Page 6 of The Weight Of It All

I blinked once. She took my lunch container for me, and I somehow managed to walk out of the lunchbreak room without making an arse of myself. Once in my office, I lowered my sore old body into my desk chair. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She put my lunch container on my desk and stared at what was left of my salad like it was rotten chicken gizzards. “That’s disgusting.”

“Rocket salad with sundried tomatoes and brown rice, feta, and French salad dressing,” I explained. “It was on some healthy eating recipe blog.”

“Oh God.” She looked horrified. “They’ve possessed you and brainwashed you. Exercising and dieting. Next thing you know you’ll be saying it was actually palatable.”

“It actually wasn’t that bad.”

She stared at me, unblinking.

“Thank you for helping me out back there.”

“Mmm.” Melinda was now studying me like I was speaking in tongues. “No problem. Oh, and I got you these.” She pulled a white paper bag from her satchel and handed it to me.

“Is it some traditional Chinese remedy from your grandmother?”

Melinda rolled her eyes. “Jesus Henry, do I look like the Karate Kid to you?”

“Sorry.”

“I got it from the chemist on York. You know when you say to the pharmacist ‘my boss decided to go break himself doing exercise and now he can’t move’? Well, that’s what she gave me to give you.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She walked to the door. “I’ll have the Juniper reports done by this afternoon.”

“You’re worth more money.”

“Then pay me more money.”

I laughed a sarcastic laugh, which she mimicked perfectly before walking out the door. The pharmacist had given me magnesium tablets and multivitamins and Advil. I swallowed down two of each and prayed for immediate relief.

I spent the afternoon studying the stock market and data analytics, as well as reports on energy resources and the environment, while walking slowly around my office, and the only time I sat for any length of time was for a teleconference with the other head office in Melbourne.

My boss, a lady by the name of Lillian Caldwell, was in Singapore all week, and that left me signing off on reports in her absence.

I would be doing longer hours this week which, in hindsight, probably wasn’t the best timing to have a midlife crisis.

Thanks a fucking lot, Graham.

I was still sore as hell, and I’d never been happier to see six o’clock. Melinda had left a little after five, but not before dropping another pile of reports on my desk to sign off on and to ask if I was okay.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. She smiled as she left and had her headphones in before the door was closed behind her.

When I heard the vacuums of the cleaning staff, I knew it was time to call it a day. I collected my briefcase and slowly made my way through the empty offices, took the elevator down to the basement, and walked like a zombie to my car.

I drove home in a daze with the words midlife crisis twirling through my mind.

Is that what this is? Is that what happened to Graham?

Did he wake up in a panic, realising that there wasn’t some magic cut-off date that you passed to make you old, like you’re young one day, pass some critical calendar date, then wake up old?

It was simply something life ran towards at light speed, one day at a time.

Had he panicked because he thought life was moving ahead without him?

I’d never thought about it before last Wednesday when Graham had dropped the bombshell that turned my life upside down.

But maybe at thirty-five, my life was half over.

I mean, Jesus. A lot of people died at seventy, and other people would just nod sadly and say they’d had a good life.

But fuck, if my life was half over, I wasn’t ready.

I had to make the most of what time I had left. And the truth was, if I didn’t change my lifestyle choices now, maybe I wouldn’t even get another thirty-five years. Or, at the very least, I wouldn’t get a healthy thirty-five years.

So with that in mind, I went home and searched up more recipes.

Like Reed had said, given cooking was my thing, I was going to make the best healthy food I possibly could.

I took the healthy eating plan he had given me and made some adjustments.

I’d let him look it over to approve, but if this was a long-term thing, I had to make it so it suited me.

And food really was my thing .

So I grilled myself some fish, added a fresh mango salsa served with a mixed green salad, and set the table to eat.

But my motivated mood was short-lived when I saw that a table set for one was pretty fucking sad.

And suddenly the apartment was too quiet, and I was again reminded that I was very much alone.

The next morning I was just as sore, if not a little sorer than the day before. But I was determined, and like a sucker for punishment, I dragged my sorry arse to the gym. I arrived with two minutes to spare, and Reed’s whole face broke out into a smile when he saw me.

“Glad you made it.”

