Chapter 11 Chris
CHRIS
I threw my gym bag into the bed of Mike’s truck and got into the front seat. Jesse was in the back.
I looked at Mike. “I thought it was just us.”
“What, you two on a date or something?” Jesse said, hitting me on the shoulder.
Mike laughed.
I’d been trying to talk to Mike since the park thing a week ago. He was avoiding me. He texted me for the gym this morning and I assumed he was ready to explain to me why he’d been so drunk he launched Larissa and me on an eleven-mile hike, but apparently this wasn’t that.
Mike put his arm around the back of my seat to talk to Jesse. “We’re starting with cardio and we’re doing interval training. There’s gonna be all-outs, then we hit the weights.” He looked at me. “It’s leg day. You two don’t bitch out on me.”
“No bitching out,” I mumbled. “Got it.”
“I do need to be able to walk tomorrow,” Jesse said.
“No, you don’t.”
Jesse smirked.
Mike pulled away from the curb.
“How’s work?” Jesse asked. “You got a lot of clients?”
“Not too bad,” Mike said, taking a right. “Picking up. It died after the New Year’s rush, I was getting like ten hours a week.”
Jesse sucked air through his teeth. “How you paying your bills, bro?”
“Don’t worry about what I’m doing,” Mike said good-naturedly. “Hey, so I wanted to ask you,” he said, glancing at me. “Larissa’s birthday is next month. What do you think I should get her? I was thinking one of those giant stuffed teddy bears? Those big-ass ones?”
“Uh, she lives in an apartment…” I said.
“Those things are a waste of money, dude,” Jesse said.
Mike looked scandalized. “What do you mean? They’re fucking awesome. That thing’s like, seven feet tall.”
“Uh, yeah, that’s exactly the problem—the thing’s like, seven feet tall,” I said.
He deflated. “Well, what the hell should I get her, then?”
“I don’t know. Something personal?” I said.
“Like what?”
“She’s your girlfriend. You know your girlfriend,” I said.
“I’m not good at stuff like this. Help me.”
I let out a breath. “She likes jewelry.”
“Okay, so I should get her jewelry?”
“No. She makes her own. Maybe get her a jewelry box?”
He was nodding. “Good idea. I like this.”
Then I got a vision of him getting something cheesy.
I let out a sigh and got out my phone and went to pull up a woodworker I followed. “This guy in Wakan does custom jewelry boxes,” I said. “They’re not cheap, but they’re really nice, she’ll like it. He can engrave her name in it. If you order it now, you can probably get it in time.”
“Cool, send me that info,” he said.
“She doesn’t wear necklaces,” I said. “Only bracelets and earrings. Tell him that.”
“Yeah yeah. Thanks, dude!”
“Larissa’s been marked safe from the giant fucking teddy bear,” Jesse said. “Good job, Chris.”
Mike snorted. “Might still get it.”
“Do not get it,” I said. “Trust me. It’ll stress her out.”
“How do you know?”
“Because when we were potty-training Woofarine, she barely had room for the crate. You’re just gonna give her something that she doesn’t have room for and she’ll feel bad getting rid of.”
“Kind of like you, Mike,” Jesse said, slapping his shoulder.
Mike laughed, but there was something tight about it.
“How’s it going with you two?” I asked, eyeing him.
“Good,” he said, recovering. “Great. Why, she say something?” He laughed like it was a joke, but I knew him well enough to know it wasn’t. He was probing.
“We don’t talk about you,” I said.
“What do you guys talk about?” he asked, making a left.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Books mostly? Woofarine? We talked a lot on our walk.”
“What about?”
“Stuff? Random things? You had to be there.”
“Was she mad I didn’t come?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. She was worried mostly.”
My cell phone vibrated.
Larissa: Woofarine just caught a bird in midair, right in front of me.
I laughed over my cell.
Mike glanced at me. “What?”
“Nothing. Woofarine,” I said, typing.
Me: Is it dead?
Larissa: It’s not even in one piece.
A picture of a desecrated bird came through and I put a hand over my mouth. It was twice his size. I was cracking up.
“What?” Mike asked again.
I showed him the picture and he smiled.
“That dog’s something else,” Mike said. “I should take him on runs.”
“You should,” I said, turning off my phone. “Please.”
“Hey, can we stop and get smash burgers?” Jesse said, leaning between the seats.
Mike shot him a disgusted look. “No, we’re not getting Smash—we’re going to the fucking gym, dude. You can have a protein shake.”
Jesse made a petulant noise from the back seat and Mike shook his head.
“Hey, whatever happened to that doctor chick who was hitting you up?” Mike asked me.
“Who? Heather?”
“Yeah.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Not interested.”
“I should ask Larissa if she has any friends,” he said.
I instantly sobered. “No, I’m good.”
“What do you mean you’re good?” Jesse said from the back. “Who you hooking up with?”
“Nobody?” I said. “I just don’t feel like dating right now.”
“Dude, you gotta start pulling yourself out of this funk with your mom,” Jesse said. “She’d want you to get laid.”
“Uh, okay, I’m not entirely sure that’s true?” I said. “And I am working through it.”
Sort of.
And as for dating, I meant it, I didn’t want to. My life felt full at the moment. I had no room for a girlfriend. I had work and my friends. I had Woofarine.
I had Larissa.
I’d rather read an extra book with her than carve out time for someone I’d never met before. For what? Also, I didn’t like the idea of her setting me up with someone. I don’t know why.
