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The plank I had been holding for almost a minute made my muscles burn. It was as if someone had poured gasoline over me and set me alight. I would have quite happily thrown in the towel at twenty seconds, hating how my body trembled and shook as I pushed it to its limits, but this was exactly why I had Abby.
She refused to let me quit when shit got too hard.
She wouldn’t let me give up.
And if, for some reason, I did, there were consequences, ones she knew I would hate. So I damn well pushed through with every bit of strength left inside my body.
I’d never been the fittest, the strongest, or the slimmest person in the world, but I’d always been content with my body—its shape, its weight. If there was one thing I could thank my overbearing, perfectionist of a mother for, it was for teaching me how to be confident in my own skin. And for those days when I didn’t feel so confident—how to fake it.
Unfortunately, there had been a few moments after the wedding where I’d questioned my body and its worth. Though the few times they had flashed into my mind and I’d suddenly tried to cover myself while I was naked, Reed had made quick work of eradicating those thoughts by absolutely worshiping every inch of my body.
When I’d talked to him about coming back to see Abby—who had been a personal trainer and a friend I’d worked with for years—he’d questioned why. And it had taken a lot of explaining for him to understand that working out for me right now wasn’t about losing weight or trying to be something I thought would make me more attractive, it was about growing stronger.
Physically, mentally, and emotionally.
So I never again had to feel that I was not enough.
Add in an agreement with Reed that I would let him teach me how to protect myself and throw a punch at least once a month, and I was ready to take on the world.
“Three… two… one… and done,” Abby called.
I collapsed onto my yoga mat, my chest heaving as I fought for breath.
“You know, you need to remember to breathe through these exercises, or one day you’ll just pass out.”
“That’s the plan.” I groaned as I rolled over onto my back, sweat soaking through my clothes in all the uncomfortable crevices.
Abby stood at my feet, grinning as if she, in some sick and twisted way, loved the torture she forced upon her victims. I guess she must because that was the life of a personal trainer, wasn’t it? Getting enjoyment out of someone else’s pain.
The loud ring that filled Abby’s small home gym was obnoxious and annoying, but that was the purpose of that specific ringtone because it was assigned to someone who shared that same energy.
“That’s the third time Jade’s rung since you’ve been here. You want me to answer it next time?” Abby questioned, folding her arms across her chest. Abby was petite, maybe a little over five foot two. But she was ready at any moment to prove she was more than what people saw on the outside.
With a heavy sigh, I sat up, ignoring the way my abs screamed at me to lay the fuck back down. “No. I’m hoping she’ll get the point soon. She hasn’t called, or text, or anything since the wedding more than three weeks ago. Not to check and see if I was okay without a place to live. Not even to ask if I needed the things I’d left at her house. Or to simply say sorry.”
Though I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.
Abby eased her body onto the floor beside me, offering me a comforting smile. “People don’t understand how much a friendship breaking up can hurt more than a relationship.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I knew in my heart that Chad wasn’t the man I’d envisioned him to be in my head. Over the year and a half together, I’d somehow created this perfect image of a good Catholic boy who was respectful and focused on what he wanted. It shocked me now to think of how I was so willing to give up things I craved and valued in a relationship just because Ithoughthe was what I wanted.
No, not wanted.
What Ineeded.
With Reed, fake or not, the way he treated me was a sick reminder of all the time I wasted with that piece of trash human being.
In the end, though.
Chad was an asshole but wasn’t the worst part of the shit show.
It was Jade.
It was knowing that someone who knew my heart and soul and how damaged I’d been in the past could so willingly and easily go out of their way to hurt me. Someone who had been there. Who’d seen me live those parts of my life which were the darkest.
It was like reliving that pain all over again.
