The Music of What Happens - Bill Konigsberg Page 0,86
to tell Max.
But he’s busy grabbing different accoutrements. He brings over these huge flat rubber bands, and he attaches them, one to the chair apparatus where you sit, and one to the bar on top of the platform.
“This makes it really burn,” he says, looking all excited, and I try to match his excitement but I fail. This is just not … me. Not my thing.
He sits down, grabs the handles near his hands, twists them, and I guess that releases what the platform is resting on. His large quads tighten and pulse, and he lowers the platform until his knees are pushed up against his chest. Then he exhales with a grunt and pushes hard, and his legs straighten out.
Max is … impressive. But of course he is. He’s perfect. And that’s annoying. The rubber bands expand as he stretches his legs out, and contract as he allows the weight to fall close to his body.
“This would be a great rubber band flick trick,” I say, imagining flinging a big rubber band across the room. He gives a charity grunt without looking at me, and keeps pushing. He does nine, then ten, then eleven, and finally twelve, and for the final three, his growls like a bear. A bead of sweat drips down his forehead, barely missing his eye.
“Yes,” he shouts as he twists the handles back to catch the hundred-and-eighty-pound platform.
He stands and I curl into myself, afraid.
He puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “We’ll start you real light. I started light too.”
I don’t say anything, because the voices in my head are not nice ones. Not toward me, and not toward Max. I could be asleep now. I could be anywhere but here, proving to my first boyfriend that I am utterly unworthy of boyfriend status because I am the Wimpy Kid from the Diary of.
He pulls the big circle weights off and stacks smaller weights on each side. He tells me they are twenty-five pounds each, and I am entirely uncertain that he understands who and what he is dealing with. Still, I sit down and mimic what he did, well aware that the platform is likely to fall on me when my legs collapse.
Instead, when I push up after twisting the handles, I find I can do it.
“Oh!” I say, like someone pinched my butt.
He laughs. “There ya go,” he says.
Bringing the weights down is easy, and from the scrunched-up position, I figure out that the rubber bands probably make this about twice as hard. And I don’t mind. My legs can lift the weight, and when they start to burn after number eight, I smile a bit, because I am lifting weights. Me.
“Come on,” he says, as I push a ninth time.
I grunt and push.
“Go go go,” he says, staring down at me.
I meet his eyes and I push and it’s a little embarrassing because it’s so … intimate. Me trying hard and staring into his eyes. Also it’s a little sexual.
“Push, push, push,” he chants on number twelve, and I feel the sweat dripping down my face, and I feel the tent forming in my red gym shorts.
When I stand up on my tired legs, I linger close to him because something has changed in me. I feel … different. Like even though it’s light weight, nothing like what he lifted, I did it. I finished the set. It feels awesome.
He loads more weight for my second set, and for my third, he goes with the big forty-fives on each side. I start to say something but he interrupts me.
“You can do this, Jordan,” he says. “I saw how easy the fifty was. The seventy wasn’t that hard either. You can do ninety, I promise.”
I’m not sure, and I avert my eyes, once again afraid I’ll let him down. But I get into the position, twist the handles, and jump into the deep end before I’m ready.
My legs burn right away. It’s intense. A growl comes out of me followed by a whimper, while he tells me to push push push. By the sixth push, I can barely feel my legs anymore, and it feels blissful.
I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. These are words I’ve never said to myself before, and they make me feel like crying I am so happy. He sees it in my face, because he breaks into a sexy smile.
“Adrenaline,” he mutters, and I don’t give a fuck what it is.