Page 11 of Resistance Training

Next he has me doing dead bugs, planks and side planks, and something called Pallof Presses with a resistance band.

I don’t hate it. He has me so focused on my form that I can feel the strength of my core.

I am so aware of his fingers on my waist and his attention to my body and my breaths that I don’t want to drop to the ground screaming and crying and cursing my abdominal muscles for being such wimpy assholes.

I am so mad at him for being so hot and obstinate that I want to be better than he expects me to be at every single thing.

By my third Pallof Press, I tell him, “I think you’re a stronger motivation for me than seeing Jeremy at the wedding.”

“Three,” he says, counting. “Yeah? Keep facing forward. How so?”

“Because you’re such a stubborn, unforgiving asshole. But I’ve been mad at you too, you know.”

“Great. Everybody wins.”

“I’ll be the winner. I will win.”

“Okay. Give me five more. Keep your shoulders down.”

I keep my shoulders down and give him five more, and then he tells me to drink some water, which I was going to do anyway, and then he leads me through cooldown stretches.

We don’t talk at all, I just follow along with him.

Sassily. The truth is I feel good. It feels like I did something good for my body, and I did better than I thought I would, and I have never had a personal trainer before but Brad seems to be good at this.

I want to be proud of him for it, but I also want him to apologize for ghosting me.

And I want him to feel really bad about making me feel bad about accidentally making him feel bad.

And I want him to take his shirt off again, and that makes me really, really angry.

“Okay,” he says when we’re done cooling down.

“I’ll drink some water!” I announce before he gets the chance to tell me what to do.

“Good job,” he says in a tone that is not at all condescending. “How do you feel?”

“Good.”

“Great.”

“Yup.”

“So, I’ll see you on Wednesday. Be sure to come in earlier so Gwen can set you up with your membership card.”

“Okie doke.” I put my jacket on and catch him glancing down at my boob area, and that pleases me to no end.

“Where did you park?” he asks, as if he’s expecting me to tell him I parked on top of his car or something.

“Down the street.”

He rolls his eyes and grumbles. “How far down?”

“I parked a few blocks away.”

“Of course you did.” He frowns and drags his fingers through his hair, the way he used to when I’d ask him to help me with my AP Calculus homework.

He opens the door and looks around the gym.

It’s a little busier than it was when I got here, with the after-work crowd, I guess.

Not seeing the heads with gray hair like I did earlier.

The vibe is a little more how I imagine things at other gyms. More bros and babes.

Brad is grimly scanning the bros who are casually eyeing me as we walk toward the entrance and says, “I’ll walk you to your car.”

“Oh. Are you leaving now too?”

“No.”

“Oh. You need to grab a jacket?” When we hung out in high school, I always had to remind him to put on a jacket, and he’d mutter that he had an extra layer of fat to keep him warm.

“Nah. My muscles keep me warm now.”

“How sweet of them.”

“Nah. It’s badass of them.”

The glass doors slide open, and Brad gestures for me to exit first.

Checkin’ out my glutes, probably.

I sway my hips a little. A little for him, a lot for me. I notice him noticing.

“Be right back, Gwen,” he says to the blue-haired lady behind the desk.

“See you next time, Gwen!” I call out.

She nods at me without smiling.

And I still respect it.

Brad holds the front door open for me.

“Thanks,” I say. And then I walk, slowly, in the direction of my car.

And he still does it. He’s still walking on the street side of me as we walk down the sidewalk.

It’s dark out and it just rained a little bit and it will probably start sprinkling again soon.

The wet street reflects the streetlights.

It’s pretty quiet. For the first time since I moved to Portland, it feels romantic.

There’s so much I want to say to Brad. I have so many questions. I have so many answers. But I guess I have three months’ worth of sessions, so I can pace myself.

“Mitch!” Three spry elderly ladies in leggings and puffer coats call out to him at the same time from half a block away.

“Ladies…” he says, grinning.

Grinning.

I can see his left dimple.

Nice to know it’s still there.

“We had tacos and margaritas down the street!” The one in the purple coat shouts. I detect a New York accent. “One of these days we’ll get you to join us, motherfucker!” I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone use that word in such an affectionate yet also loud way before.

“Use your quieter outside voice, Dolores,” the redhead in the black coat says. “You’re scaring Mitch’s girlfriend.”

He waits an entire deep inhale before saying, “Not my girlfriend, Cindy.”

“Oh, why not though?! She’s absolutely gorgeous!”

I like Cindy a lot. I detect a bit of a southern accent, Texan perhaps. I like all of them already. They are probably around seventy, and they’re making me reconsider my energy level on a scale of one to ten. Compared to them I’m a four at best. These ladies are #Goals.

