Noah

The night
Veronica
Cruz
prayed for her mother to die
she never
imagined
her
mother
would
n’t
w
a
ke
the next morning
.
But she didn’t.
She died in her sleep. In the very house that
Veronica
was
now
destined to spend the rest of her life
alone
.

That was six months ago. Since then
Veronica
’s bane existence consisted of waking to a silen
t
home and wandering aimlessly about from her bed to the sofa in the front room to the kitchen table until it was time to crawl back
into
bed and start all over again.

Her mother had left her a substantial trust with the stipulation that the house would never
be
sold. The home that had been in the family for generations was to stay within the family for at least another
hundred
years or until there was no one left in the family to pass it on to.
Unless she lived to be more than a hundred it would probably be sooner since having kids required male companionship and meeting one
,
required her leaving the house for more than just grocery shopping. Still
,
she
had
promised her mother on her
deathbed
that she would
never
sell
the house
. 

Since she was
an
only child
,
the house
that
was now
paid for
was
hers
free and clear
. T
he closest relative she had was an aunt her mother
had
only spoke
n
of a few times
.
S
he’d never met her father so she had no idea if she had any family on his side. 

At twenty-
eight
Veronica
felt like a spinster.
Sure,
most would consider her relatively young
for a spinster,
but the years leading up to her
mother’s
death
had aged her in
so many
ways.
When
Veronica
found out about the cancer and how little time he
r
mother
had left,
she
dropped everything. She
took a leave from
her job as a human resource director at the local college—a job she loved—to care for her mother full time.
              
Her social life became non
-
existent
for over two years
.

By the time her mother passed,
Veronica
was forty pounds heavier and drained completely of any energy to return to the real world. She had no desire to
go back to
work so worn and completely out of shape.
Feeling
like she’d aged
ten years and
heavier than she’d ever been in her life
, there was no way she was showing her face there again. Not only did her mother’s death drain her physically, it had also taken her spirit. She was no longer the vibrant young woman full of goals and ambitions she once had been.

Losing her mom the way she had, watching her wither away hopelessly, in so much pain with no way to help her had scarred her forever.
She was angry
with
God and saw no reason to even try
being
a
contributing member of society anymore. What good did it
do
you anyway, when it could be taken away just like that? 

A loud knock at the front door jolted
Veronica
out of her dreary thoughts. She already knew who it was and she rolled her eyes, dragging herself off the sofa to answer the door.

Her best friend
Nellie smiled
widely
as soon
as
Veronica
opened the door. “Guess what I got us?” She held up what looked like tickets of some sort.

“I told you,”
Veronica
said
,
already
heading
back to her favorite
spot on the sofa. “I’m not going to any movies or concerts or any event that involves me being around other people. I’m a cow, Nellie. I don’t even have clothes that fit me anymore.”

“Do you have sweats?”

“That’s
all
I have.” She pulled the material on the sweat pants she was wearing. “I haven’t bought anything else in months. It’s all I can get my fat ass into and
I
refuse
to go
shopping for anything else in this embarrassing size.”

“That’s perfect then,” Nellie said. “Because these are
one
week passes to the gym over on
Fifth Street
.”

Veronica
gaped at her
. “A gym?” She wasn’t even aware there was a gym on
Fifth Street
.

“Yes
,
a gym.
Get up
.
W
e’re going.
”
Nellie grabbed her hand and pulled. “I’m tired of you using your weight as an excuse to bury yourself from the world. We’ll go together.”

Veronica
groaned as she got up off the sofa. “I didn’t know there was a gym on
Fifth Street
.
Are you sure?
” She took the tickets from Nellie. They were very amateurish looking
;
printed on regular paper
even cut a bit raggedly
. “Where did you get
these?
”

“Never you mind. I knew you wouldn’t want to go to the crowded gym over
at t
he mall full of all those
people
you’re
so
adamant about staying away from.” She shoved
Veronica
toward the front door. “This is a smaller community gym but they’re still nice enough to offer free
one
week passes. We’ll do a week and then depending on how you feel we can sign up for more.”

Veronica
tried to protest about not having a gym bag but as
usual,
Nellie was
one-step
ahead of her. “I have everything we need in the car. Just grab your keys and wallet. No excuses.”  

For
months,
Nellie had done her best to try to pull
Veronica
out of her funk, and
Veronica
hated to sound so ungrateful. She seriously doubted she could even do one jumping jack without keeling over but she’d humor her friend this one time. Truth was she really did need to lose weight. 

On the drive over, Nellie told her about the gym.
He
r husband
was
now
a member of the big gym by the mall but he took kickboxing
training
once upon a time at the
Fifth Street
gym
.
He
said it was just small enough that
Veronica
wouldn’t feel overwhelmed. Great
.
Nellie had told her husband what a
fat pathetic
hermit she’d
become
. “So when the guy outside the supermarket gave me the passes I thought this would be perfect.”

Veronica
didn’t even attempt to be as excited about this as Nellie seemed to be
,
t
hough she suspected it was a bit of an act.
T
he
y
’d been  best friend
s
since they were kids and she’d done everything
to
try and cheer
Veronica
up
after her mother died
.
O
ne thing
Veronica
knew about Nellie was
that
she hated working out. So
,
as
usual,
this was a completely selfless act
on her part
. All for the sake of pulling
Veronica
out of the cave she called her home
.
Just one of the reasons that made Veronica love and appreciate her best friend even more.