Not Your Fault (3 page)

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?

I wake up, gasping for breath as I fling my body over on my back. My chest heaves as I stare at my bedroom ceiling. I was dreaming; it was just a dream. My eye still hurts though. I bring my hands in front of my face, turning them over a few times to ground myself in reality. That was a dream and this is real. And Kris doesn’t matter anymore and my brain was just being an asshole by unearthing him out of my memories and into a hazy nightmare. I take a deep breath, dragging my palm over my mouth. Nightmares fade and I will soon forget about it. About him. It’s already been nine years. Surely it won’t take much longer.

I rub my hurt eye, feeling an indention in my skin. Realization hits me as I glance at the bracelet on my wrist; a thick chain with a lock and key charm that my brother gave me all those years ago. The last present he ever gave me. I never take it off. It must have been pressed against my face, causing the pain I felt in my dream. The sun shines through my window, meaning I slept straight through the whole night. It’s time to get up and face the day. Meet the new boss and all that.

I sigh so loud it startles me.

Even a cold shower doesn’t take him off my mind.

The new owner wastes no time in alerting the public that Caron’s Gym is under new management, according to the massive banner hanging from the glass walls in front of the gym. Big black vinyl letters scream NEW MANAGEMENT with a freaking emoticon smiley face printed on plastic in blindingly bright highlighter yellow. You’d think the old management was a bunch of communists or something to warrant a sign of this nature.

Visions float through my mind of our new boss as a clone of Richard Simmons. It almost has me so terrified that I can’t get out of my car. I mean, seriously, who has a professional banner made with an emoticon? What if he makes me work harder than I am prepared to work? Or if he’s some kind of fitness freak who won’t allow me to snack on pizza-flavored pretzels and disgustingly fattening mocha frappachinos with extra whipped cream? Or what if he’s not fit at all, but some kind of overweight creep who will secretly install security cameras in the women’s locker room to broadcast our goods to some internet webcam business?

I think I’ll start taking my after-workout showers at home.

The gym still smells and looks the same when I walk inside. I almost toss my purse under the desk on instinct, before remembering that I’m not here to work. Everyone is gathered in the dance room, an addition to the original gym with mirrored walls and reclaimed high school gym flooring that my old boss snagged for super cheap. I check the time on my cell phone. I’m five minutes late. Awesome.

My stomach twists into a knot as I enter the dance room, fully aware that the first impression I’m making on my new boss is not the best one. All five employees are here, plus Dwayne and Judy who I guess are here to say goodbye. They’re standing around a pop up table with donuts, assorted muffins and drinks. Susan calls me over with a wave of her hand, while her mouth is filled with pastry and some kind of red icing.

“My ass is gonna kill me for this,” she says, taking another bite of her donut. The way she closes her eyes and savors the taste makes me feel like her ass doesn’t have much of a say so in the matter. She shoves the box of caloric nightmares toward me. “Here, take one. That way we can work it off together.”

“I’m surprised the new owner brought donuts,” I say as I grab one with chocolate drizzled over the golden sugar glaze. “Does he not know this is a gym?”

Susan shrugs with her mouth full and I glance around, looking for my new boss. “Where is he anyway?” In a softer voice, I ask, “Is he weird?”

Susan glances around and then gives a longing look toward the rest of the donuts. “I guess he ran to the other room or something. And no, girl, he’s not weird.” She throws her hand against her heart and looks me dead in the eyes. “He. Is. Gorgeous.”

I cock an eyebrow. This could be interesting. “Gorgeous as in my age? Or your age?” I’ll never forget the time Susan tried hooking me up with this “ridiculously hot” man she met at the dentist. He was forty-seven years old but she swore he looked no older than thirty. Right.

Susan gives me a chiding glare, probably because she’s remembering the same thing I am about the dentist guy. “
Your
age,” she says with a roll of her eyes. The sliding glass door to the dance room swings open and she nods in that direction. “See for yourself.”

My new boss saunters in, donut in one hand and the membership binder in the other. Susan was right. He’s definitely my age. Light blue designer jeans cling to his muscular thighs in all the right places. The motorcycle logo splashed across his teal shirt stretches to accommodate his muscular chest. He takes one bite of the donut and his perfectly chiseled jaw moves as his auburn eyes glance across the room. Our eyes meet and the heart in my chest turns to ice.

The good news is that the new owner is not a freaky health nut with an aversion to junk food.

The bad news is that he killed my brother.

Chapter 5

Although I remember the beginning of my sixteenth birthday party and it’s impossible to forget the end of it, I never remember anything that happened between. I guess those memories never had time to form. I think we had pizza and someone showed up drunk, but I’ll never be sure.

It was June 22
^nd
and Tyler was ridiculously excited that my actual birthday fell on a Saturday. He had all these freaky OCD-like tendencies, and partying on a date that’s not the actual date of your birth really annoyed him. But it was Saturday and it was June 22
^nd
, the actual, real date that sixteen years prior to today, I had popped out of our mother. Although she said the term
popped out
was incredibly inaccurate.

 We weren’t rich enough to throw some big sweet sixteen bash for me, but I wasn’t a huge fan of attention and fancy things, so I opted for a pool party in my grandparent’s back yard. Despite being about as unpopular as the group of nerds who sat alone in the cafeteria, playing a card game they invented themselves, about two dozen people showed up to celebrate the date of my birth.

I only cared about one.

