part of myself that deserves happiness and run with it?
Will there ever be a day when I can smile and know that I’m worthy of love?
Heading for the treadmill, I decide to sweat all the cravings away. It’ll take some time, but it’ll happen. That, I’m sure of.
I stretch, wondering if the burn will be less with this much preparation. There are two ways to work out. The right way, which is painful if you do it right, and the wrong way, which hurts no matter how long you go. The only difference is that the wrong way can cause irreparable damage.
After warming up, I start at a slow jog. Ten minutes in, my calves are feeling stretched and heated, so I pick up the pace to a run. Wanting the exertion, I need the blinding sweat to seep through and remind me why being sober is important.
Forty minutes in, my body feels the burn. It feels the exhaustion and lack of stamina. During these past two years, I’ve let myself go. Not just with binge-eating, booze, and everything else bad, but with this.
The one thing I made sure both Lo and I did was keep up our health, but then I let it go to trash. I couldn’t help it. She put me in the worst darkness I’ve ever been in. Where stars didn’t exist. No moon. No light. Just blackness. Nothingness as it consumed me along the way.
She wrecked me. And like the fool I am, I let her.
My heart pounds, my head following soon after. I check my watch and realize I’ve been busting ass for two hours. How am I still going? No water. No breaks or breathers. Sometimes, the mind consumes, and it’s not always in the best interest of the person, either.
When I make it back to my room, a sticky note resides on my door. When I flip it open, I notice a short message. Be ready in forty, registration is two hours in advance. My stomach flips. How am I supposed to un-exhaust myself, all while looking dashing doing it?
Ice bath?
Ice. Bath.
Closing the plug to the tub, I find the wine cooler besides the fridge and head to the ice machine near the gym. I fill it up and go back and forth between my room and the machine until half the tub is full. Turning the water on the coldest setting, I let it run. As soon as it’s ready, I remove my shirt, shoes, and socks, and lower myself into the bitter cold. My nipples are hard before the water touches me, and my balls are drawn up in preparation, knowing the drill.
I settle inside, my entire body shivering from the initial cold. You’d think I’d be used to it; I’ve been taking ice baths since high school. Since he started beating the shit out of me. My mind travels to dear ole Dad, and I shiver for an entirely different reason.
“You’d think being half of me, you’d be less worthless than that prick you call brother,” he hisses, spittle leaving his lips with each word as he shouts inches from my face. People wonder how parents get so angry, why they’re upset, or even vicious.
Mine, tonight, has everything to do with the bowl I dropped in the sink.
Not even six inches above the bottom of it, as I washed it, it slipped, crashing into the stainless steel sink. It shattered. Never before has a bowl smashed without force, yet it did. Immediately, he howls. “What the fuck have you done now, boy?”
My body stiffens, readying for attack, knowing he’s going to lay it on me, hurt me until I can’t breathe...
Breathe.
How was one supposed to with a punctured lung?
My dad beat me that night with his fist wrapped around a pillowcase. He forgot one thing, though—ribs break easily. Not that easily, but easily enough that a grown man only needs to punch once in the right spot. Mom rushed me to the hospital as Dad claimed it was a varsity accident. And so, my beatings began.
As did my ice baths.
I shake my head, noticing the moisture leaking from my eyes. The memories never fade, even if the man is buried six feet under.
My skin hurts from the blistering cold, and I empty the tub, stepping out. It takes too much time to get my body back up to temp, so I jump into the shower, cleaning off the remaining grime. By the time I’m suited up and ready to