“I’m sore as hell. Please make it stop.”

“Okay,” he said with a chuckle. “Come this way.”

I followed him over to the far corner where there were mats on the floor.

He said goodbyes to the people who were just finishing up and leaving, sweaty and smiling.

It was pretty clear everyone liked him. He was just that type of guy.

Not like me, I was socially awkward, said things that were cringeworthy at best. Like now…

“G’day,” one fit looking guy said to me as he walked past.

“Good, thanks.”

It wasn’t until he was a metre or two behind me that I’d realised what I’d said. I just shook my head, like the socially inept idiot I was, and kept walking.

When we’d reached the corner, Reed stopped and turned to face me. “So, where does it hurt the most?”

“Everywhere.”

“Legs? Arms? Chest?”

“Yes.”

Reed smiled. “Okay then, sit down for me. ”

“Sitting down is fine. It’s the getting up that bites.”

Reed planted himself easily, gracefully, despite his size, on the ground. “Legs spread comfortably.”

I lowered myself to the floor, trying to keep the grimace and yelp to a minimum. “Jesus. And this is normal?”

Reed nodded. “Take a deep breath, keep your chest up straight.”

I did that and didn’t die, so I relaxed a little.

“Now stretch forward and grab your ankles.” He folded himself in half and held his feet with no trouble. I could barely reach past my knees. “Knees are fine.”

“Ow.”

He nodded encouragingly. “Hold it for twenty seconds.”

Ugh. “I’m so unfit.”

“But you’re here.”

I nodded and breathed through the stretch and burn in my hamstrings, but by the end of the twenty seconds, I was grabbing my calf muscles.

At this point, I’d take any advance I could get.

Then he had me stretch arms and shoulders, then my lower back.

It probably took fifteen minutes, and I felt like I’d already done a workout session.

He leapt to his feet with the agility of a cat, then extended his hand to me. His hand was warm and calloused, which I had to admit, felt nice. I wasn’t used to rough hands. Graham’s hands were soft, like mine…

“So, we’ll start on the treadmill to get the blood pumping.” He obviously read the trepidation on my face. “Just slow, nothing strenuous.”

I took a deep breath and stepped onto the machine. Once I started walking, Reed seemed to sigh in relief. “Perfect,” he said.

He left me to it for a few minutes, and truthfully, it wasn’t that hard.

It was just hard on already-sore muscles.

When that was done, I did equal time on the elliptical StairMaster, cardio- killing machine.

It wasn’t overly strenuous, but I could feel every muscle burn.

After quite possibly the longest five minutes of my life, I stepped back off the machine, wiped my face down with my towel, and took a sip of water, trying not to die.

“How you feeling?” Reed asked.

“Like I’ve been set on fire, thanks for asking.”

He just grinned and clapped his hands together enthusiastically. “Time for strength and core conditioning.”

“I’m sorry, was that full strength coffee and air conditioning?”

He laughed, and his eyes shone bright blue.

“Oh, you crack me up.” Then he led me over to the weights.

“The weight and pulley machine is good, but it might not always be available,” he said.

“Some days you might need to use free weights.” He handed me two five kilo dumbbells, he picked up some for himself, and together we did a range of exercises like tricep extensions, lateral raises, and hammer curls.

He called it body strength exercises. I called it brutality.

He put his weights down. “Okay, now get down on the floor for me.”

I collapsed in a panting, sweating, aching heap. “Thank God.”

Then he made me do cruel, cruel things like leg lifts, leg holds, bridges, and planking. And to finish, we did torso twists and sit ups. I mean I only did about thirty seconds of each, but good fucking Lord! And I signed up for this shit?

After he’d made sure I’d stretched properly and that I could still breathe and wasn’t going to drop dead, he held his hand out to me where I was now lying flat on my back for a high-five. It was an effort to even lift my hand up to reach his, but I did it.

“Would you mind terribly if I just died here for a little while? ”

He grinned. “Nope, no dying today.” He held his hand to me and pulled me to my feet without any effort. “You did great.”

“Can we go back to blinking? My eyelids are about the only things that still work.”

He blinked once for yes.

I laughed and let my head fall forward, a mix of exhaustion and relief that my second official training session was finished.