Not Your Fault

“Yeah,” I answer. Butterflies appear in my stomach and I’m not sure why.

“You never make me breakfast without bitching for ten minutes first,” she states all sarcastic and matter-of-factly. “And you have dark circles under your eyes, plus you’re dressed like total shit, and—”

“Okay, okay,” I interject with a wave of my hand. I set my food down on the plate in my lap. “These are my workout clothes so I’m not dressed like shit, thank you very much.”

“So what’s wrong with you?” Cat asks with a mouth full of food. “You on the rag or something?”

I sigh. I wish a little PMS was all that’s wrong with me. “You really want to know? Because I could use some advice.”

Her lips squish to the side of her mouth for a second and then she shrugs. “Lay it on me.”

I tell her all about Nathan and how he’s such a great boyfriend and how he loves me a lot and how I just suddenly feel…not into him anymore. She listens with an apathetic gaze on her face, and when I’m finally done pouring out my heart to her, she laughs.

She freaking laughs.

“Dude, you’re thinking way too hard about this.” She stands and takes our plates to the kitchen sink. “I’ve always known you would outgrow Nathan sooner or later. Frankly, I thought it would be, like, way sooner than later. He’s so not your type.”

“He is too!” I object, following her into the kitchen. I catch a glimpse of myself in a decorative mirror on the wall, and damn if my eyes aren’t circled with dark half-moons. “He’s educated and successful, and he makes more money than I do which is a first for all the guys I’ve dated—” as I say all these things, I realize how shallow they sound, but I keep talking anyway. “And he’s super nice and he loves me a lot. He wants to move in together and get married and all that. It’s time for me to settle down, and I just don’t know how to make myself love him. This might be my only chance for happiness.”

My face crumples when I finish talking, but tears don’t form in my eyes. It feels like the kind of emotional relationship moment where I should cry, but I don’t. Cat steps forward and places her hands on my shoulders. “Nathan fits a checklist in your head of what you want in a man. That doesn’t mean he’s your soul mate or that you should keep dating him when you don’t want to.”

“I do want to.” My voice breaks but I clench my jaw tightly and pretend that I mean it. Because if I say it enough, I’ll eventually believe it.

“Del,” she says, shaking my shoulders this time. “You just need to find someone else. You’re hot and you’re a ripe young twenty-seven-years old. You got this.”

I shake my head. “I’m old as hell. Twenty-seven is the new forty. All my friends are married now.” I put my hands on her shoulders, making it look like we’re slow dancing in the middle of the tile floor. “And this town is so small I’m pretty sure I’ve rejected all the eligible guys in a fifty-mile radius.”

She gives me a sinister smile. “Yeah, you probably have rejected them all. Maybe you should broaden your search to a seventy-five mile radius.”

I smile back at her but those words stab into my heart with a sharpness that makes about three dozen guys flash through my memory at warp speed. Maybe I have rejected every guy around. My only happy relationship was when I was a junior in high school, but that doesn’t count because I was a kid back then. Kris and I dated since the summer before ninth grade. Back then I never thought about dating anyone else. I never thought I’d be pushing thirty years old and still single.

Wait, I’m not single. God, what is wrong with me? I shake my head to clear thoughts of my old high school sweetheart. The guy who left me when I needed him most. The guy who does not matter at all anymore.

Cat pulls me into a hug and my face presses into her shoulder, smearing wetness on my cheek. I hadn’t realized I’d started crying. I suck in a deep breath and pull myself together. A loud buzzing fills the air.

“Your ass is ringing,” Cat says, grabbing a drink from the fridge. I slide my phone out of my back pocket, hoping it isn’t Nathan and hating myself for thinking that. It’s my boss, calling from her personal phone and not from the gym. Judy and her husband Dwayne founded Carson’s gym back in their twenties, when they both competed in professional body building championships. Now they’re pushing retirement age, but are still just as muscular and fit as ever. I couldn’t ask for better bosses. They’re like family to me.

I consider letting it go to voicemail just in case she wants me to cover an additional shift or do extra work for her around the gym. But then I realize that any extra work would fill up my free time, so I answer.

“Delany, honey, we need to talk,” Judy says, her voice tinged with anxiety.

“Yes, ma’am?” I squeak out, my fingers tightening around the phone. My heart speeds up as my mind contrives a million possibilities before she has a chance to say another word. Am I being fired? Did the gym burn down and now I’m jobless? Is Dwayne dead?

“As of today, I am no longer your boss.”

My heart drops into

my stomach. “I don’t understand,” I say as Cat’s expression turns serious when I look at her. “What did I do?”

A chuckle comes from the other end of the phone. “You’re not fired! Dwayne and I sold the gym. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you sooner, but we’ve kept the negotiations private for a few weeks until we were sure this was a done deal. But no worries, you still have your job. You’ll need to meet at the gym tomorrow at nine in the morning. We’re having an owner trade off and orientation meeting for all of the employees.”

I swallow, but my throat stays dry. At least I still have a job. Still, change is never fun. I make some kind of stupid joke about them getting an early retirement and she assures me that they will continue to see me at the gym, since they’ll never quit working out. Cat, now bored with eavesdropping on my conversation, finishes her sandwich and helps herself to my leftover Chinese takeout in the fridge. I don’t bother telling her that it’s three days old and probably shouldn’t be eaten.

Chapter 4

Dull pain shoots through my eyes—no, just my left eye. It’s cold and warm at the same time. And it hurts. My teeth grind together as my head pulls against an invisible force holding me down, forcing me to stay in pain. Why can’t I move? Why can’t I run away?

Why is my vision dark but I still see his face?