“Cindy thinks everyone’s in love like she and Larry are,” says Dolores.

“This is a new client. Vivian. Vivian, this is Cindy, Dolores, and Mabel. Longtime members of Good Form.”

“Very nice to meet you, ladies.”

“Well, it is so nice to meet you, our beautiful new friend Vivian!” Cindy says. “Now, are you a Leo or an Aries, hun? You look to me like an Aries.”

“I am an Aries, actually. Nobody’s ever told me that before.”

“Hallelujah—thank you, Universe!” she says gleefully, holding her hands up to the heavens. “I love it! Honey, we’ve known Mitch for years and he has never walked anyone to their car before.”

“Now, you don’t know that, Cindy,” Brad says, but he has none of us convinced.

I love you for saying all that, Cindy.

“Oh, Mitch,” Mabel says, rubbing his bare arms. “You should be wearing a jacket.”

“That’s what I was saying.”

“Ohhh, his skin is still warm, though. Feel that!” she says to me, and to her friends.

Brad stands there and lets us feel how warm his skin is. And I can’t help but notice that he’s flexing. “Okay, ladies. Vivian needs to get home.”

“Oh hey, I hit a deadlift PR today!” Cindy yells, her arms raised again. I have a feeling she gets excited and raises her arms in the air a lot. “Ninety-five pounds, baby!”

“Nice!” He high-fives her. “Was Larry watching?”

“Oh, was he ever!”

There’s a little more chatter about Larry and Cindy, and then the ladies walk off and we continue on toward my car.

“Well, they’re fun!” I say. “You train them too?”

“I worked with Cindy for a couple of months a couple of years ago, yeah.”

I wait for more information, but that’s all I get.

“So, none of these people from the gym know your legal name?”

“Some of them do. But they call me Mitch because I ask them to and most people aren’t sassy little turds.”

“I know. That’s my thing.”

“It certainly is,” he says under his breath.

“So just Mitch? Like Adele?”

“Like Mitch.”

“Like Prince.”

“Like Arnold,” he says with a Schwarzenegger accent.

“Gotcha.” We’re quiet until I reach my car, but there’s one thing I just have to know. “Have you been watching You on Netflix?”

He blows air out of his nose and looks down at the ground.

I can tell he’s trying so hard not to smile, not to turn this into a conversation.

We read You together for our two-person book club when we were seventeen, before it was a show.

We both liked it so much, felt so cool to be reading it, thought it was like a fucked-up new adult Catcher in the Rye , and Brad would read sections aloud to creep me out.

It wasn’t necessarily my favorite book that we read for Asshole Book Club, but it was my favorite memory of Asshole Book Club.

The show started the year after we graduated high school.

Penn Badgley sounded so much like Brad, I actually thought it was him doing the voiceover for most of the pilot episode.

“Sure,” he says. “Everyone watches that show.”

I wait for him to mutter something Joe Goldberg-like: You have questionable taste in music and prom dates, Sparks, but You always did have good taste in books and TV shows.

Alas, he does not.

We reach my car, and I say, “Well, this is me.”

“Yes,” he says. “This is You…” Is that a nod to the voiceover or not? With that delivery I can’t tell.

I still can’t believe it’s him. I can’t believe we’re together again. I really can’t believe he’s being such a stubborn asshole.

I want to hug him again. And smack him. At the same time. But I don’t.

“Well. I’m still really happy to see you again, Bradley.

” And here come the tears. Shit. “Even though you’re a stubborn turd for not reading my emails.

And honestly, just cold and rude, but whatever.

And I’m not just happy to see you because of how you look.

I’ve missed you. I really, really missed you.

Even when I was mad at you. I missed you so much.

Even when I didn’t think about you, I’ve always been missing you.

” I sniffle and wipe my eyes and nose. “And it’s not just you that I missed, it was us.

Us hanging out together. How I was when I was with you.

How it felt to have a best friend who gets you…

But I don’t know. Maybe it was just nostalgia for being young.

Maybe we would have grown apart after we graduated anyway. ”

He exhales, like I just punched him in the gut or something.

Although I doubt me punching him in those abs would cause him to flinch at all.

“Okay,” he says. He pats me on the shoulder.

So awkward. “Well, I’m happy to hear that your cat is still alive and kicking.

Although I continue to believe you named him after the worst member of One Direction. ”

And there we have it. One of our old jokey arguments. Or argumentative jokes. He’s still in there. My Bradley’s still in there. Beneath the stubborn, cold demeanor and the warm muscles.

“Drive safe, drink a lot of water with electrolytes tonight, and text me your meal before you eat it.”

“Yes, sir.”