Untitled

It smells just as badly as you’d expect a gym to smell. There’s somehow something more pressing than B.O., like someone rubbed shit on the walls. Knowing men, if that did happen, they’d think it was the funniest thing in the world. Yeah, I’m not easily impressed, especially when it means I gotta workout in a cloud of green haze. 

Whatever. I knew that was gonna happen. Who goes to the gym and complains about the smell? Skinny-armed fucks do, that’s who. I exercise: I know how it goes. How the body sweats away water and you bring a gallon to refill between sets, how you shower after so you don’t break out in white-lidded zits and red patches. The very existence of sweat and its consequences, forcibly experienced by everyone nearby, are universal. It’s something we all do. 

And yet, I can’t move. Other students part around me like a whale’s bristle-filled mouth swallowing a swarm of krill. They probably think, ‘What the Hell is this asshole doing standing in the middle of the gym?’ and I can’t blame them ‘cause I’m thinking the exact same thing: Why the Hell am I stuck here like a fucking dumbass? Why have I felt my stomach sink with each step into this normal, student specific gym? Don’t I belong here?

Do I? That’s really why I’ve stopped. I’m trying to figure out that answer by borrowing into the guys around me. All guys, all paired or tripled or in groups surpassing even that. Never solo, never without a spotter or someone to talk to while the high of a previous set wears off. Even the guys on the treadmills are talking to each other as they run. Christ, why am I the only sorry fuck by himself? Why did no one drag me out here at the ass crack of dawn and force me to toss kettlebells and break PRs? 

My chest floods with air. In movies, they talk about fear making you shrink or making your stomach twist and your head pound. But my fear expands me like a balloon with white streaked in its normal color: about to pop, but it never does. I never break down, not really. I save that for where the guys won’t smell it.

About the Author

Allison does not play sports, if that's not obvious enough. She does watch them every once in a while. Baseball, college basketball, curling. All the popular stuff. She's basically a pro herself. Find some of her non-sporty stuff in the most recent Quiddity issue.