If you missed any previous installments, go back to Words From the Sowul and read from Part 1.

At 4:15, Kristy finished with her last afternoon client, ducked into the break room to buy two more Smartwaters, and slipped into the group exercise room to prepare for step class. She jumped up onto the instructor’s stage, plugged in her headset to the media console, checking the battery pack as she did so, and connected her employee iPod. Kristy set up her step and, remembering her encounter with the mirror, added an extra set of risers. On her way to open the doors, she set up a step near the windows and placed Cindy’s water on top of it. Technically, she and Cindy weren’t supposed to reserve spots, but the members never made an issue of it. On the contrary, they seemed to think it was nice that the instructors took care of each other. Holly took her cue from them and never mentioned it, even when she came to take class herself.

Class went well, though Kristy felt her energy flag near the end, and wound up having to remove the extra set of risers for the last three tracks. She made a silly excuse to her watching members, “Even we instructors get tired sometimes!” which granted her several indulgent smiles. Inside, though, she was kicking herself, and mentally added another twenty minutes onto her swim.

After class, she was inundated with old song and routine requests from members to mix in for next week. While she was standing there, she started to feel lightheaded. She took a big sip of water to keep herself from passing out, and when she felt better, mentally congratulated herself to getting to that point. It was her validation for having pushed herself hard all day, running only on body fat.

Cindy waited until the members dribbled away, one by one, before coming up to the stage and giving Kristy a worried look. “You all right, Kris?” she asked.

“Sure,” Kristy shrugged, continuing to pack up her things.

“I’ve been worried about you,” Cindy said. “It’s been a few months now, right? And you still seem not quite yourself.” Cindy curled a strand of her hair around her fingertip. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Kristy smiled. “No thanks, Cin. I’ll be fine. I mean, I am fine. I’m just tired today, or something.”

Cindy frowned. “You didn’t look tired up there. I mean, okay, at the end you needed to throw a riser, but nobody teaches with two. You’re the only one who ever even tries.”

“I just wanted to challenge myself.”

Cindy looked her up and down. “I don’t think you need to challenge yourself. Not in that way, anyway.” She paused to help Kristy unclip her microphone and put it back on the shelf. “Hey, what are you doing for dinner? Want to come to the diner with me?”

The diner next door made excellent Poutine fries, one of Kristy’s college favorites. Sometimes when she was walking out of the gym, she smelled the fryer going, the salty aroma swirling thickly through the evening air. The idea of dragging a hot, crispy French fry through beefy gravy was a temptation strong enough to bring her to her knees. She hesitated and almost said yes. But then she strengthened her resolve. Kristy always ate alone.

“No thanks,” she said. “I’m meeting someone. A friend.”

For the third time that day, Kristy experienced a disbelieving look, but once again, the looker let her off the hook.

“Okay,” Cindy said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

 ________________________

 6:45. Kristy said goodbye to her last client of the day, a twenty-two year old woman who had six weeks to fit into her size four wedding dress, and went down to the locker room to change into her bathing suit. The pool was quiet this time of day, with most of the members who weren’t home having dinner doing drier, easier workouts upstairs. Kristy nodded to Brian, the evening lifeguard, but didn’t say hello. She and Brian had an odd encounter a few weekends ago when Kristy had joined her co-workers for a rare night out. Brian had bought her a drink, monopolized her conversation for most of the evening, and walked her to her car, a guiding hand on the small of her back. Kristy had gone home feeling happier than she had in months. But the next day at the monthly staff meeting, Brian acted like it never happened. She’d tried to catch his eye across the room, but he avoided it; when the meeting was over, he pushed out ahead of everyone else. Since then, their interactions had become increasingly awkward, until now they barely spoke. If it wasn’t for her rigid dedication to her workout routine, Kristy thought, slipping into the pool at the far end, away from the lifeguard stand, it would have been easy to let the thought of Brian watching her swim drive her away.

Kristy did several laps, trying to ignore the feel of Brian’s eyes on her. She loved to swim, even though she wasn’t the best at it. She seemed to move slowly and laboriously in the water, no matter how much strength training she did on dry land. But it didn’t matter, as long as she worked hard and challenged herself to do more laps and different strokes. She enjoyed the cool of the water and the isolation, but her favorite part was the feeling of weightlessness. Nothing could make you feel thin and beautiful like floating in water.

She checked the clock at the end of her thirtieth lap. 8:05. Her tired heart loosened with relief. She’d been here for over fourteen hours. Time to get out and get home.

As Kristy wrapped her towel around her waist and headed toward the locker room, Brian called out, “Hey, Kristy.”

She turned around. Brian jumped down from his lifeguard stand. There was no one else in the pool area.

“I’m kind of in a hurry,” she began, but he raised both his hands in a stopping gesture.

“I just want to say I’m sorry,” he said. “I had a good time that night too. I shouldn’t have blown you off like that.”

Kristy didn’t know what to say. No, you shouldn’t have, was what she wanted to say. Instead, she went for the less brave, “Why did you?”

Brian folded his arms, pressed his lips together. “After you left, I went back in the bar. They were all talking about you. They said ever since your dad died, all you seemed to do was work out. Cindy said she had to pressure you for days just to get you to come out for a drink. I said I wanted to ask you out, and maybe that would make you feel better, get you out of your rut, you know. But then Cindy said she didn’t know. She said she thought you weren’t eating, that you’d lost too much weight. ‘It’s like she’s trying to shrink away,’ she said. And I don’t know, Kristy,” Brian said, sighing. “I just didn’t think I could handle all that. I had a friend in high school who had anorexia. She was so unhappy, and everyone knew, but no one could help. Especially not me. Finally her guidance counselor pushed to get her into an institution for eating disorders. I guess we’re lucky she didn’t die. I don’t know what happened to her after that.” He unfolded his arms, fiddled with his employee badge, hanging on a lanyard around his neck. “I just chickened out. I’m sorry.”

Kristy didn’t know what to say. They stood there for a long minute, until Brian finally looked up, met her eyes. He seemed about to speak again, so she said, “I have to go,” and turned around. Halfway to the door, she stopped and looked back.

“I’m not anorexic,” she said. And then she left.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 4!