Working Out Issues Ch. 11

"You gonna be okay out here?" I asked.

"Mhmm," she nodded.

"Okay," I smiled. Ashanti always reached this point after enough drinks. It was like she had used up all her words for the day.

I went around the room, carefully blowing out the last remnants of Jeremy's candles, then fetched Shani a blanket in case she didn't end up making it to bed.

"Mmm!" she smiled gratefully as I draped it over her. She snuggled in, then reached out a grasping hand. I interlocked my fingers with hers and gave her a gentle squeeze. She squinted up at me happily.

"You're welcome," I said. Ashanti let go of my hand, and I lowered myself to the floor, leaning against the side of her chair for a moment.

"Mm?" Ashanti asked.

"Oh, nothing," I sighed, "I was just thinking... this is actually the anniversary of us becoming friends, too."

"Mmm," she cooed.

"Yeah," I smiled, "You remember, that night I came back to your place? Back when you and Jeremy were living together? I thought it was gonna be awkward, because we didn't really know each other. But you were so lovely, and we got drunk and watched The Parent Trap, and..." my voice broke and I stopped.

Ashanti raised her head, "Mm?"

I shook my head. Oh god. I could feel it welling up inside me, the emotions I had tried to keep down since I left Cara's work. The emotions I had been trying to keep down for a whole year now. It was pointless, they always came back after a while. Sometimes when I was working out, or cooking, or I woke up in the middle of the night and realized how alone I was in my bed. I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks.

"I still miss him, Shani," I whimpered.

Ashanti slid off the chair, down onto the floor next to me. She threw half of the blanket over my shoulders and huddled up to my side.

"Mmm," she soothed.

"I'm sorry " I sobbed, "You guys threw such a nice party for me and I can't even hold it together for one—"

"Mm," Ashanti said, softly but firmly, and put a finger over my lips. I sighed and stopped talking. She leaned her head on my shoulder and hugged me tightly until I finished crying.

Once the tears had finally stopped, and my breathing had returned to normal, Ashanti rubbed my back and looked me in the eyes.

"Mm?" she asked gently.

"Yeah," I said, "I think so. Thanks, Shani."

She helped me up and took me back to my room. I changed into my PJs, a long t-shirt with a picture of a heart on it and a pair of comfy pink pants, while Ashanti leaned sleepily against the door frame. I got into bed and she gave me a hug then turned to leave. She took a step and wobbled unsteadily.

"Mm," she said, concerned.

I giggled, "Come here, dizzy girl."

She turned back with a grateful smile, then clambered over m body and plopped into bed beside me. She was mumbling in her sleep in seconds.

I reached for my phone on the bedside table, just to set an alarm for the morning. I couldn't resist checking Instagram. I scrolled through my feed for a bit. Cara had posted some pictures from her gig that night. In a couple, she was with some girl I had never seen before, but who seemed to be very familiar with her. I sighed. That was fine. Cara and I hadn't really gotten to the exclusive point anyway, and... I didn't really care. She was fun, and seriously so fucking cool, but deep down I had known it wasn't gonna work out. I opened the search tab, and my fingers started tracing a familiar pattern. Don't do it, I told myself, and then hit search anyway and brought up Adam's profile.

He still hadn't posted anything. His last photo was from a few months ago. I scrolled through them, for a while. His eyes... his smile... I felt an ache of pointless, stupid longing. Maybe... maybe he was thinking of me too, right now. Maybe he was alone in his bed, looking at pictures of me, and thinking, wow, she's so pretty now, I should call her. My hand drifted up to my boob and I started gently thumbing my nipple through my sleep shirt. Maybe he was actually really impressed by how pretty I looked, especially in that photo Shani took before we went out last Friday, and maybe he was biting his lip, and sliding down his pants, and taking a hold of his perfect cock and...

I heard Ashanti mumble something behind me and quickly dropped my hand, blushing furiously. I had to stop. This was pathetic, and unhealthy, and I needed to be productive tomorrow. I still had no idea what I was going to do for the team-building event at work. It was time to go to sleep.

Instead of doing that, I went back to the search bar and looked up Adam's gym friend, Dilruk, just in case he had posted any photos with Adam in them. I wasn't stalking! I just wanted to know what he was up to. That he was doing okay.

