Ashlei
“Shit,” I murmur under my breath the morning after the Alpha Sigma dance, clenching the pole as hard as I can with my thighs. But it’s too late. I’m already slipping out of the spin I attempted, and I throw my hand out in time to catch myself before I face plant on the mat.
When my entire body reaches the floor, I flop out on my back, letting hot air through my flat lips like a balloon deflating after a birthday party. Pretty much sums up how I feel about everything right now.
Karen chuckles, bending down to pat my stomach twice before standing tall and hanging her hands on her hips. “You’re not going to be able to just jump back up on here and do everything you were doing a year ago,” she says, the ring on her left eyebrow lifting.
“I know, but I didn’t think I’d be this out of shape.”
“You’re not out of shape. You’re in fantastic shape, honestly,” she says, eyes scanning my exposed body.
In pole, I never wear more than tiny dance shorts and a strappy sports bra.
“But you haven’t had to lift all of your body weight and then invert and spin and make it look pretty in over a year.
It’s going to take some time. And some practice. ”
I sigh again, scrubbing my hands down my face before reaching one hand up. Karen takes it, tugging me up to stand again.
“Twenty more minutes and then call it quits for today. You can come back tomorrow, okay?”
I nod, thanking her again for letting me come to her studio for an open pole session on such late notice.
I was thankful to find another pole studio near school — one not connected to the awful memories of what happened at my last one — and the fact that she could get me in this morning was everything I needed after the Valentine’s dance.
Last year, I spent Valentine’s Day with Bo.
And last night, she called me.
The same feeling moves through me when I think about the call as did when it came through — like a little bug crawling down my neck and venturing all the way down my spine.
I rub down the pole with a rag and alcohol, then I climb up again, this time working on tucks and other strength-building poses as I try to process.
Just seeing her name light up my phone screen was panic-inducing enough, but when I connected the call and the video came in clear, showing a face that seemed almost like a ghost to me after a year, I couldn’t breathe.
Literally, I stood there with my mouth hanging open and didn’t take a single breath for a full minute.
Bo had smiled, reminding me with just that simple notion how much I’d loved her, and then I had to try not to throw up as she told me how happy she was.
She told me she’s up in New York City now, enrolled in a fashion school, and I marveled at how she looked almost nothing like the Bo I knew before.
Her hair was a bright, almost neon pink, cut short and shaved on one side, and she had a piercing in the little dip at the bottom of her lip.
Just about the time I figured out how to breathe normally again, she told me she has a girlfriend.
My hands slip a little as that same feeling rolls through me, but I grip the pole tighter, using my shoulders and lower abs to swing myself up and around the pole until my feet land gracefully on the mat. I walk slowly around it, feeling out my new grip before launching myself back up.
It’s not that I’m not happy for Bo, that I don’t feel a little better knowing she’s alive and happy, but I think I realized when she called me that I’m not happy — not the way I should be, anyway.
Between Kimberly and the drama at work, trying to put fires out in sorority land, and not having anything to fuel me in my spare time — like pole used to — I feel a little aimless.
And, underneath all those shallow reasons for my unhappiness lies the real truth.
I miss Brandon.
I still want him, which is absolutely ridiculous after the way he’s given me the cold shoulder at work.
The memory of his biting remarks earlier this week make me grunt as I release my hands from the pole, inverting backward and holding myself with the strength of my legs and core alone.
And it’s there, hanging upside down doing something I used to love so much, something that feels so challenging an unfamiliar to me now, that I realize I’ve lost myself.
For the next fifteen minutes, I try to clear my head, focusing only on using my body to practice old spins and climbs. After a quick cool down, I pay Karen for the drop-in session and we set up a training schedule.
“You know, we’re looking at going to competition later this year,” Karen says, handing me my credit card back. “Think you’d be interested? You’re already better rusty than half the girls on our team.”
I smile, swallowing down the memories of my last competition. “Thank you, that’s very flattering, but this time around I’m just doing pole for me. No competitions.”
Karen watches me curiously, her almost gray eyes searching mine. “Okay, I can respect that. But let me know if you ever change your mind.”
