apartment, even after he had washed them, caused his heart to fill with a cold, empty darkness.

He could see in his mind’s eye the contamination from the gym that would then be transferred to his cordoned-off world.

Other people’s sweat and dead skin and hair follicles would all be spread throughout his home like DNA at a crime scene.

They would be invading his private space, his safe space, the space he controlled.

They would get in and he’d never be able to get them out.

But what if Ashley turned up while he was returning to his apartment?

What if, because he wasn’t here, she decided to go back to her apartment and in the lift she met some guy who she started dating and they ended up getting married and having a kid?

That kid should never have been born because Finn was meant to be in the gym and if that kid was born it would change thousands of other lives as well and some of them would be changed for the worse.

Some of them would be hurt by this kid or maybe this kid would get hurt or maybe when this kid grew up, it would be a serial killer.

Finn’s breath was even shorter now. He could barely take in a mouthful without immediately exhaling.

His face tingled hot and his stomach ached.

Pressure was building at the back of his skull and yet he still couldn’t move.

It was an impossible decision: contaminate his home or change the destiny of thousands of innocent people.

At the very moment he felt like collapsing, Ashley walked into the gym.

She was wearing full-length workout tights that hugged her body like a second skin and a sports bra under a loose-fitting singlet.

Her dark hair was again pulled back in a tight ponytail and her smile lit up when she saw Finn.

Only to be replaced almost immediately by a concerned frown.

‘Finn, are you okay?’ she asked.

Finn finally wrenched his feet from the floor. He tried to push back the pain and the shaking and the nausea. It took a supreme effort to stand before Ashley with a forced smile and casual tone.

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ he said. ‘I just realised I wore the wrong shorts, so I was going to duck back to my apartment to get changed.’

Ashley looked down at his shorts. She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. ‘They look fine to me.’ She smiled up at him. ‘I think they’re cute. Come on, let’s get started.’ She placed her hand on Finn’s arm and her touch was like a cool breeze on his hot skin.

He didn’t recoil. He didn’t feel the contaminants. He only wished she hadn’t taken her hand away so quickly. He wanted her to touch him again. To calm him, soothe him, let him know it was going to be okay.

Until now, Kelly had been the only person who’d ever been able to do that.