Dilruk had only posted one new photo, and it was just a selfie with some ripped lady in workout gear. Probably his girlfriend or something. Fuck. A sick feeling washed over me. What if the reason Adam wasn't posting anything was because he was so busy with some new girlfriend? I mean, that would be good. Obviously, that would be really, really good for him. That would actually make me super happy. If he had a girlfriend, that meant he had moved on, and forgotten about me, and...

I wiped my eyes furiously. I was not fucking crying! I wanted this! Obviously I wanted this, I was the one who fucking walked out on him, right? This was good for both of us. And, and maybe he didn't even have a girlfriend anyway, right? I mean, I didn't even know that the lady in the photo was Dilruk's girlfriend. I took another look at her, and gasped.

Holy shit. That definitely wasn't Dilruk's girlfriend.

That was Michelle Champion.

As in, Michelle Champion's At Home Aerobics. The lady without whom I would literally not be the woman I was today.

Fuck, that brought back memories. I still worked out, although these days I was a lot more comfortable with my body the way it was. I was still chubby, but that was okay. And I liked my curves. And my boobs. Anyway, I mostly just went running or took spin class and yoga and stuff with Ashanti at her gym. I hadn't used my Michelle Champion DVDs in a while.

I went to Michelle Champion's profile and check out some of her photos. Wow. Okay, maybe I could stand to get a little more in shape. I scrolled down her timeline, feeling steadily more and more guilty about how much cake I had eaten tonight, and then saw a post that made me stop.

It was a promotional image for her new corporate venture: Michelle Champion's "Raise The Bar" Corporate Fitness and Team-Building Seminars: Lift Your Productivity To A New Personal Best. I clicked through to the website and spent few minutes reading through the description. It actually sounded... perfect.

I smiled, "Michelle Champion, you just saved my ass again."

"I'm gonna choke!" I spluttered.

"Mel, you're gonna be great!" said Drew.

"I'm not good at public speaking!" I said, "I don't even know what I'm meant to talk about!"

"It's easy!" Drew said, "You just go up there, you say thanks Michelle, thanks everyone for comin', see you at the Christmas party. You're done!"

"But what if I mess it up?" I said.

"Mel, no one's gonna be paying attention anyway! They'll all be fuckin' exhausted!" said Drew.

We were off in a side room at the conference center I had rented out for our work team-building exercise. Right now, Michelle Champion herself was up on stage, delivering the first part of her "Raise The Bar" seminar.

It was pretty standard corporate team-building rhetoric, but Michelle Champion, being a renowned fitness expert, had added a physical twist. The seminar approached corporate synergy through the metaphor of weightlifting.

I had watched the sample videos on her website. She had a squat rack set up on stage, and started off with a bare bar, which represented productivity. She would bring a volunteer up on stage to squat the bar, demonstrating how it was easy to keep productivity high without a bad corporate culture weighing you down. Then Michelle and her team of fitness model assistants would start loading up the bar with plates. These represented negative influences: miscommunication, low morale, disorganized workspaces, non-ergonomic office furniture. These negative influences weighed down the bar until it was impossible for even Michelle Champion herself to lift it. The team-building exercises that she was going to run us through over the next hour were supposed to help us take away those metaphorical heavy plates, so we could lift our productivity to new heights.

That was all fine. What was freaking me out right now was the revelation that after Michelle's seminar finished, there was a space in the schedule for the event organizer to deliver a quick speech to wrap things up. The event organizer being me, and my speech being... currently non-existent.

I was already super worried that something would go wrong, and this wasn't helping. When I woke up this morning, I was too nervous to eat breakfast, and I was grateful for that now. Thinking about speaking in front of everybody was making me sick, and the last thing I needed was to throw up on stage.

"Mel, you can do this," Drew said soothingly, "You're smart. Everyone here likes you. Just keep it simple, it'll be fine."

I winced. I definitely didn't feel smart. And, sure, everyone at the office did genuinely seem to like me enough. I mean, I was really surprised how many people had agreed to come to the event when I asked them. People really seemed to respect me more now that I was spending more time at the office, helping them out with stuff. But would they still respect me if I went up on stage and made an idiot out of myself?

Michelle Champion finished her introduction and the crowd broke up into their assigned groups, each group being lead by one of the Raise The Bar models, who also seemed to be qualified personal trainers.