Kris Payne stepped into my back yard and my knees went weak. Even with the sun in my eyes, I knew it was him by the way he walked, like he had no cares in the world and not even an earthquake could trip him. His black and red board shorts covered the only part of his body I hadn’t yet seen. Our eyes met from across the yard. I sat on the edge of the pool with my feet in the water. His lips broke into a smile as he kicked off his flip-flops and pulled his white t-shirt over his head in one quick movement, tossing it on a patio chair. I barely had time to gaze as his chest, sculpted from all that varsity basketball playing, before he crashed into me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling us both into the water.

I flailed in the shallow end as he kissed my hair, cheek, neck and lips, pulling me closer to him as we bobbed in the pool. I squealed and whined that he had messed up my hair and now we were all wet, and my corduroy bikini top was simply for show and not for swimming. I punched his shoulder and he grabbed my hand and kissed it.

I was a little angry about the wet hair thing because I had spent hours stuck in the bathroom with the flat iron and all I could think about was how I’d forever be captured in photos looking like a swamp zombie. But it didn’t matter too much, because I was with Kris, and I would always be with Kris and although I would look ugly in photos, at least he would know what I looked like for those few moments before we fell in the pool.

My brother Tyler, high on the excitement of getting accepted into law school, came riding into the backyard on his beloved motorcycle. It was really just a Vespa that he found in a dumpster and fixed up over a few months at his job at a real motorcycle shop. But it was his pride and joy and I didn’t dare call it anything but a motorcycle. Tyler let out a whoop as he pulled up to the pool, stopping by slamming his feet on the ground and pulling hard on the handlebar brake.

He threw his arms in the air while straddling the bike and yelled, “It’s my sister’s birthday!” as if he were making some dramatic proclamation to the world. I shook my head, embarrassed, and Kris laughed and squeezed me closer to him.

That’s the last time Kris touched me. What happened next haunted my dreams for years. Now, almost ten years later, the nightmares are few, but they are always the same crystal clear image that is forever burned into my brain.

Tyler hopped off the Vespa and walked to the edge of the pool, leaning over to shake Kris’s hand. Only, they started joking around with each other, making comments about muscles and arm wrestling and shit that I wasn’t paying attention to at the time, but I wish I was. Maybe then I could have stopped it. I could have said something or done something to prevent Kris from grasping onto Tyler’s hand and giving him a playful yank, hoping to toss him fully-clothed into the pool.

If I had just stopped them, Tyler wouldn’t have freaked out, flailing his arms to try and save his cell phone from drowning in chlorinated water. He wouldn’t have slipped on the slippery painted concrete. He wouldn’t have fallen.

His head wouldn’t have cracked against the edge of the pool with the worst possible skull-cracking
smack
. If I had only said something, maybe he wouldn’t be dead.

And I would have never discovered Kris Payne’s true character.

Chapter 6

The Earth stands still until Kris swallows. He can’t peel his eyes away from me but I know he wants to. Acid creeps up the back of my throat, threatening to empty the coffee and deep-fried donut from my stomach at any second. I feel cemented to the shiny wooden floor despite how the only desire in my body is to run far away and never return.

Ten years have passed since the day Kris saw me get into an ambulance with my brother. Since he decided he wanted nothing more to do with me and walked out of my life, never to speak to me again. He wasn’t even at Tyler’s funeral. And now he’s standing in the same room I am, filling the role of my new boss and ex-boyfriend from high school. The other role he plays is much worse: traitor.

Susan grabs my arm as she whispers something that I don’t bother listening to. Dwayne and Judy circle Kris and envelop him in handshakes and a hearty pat on the back. He speaks back to them, nodding to the binder in his hands and even breaking into a smile when Judy says something that makes her squeeze his elbow as she throws her head back in that bursting with joy laugh of hers. If he felt anything in the moment our eyes met, he doesn’t show it now. He is a businessman now. A boss. The owner of Carson’s Gym. I don’t know what else he is, but I don’t care to stick around and find out.

My throat burns and my pulse freezes, turning my body into a clunky, broken machine. Somehow I manage to move one foot and then the other, until I’m pushing myself out of the dance room, then out of the gym. No one follows me. I doubt anyone even notices.

A rush of warm summer air fills my lungs as I powerwalk through the parking lot. My hand grabs the door handle of the Mustang and I’m in the driver’s seat a few seconds later, forehead resting on the steering wheel. Here, in my car, it’s almost as if what just happened didn’t actually happen. I can almost breathe easily. The comforting familiarity of being in my own space allows me to relax.

Wait. Kris Payne just became my boss.

I close my eyes and throw my head back, facing the heavens. “Why is this happening?” I ask to no one. Or, to God. I’m not sure if he is listening. I’m not sure if I’m listening.

I would think that my brain doesn’t work at all anymore, if there wasn’t one incredibly coherent thought racing through my mind.

Somehow he got even hotter since high school.

Nathan uses a plastic fork to separate all of his popcorn shrimp from the French fries in his dinner basket from Shrimp-n-Stuff. Then he squeezes ketchup into the great divide, filling the middle of the basket with a river of red dipping sauce. I poke at the only food I ordered, a side of hushpuppies, and suck down the last drops of my pink lemonade. I’ve just finished telling Nathan the news that the worst person in the world is now my boss.

He stabs a popcorn shrimp and drowns it in ketchup. “So, you’re saying he never talked to you again after…?”

“After Tyler died.” I finish the sentence for him. It’s been long enough for me to be able to say those words. I don’t know why everyone else has to dance around them.

“I can’t believe he did that,” Nathan says, stabbing another shrimp. “I mean, I thought I heard something about ya’ll dating in high school before we met. I know it would be hard for him to talk to you after what he did, but it seems like it’d be even harder to ignore you. I mean, that’s awkward as fuck.”