“I will. And hey, thank you again for today. I really needed it.”
She chuckles, eyeing the new bruises already showing on my arms and legs. “Well, now you’ll probably need an ice bath and some Arnica.”
“No shit,” I agree with a laugh of my own as I tug on my loose-fitting travel pants over my tiny shorts. Adjusting the strap of my gym bag over my shoulder, I give her a little wave and make my way through the studio hall and back out into the Florida heat.
It’s a beautiful morning, just past nine now, and I plug in my headphones to start the walk back to campus. The studio was only a little over a mile away, so I took the walk this morning to warm up.
This one, I need to clear my head.
I scan the windows of the little shops I pass as I weave through downtown, enjoying the cool breeze mixing with the sunshine hitting my shoulders.
I work through my plan for the week, starting with a beach day with the girls tomorrow and then back on the grind early Monday morning.
Pulling out my phone, I jot down when I’ll go to pole between work and class.
My chest feels lighter with every step, and the more my plan falls into place, the easier my breaths come.
I know pole isn’t the answer to everything, but it’s the first step to getting a little of the old me back.
I drop my phone back into my pocket, hooking one thumb on the strap of my gym bag as I go back to scanning the shops. My mind drifts from Bo back to Brandon, and my stomach turns.
I miss him.
My hand itches to grab my phone again, to call him and ask to see him.
What’s the worst that could happen? He says no and I feel just as annoyed and hurt as I do now?
The possibility that he might say yes is enough to shove that fear down, but when I ask myself if I can truly handle another rejection from him right now, I know the answer without saying it out loud.
Taking that roll of my stomach as a sign from the universe, I decide to wait, to talk to him on Monday in the office, instead. At least there, I can’t break down crying asking him if he ever thinks of me anymore. Maybe I’ll have a small chance of keeping my shit together.
The decision is made, but when my eyes flit through the next shop, I wonder if I was reading the sign from the universe all wrong.
Because there he is.
As if he’s a mirage, or as if my soul called to him without asking permission first, I spot Brandon standing inside a suit store, his beautiful, chiseled jaw casting a shadow down his neck as he appraises himself in a mirror.
My feet stop working.
I just stand there and gape from the sidewalk, watching Brandon eyeing himself in the full-length mirror as a shorter, slightly chubby man takes measurements along his inseam and then jots down notes in a little notebook.
Brandon’s eyes are hard, the irises scrutinizing as he scans the new suit.
It’s a creamy beige, complementing the caramel tones of his complexion, and even now — before it’s been tailored — it fits him in a way that should be illegal.
I lick my lips, remembering how hard the body is underneath all that fabric, and it’s as if that little spark I taste on my lips shocks him, too. He pauses, flattening a palm over his abdomen before lifting his eyes to the window beyond the mirror he’s staring into, the window where I stand.
His gaze hits me like a wave of fire, burning me from the inside out.
I pluck the neck of my tank top away from my skin, a bead of sweat dripping down the back of my neck.
I swallow, wrapping both hands around the front strap of my bag to keep them from nervously fidgeting.
Somehow, I manage a smile, but Brandon doesn’t smile back.
Instead, he says something to the man working on his suit, and then he steps down from the platform, his feet moving him quickly toward the door.
Toward me.
I steal a breath before he opens the glass door, and when we’re face to face on the sidewalk, I smile, squinting a little at the sun streaming in behind him.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
Brandon tucks his hands easily into the pockets of his slacks, ones that hang on his hips a little now but I know will fit like a glove once he’s done. It’s the way all his suits fit — tailored to perfection, hugging every asset.
“Fancy, indeed,” he says, his voice smooth and steady as his eyes rake over me. I catch a slight tick in his jaw then, especially when he takes in my tiny sports bra. “You’re dressed… interestingly.”
I glance down at the bra, my abdomen still exposed, but I at least took the time to throw on travel pants over my skimpy shorts.
“Ah, yeah. I just got done with a pole session, actually.”
Brandon lifts a brow. “Pole? You went back?”