I joined the group from my department and tried not to show how nervous I was. If the trainer needed someone to help demonstrate an activity, I would volunteer if the rest of my team were too shy. If anyone got stuck or was having trouble I tried to help out. I should have been enjoying myself. I liked working out, and it was kind of fun seeing my coworkers in such an unusual setting. All the people I saw from day to day wearing business attire were sweating and laughing in their workout gear, as we tried to flip over a truck tire that represented passive-aggressive emails. A few people even complimented me on how good I looked in my tank top and leggings, but I was too distracted to appreciate it. The whole time, I felt like I had tunnel vision.

Before I knew it, the hour was up, and I still felt sick. Even worse, the combination of skipping breakfast and intense exercise had me feeling super hungry and lightheaded. I still wasn't sure what I was gonna say. Just keep it simple. Maybe I should make a joke? But what if it didn't land? Michelle Champion was back on stage to deliver the closing part of her seminar. Two of the models helped her remove the plates, and she invited volunteers from the audience to lift the now empty bar. I watched anxiously as Linda from Marketing triumphantly lifted it on her shoulders. Drew suddenly snuck up beside me, as he often did. I jumped.

"This was fuckin' awesome," he said, "This has gotta be the most fun I've had at one of these bullshit things. You nailed it, Mel. Just go up there and say anything and it'll be fine."

I bit my nails, "You really think so?"

"Hell yeah," said Drew, "Plus, one of those trainers said I had a nice beard."

He grinned proudly. I smiled. Drew had been working on a five o'clock shadow for about three months now.

"It is a nice beard," I said, "Which trainer said that?"

"That guy up on stage," he pointed. I looked up and gasped. The model Drew was pointing at was a short, bulky man with a very thick, full beard of his own. I had been so panicked about my speech that I hadn't noticed any of the other trainers during the workshop, but I definitely recognized him now. It was Dilruk. That explained how he managed to get a selfie with Michelle Champion. But... my pulse quickened. If Dilruk was working here, could that possibly mean...

No. No, that was crazy, right? Adam hated putting his body on display. There was no way he would sign up for a job like this. Unless... I mean, it had been a year. Maybe he had gotten over his fears? Maybe he didn't care about strangers staring at him, because... he already had someone who cared about him for who he was.

I felt my eyes prickle. Fuck! I didn't need to be thinking about this right now!

"Drew," I said, trying to keep my voice steady, "I think I need to go for a walk or something."

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I just... I'm just gonna, just, think about my speech some more," I said, and quickly walked away.

Up onstage, Michelle Champion was putting the final twist into her already strained analogy. Now that my coworkers had demonstrated how easy it was to raise the bar without a negative corporate culture weighing them down, she was introducing a new challenge. The models were bringing out new plates, just ten pounds instead of twenty-five, and loading them onto the productivity bar. These plates represented goals we should be working towards: increased profits, streamlined workflow, healthy work-life balance. The stronger our corporate culture was, the easier these things would be to... pick up? Something like that. I hurried past the gathered crowd, nodding politely at various friendly coworkers, and darted into a little room behind the stage.

I leaned against the wall and took a deep, shaky breath. Fuck. The last thing I needed to think about right now was Adam. But I couldn't help it. Ever since my trans-niversary party he had been constantly on my mind.

I just missed him so much. I wanted to make breakfast with him, and teach him how to play video games, and cuddle him when he had a rough day. But it was never gonna happen. Sure, I was a girl now, and I had lost a bunch of weight, and I had gotten a promotion, but what was the point of any of that? My life had changed but I hadn't. I was still a whiny, selfish, insecure piece of shit. Even if he wanted me back, which he obviously never would, I would only ruin things again. And I still didn't know what I was gonna say for my fucking speech!

I started crying like an idiot in the back room of the conference center.

I heard a tentative voice from the other side of the room ask, "Are you okay?"

Fuck! I sobbed harder. Great, now I was fucking embarrassing myself in front of some stranger as well. I tried to wipe the tears from my eyes as best as I could and looked at where the voice was coming from. This room was clearly just meant to be a passageway behind the stage. It was a long, narrow hallway with a door at each end, and it was almost entirely filled with spare lights and speakers, and stacks upon stacks of metal chairs. In fact, the chairs took up so much space that there was only a tiny gap for people to squeeze through. I couldn't see the guy who had called out to me at all. The stacks of chairs and the weird acoustics muffled and distorted his voice, making it sound tinny and strange. At least the same thing was probably happening to my voice, although obviously he could still tell I was crying.

