As my friends start up their playlists and machines, I just stand at the foot of mine and gaze out at the rest of the gym, lost in thought. The echoing clanging and banging of metal against metal fill my ears, but it still doesn’t kill the imaginary ringing in them. That ringing is stronger than everything today. Stronger than the muscled guys in tight shirts getting sweaty. Stronger than their thick legs and puffed up chests. Stronger than the noise of their grunting, growling, and obnoxious slamming of weights to the floor.
Stronger than the ghost of Danny’s kiss, which still lives on my lips.
I really shouldn’t have done that.
I spot a guy around my age sitting at one of the weight machines—the bicep curl machine. He looks like me, except half my weight, twice as dorky, and positively terrified. He shakes nervously as he attempts to do a few reps on one of the lowest weight settings. He wears an over-sized athletic shirt, his bony arms barely touching the sleeves. His gym shorts are loose and baggy. As he does his curls, his entire body trembles from the effort.
Some puffy muscle dude comes right up to him. “You done yet?” he grunts. The skinny guy looks up, smiles politely, then quickly vacates the machine. I watch him as he stands off to the side while the puffy bodybuilder goes to town pushing weights and letting them slam down with every rep.
And the skinny guy just stares at him.
And I watch it all.
I can see everything written across that sad dude’s face: his own fantasy of becoming big and muscled someday, his hopes and dreams, his undying determination. He probably thinks he’ll finally be noticed if he can get his arms bigger. Just add a little more muscle to his body, and he will no longer be invisible to the world.
That’s his life’s plan. His goal. His everything. And he’s going to do it no matter what.
And it breaks my heart, watching that guy, reading his sad, hopeful face, while my ears continue to ring, ring, ring.
That faint, faraway, restless ringing … so tiny, so empty, almost not even there.
Yet it’s stronger than all of the muscle and noise in this room.
And I still don’t know what it is.
Probably just a hangover.
Is that guy me? Am I that pathetic loser standing next to the bicep curl machine, too nice to assert myself to some muscled-up dude, too desperate for attention to care about how sad I look?
“Rome …?”
I snap out of it. It’s Prisha, bringing me back to the real world. “Right, sorry.” I get on the treadmill, press the button, then start walking. I stare ahead and mind nothing except my feet and where I place them next. I don’t put on my usual playlist. I doubt I can concentrate on anything anyway.
Not with the—
Slam! That bicep machine keeps clanging loudly with every rep the muscled guy does. Slam! Each time it crashes, I swear I feel the building shake. Slam! I don’t even have to look; I know the skinny dude is still standing there like a useless twig, waiting for his turn again. Slam!
It’s making the ringing in my ears louder.
Slam!
And louder.
Slam!
Until quite suddenly I have to do something about it. I shut off my treadmill and step off. The gym is a jungle of metal and leather and sweat as I cut through the aisles of machines. I worm my way through, dodging each one, stepping over lost dumbbells and weights that try to catch my feet like vines on the forest floor.
Soon, I’m standing in front of the muscled dude at the bicep machine. Right in front of him. So close, he could curl me instead if he wanted.
“Excuse me.”
The dude only now looks up, as if my proximity wasn’t enough to catch his attention. His face wrinkles as he looks me over. “Huh?”
“My friend here was using this machine.”
The skinny guy, who I’m standing next to, and who most certainly is not my friend, stares at me in bewilderment as I confront this puffed-up asshole. Said asshole is staring at me, too. It’s as if I just broke some unspoken rule, to ever dare interrupt a jackhole like this in the middle of his set.
I don’t know what’s come over me, but that ringing in my ears won’t stop.
All I’m seeing is red.
“Did you hear me?” I snap, my voice cracking like a whip. “I said my friend was using this machine before you shoved him off of it.”
“Huh? I didn’t shove him off of it. I asked if he was done.”
“And he was too polite to say he wasn’t done. Did he look done to you?” I point at the guy. “He was in the middle of a bicep curl when you asked. I saw it.”