"I'm okay," I sobbed, "I'm just... just freaking out about going on stage. I'm sorry."

"I get it," the voice said soothingly, "I always get nervous at these things. Everyone staring at you."

"Yeah," I sniffled, "And... everyone always tells me that I'm, like, a good person, and I can do this, but it doesn't feel true. I feel like I've just tricked everyone into thinking they like me, and I'm gonna up there and fuck everything up and then everyone's gonna realize what a piece of shit I am."

The voice hesitated, then asked, "You're not one of the other models, are you?"

I cry laughed, "No. Definitely not. If you could see me you wouldn't ask."

"So what do you have to go up on stage for?" he asked.

"I'm the one who organized it," I said, "I'm meant to do this stupid speech."

"Hey, that's awesome," said the voice, "I think you did great. Everyone here seems like they had a really good time."

"Well that's not because of me!" I protested, "That's you guys! You put on the event I just fucking told people to come! I didn't do anything, I shouldn't get praise for that!"

"Okay," said the voice quickly, "Fair enough. But, just so you know, we do a lot of these events. And a lot of the time everybody shows up expecting to hate it, and then they usually do. But everyone here was really on board today, and I think that's because they trust the person who organized it."

There was a muffled cheer from outside, which must have been Michelle Champion lifting the now goal-laden bar upon her shoulders. That was the grand finale of all her seminars, which meant now she just had to lead the crowd through a cool-down, and then it was my turn to talk.

I sighed. Maybe this guy was right. Maybe I was just catastrophizing. Ashanti always told me that I was great at talking myself into hopelessness when I was actually totally capable and deserving of something. But it was so hard to snap out of it.

"Maybe," I said, "But I still feel like I"m gonna make an idiot of myself. I probably look like a mess right now."

"Oh, hey," said the voice, "There's a box of napkins back here. I could pass you some."

"Thank you," I sniffled.

I heard a rustling noise as the man behind the chairs got the napkins, then a bunch of clanking and grinding of metal on concrete as he began to make his way through the tiny space between the chairs and the wall. I giggle despite myself. Whoever this guy was, he must be huge. Makes sense, really, if he was one of Michelle Champion's fitness models. They all seemed to be nearly as ripped as her.

The guy made it almost all the way through the chairs, then stopped. I could see his shadow against the wall. He stretched his hand out from the metallic jungle, holding a stack of napkins.

"Here," he said, "I won't look at you until you've had a chance to, uh, get pretty."

I giggled, "Thanks. I'm gonna be so pretty."

I reached out to take the napkins, and then paused. Now that the guy was closer, his voice sounded clearer. And... familiar. I looked at his hand. Even the fingers were muscly.

"Adam?"

He was quiet for a couple seconds, then softly said, "I thought it might be you. Your voice sounds a little different."

"Oh, yeah," I blushed, "Um. I took lessons. And, you know, hormones and stuff..."

"Should I still call you..."

"Yeah. Melanie, technically. But Mel's fine."

"Hi, Mel," said Adam.

I took a deep breath, "Hi, Adam."

A pause, then, "Can I come out?"

I sighed and tried to wipe my face clean as best as I could. I straightened my shirt. I doubted it helped much but I had to at least try to look like I had one percent of my shit together,

I took another deep breath and said "Okay."

Adam squeezed himself out from behind the stacks of chairs. He was wearing the Raise The Bar uniform, a black polo shirt with the little emblem of Michelle Champion holding a barbell over her head emblazoned over his heart. The shirt was so tight it was almost cutting into his biceps, showing off every facet of his incredible body. He was still as clean-cut and handsome as always, with his square jaw and bright, gorgeous eyes. I felt more self-conscious than ever, huddled in the corner, fat and sweaty with puffy eyes and a blotchy face from crying. He looked a little worried, but he smiled when he saw me.

"It's nice to see you again," he said.

"I'm so sorry you had to deal with that just now," I said, "I swear I didn't even realize you worked for Michelle, I would have hired a different company, or-"