“I’m fine,” I said, putting my phone away. “It’ll happen when it happens.”
“Dude’s hoping love’s gonna come find him in his living room,” Jesse said.
“How about you just mind your own business?” I said, pivoting to look at him.
“The people in this car are my business,” Jesse said. “And that motherfucker in California too.”
“Lucky him,” Mike said.
Jesse flipped him off in the mirror and I laughed.
When we got to the gym, Mike started us immediately on the treadmills. I didn’t have a moment alone with him, which I was getting the feeling was the point. Then ten minutes into weights, Jesse looked at his watch. “I have to go.”
“We haven’t even done leg presses, punk,” Mike said.
“Well how long are we gonna be here?”
“Till we’re done,” Mike said.
Jesse looked at his watch again. “Yeah, I should probably get home. Becca wants to come over.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “Get the hell outta here.”
“Next week?” Jesse said.
“If I have time,” Mike said, chucking a gym towel at him. “I got other shit to do besides training your lazy ass.”
Jesse smirked, fist-bumped us, and left.
Mike watched him go. “You’ve just seen the crap I deal with. Nobody has any discipline—and this motherfucker was getting it for free.”
I looked over my shoulder to make sure he was gone. “Hey, can I talk to you?”
He took a drink from his water bottle. “About what? I’m not getting the bear, I promise—”
“Not the bear. The other day. The park.”
“Aww, man, you’re still on that?” He waved me off. “I mean, you guys had fun, right?”
“Uh, if you consider being lost in the woods for six hours fun? It poured, we didn’t have water, she got sunburned—”
“Who goes on a hike without water?” He stood.
“Mike—”
“Drop it, dude.”
He turned for the locker rooms. I went after him.
“Hey, I’ve been calling you since Saturday. Quit avoiding me,” I said to his back.
“I’m not avoiding you. It’s just not a big deal,” he said, not turning around.
“You were—” I lowered my voice as we came into the locker room. “You were drunk at noon. You don’t think that’s a big deal?”
He ignored me.
“Mike!”
He stopped by the lockers and stood there for a moment with his back to me. Then he sat on a bench and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, peering past me into the bathrooms. “I’m sorry, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”
I stood in front of him. “No. That’s twice now. What the hell is going on?”
He wasn’t looking me in the eye. Someone walked through the locker room to the showers and we both held quiet. When we heard the water turn on, he looked at me.
“I’ve been having panic attacks,” he said, his voice low.
“What? Since when?”
“I don’t know. A couple of months.”
I shook my head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face and looked out at someplace past me.
“Are you and Larissa okay?” I asked.
He paused. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re fine.”
I studied him.
“What?” he said, looking up at me.
“You tell me what.”
He watched me for a moment, but he didn’t reply.
Something was off. I’d known him my whole life, and something wasn’t right.
I sat next to him. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Talk to me.”
He went quiet for a long time. “Do you ever feel like everyone hates you?” he said.
I tilted my head. “What?”
“Like the second you leave the room they’re talking about you. Or they’re only pretending to laugh at your jokes. They only invite you because they feel sorry for you.”
“Do you… do you feel like that?”
He stayed quiet.
“Nobody hates you,” I said.
The sound of clinking metal by the free weights outside the locker room stretched the silence.
“I don’t know why she’s with me,” he whispered.
I blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Larissa. I’m not smart like you,” he said, going on. “I don’t read books. I don’t have a good job like you guys. I don’t know what the fuck to get her for her birthday—”
“So? You care enough to ask for help with it.”
He blew out a breath.
“She loves you,” I said. “Everyone loves you. I mean, come on, you’re Mike.”
“Nah.” He stared out toward the showers. “I’m the goofy guy at the party with a lampshade on his head.”
I didn’t know what to say to this. “Where is this coming from?”
He went silent. “I’ve never felt like this about someone,” he said, almost more to himself than to me.
“Never. Not even with Sylvia. When I’m with her, I just…
I feel like I’m getting something I’m not supposed to have.
Does that make sense? Like she’s gonna realize she fucked up and she’s gonna bail. Like it’s only a matter of time.”
“She’s not gonna bail…”
He huffed and looked away from me. “She thinks I’m gonna take over for Tony. That I’m gonna have this big business and make all this money.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No, man, I’m not.” He looked back at me.
“I don’t want it. I’ve never wanted it. And she’s got all this drive, she’s always doing something.
And I’m just…” His jaw flexed. “You know what I was doing? When they cut my hours last month? I was telling her I was working. I’d leave and just hang out at the gym all day doing nothing.
Piece of shit, right? I have to borrow money from my mom just to take her out to eat. ”
I stared at him. “Mike. You’re a skilled tradesman—”
“Man, you don’t get it,” he said.
“Yeah, I do. Sometimes you have to do things you hate to get yourself to a better place. You think I liked half the crap I had to do to get the job I have? I hate Bergmans, but it’s a means to an end.”
“It’s not that,” he said, looking at me. “This wasn’t supposed to be my life, Chris.”
The last part hovered between us. No, it wasn’t supposed to be his life. I just didn’t realize he was still dealing with how things had changed.
Growing up, I’d had no idea what I wanted to be—but Mike did. When I met him at six years old, he knew he wanted to be a professional athlete. It was all he’d ever wanted, and he took it hard when it fell through.
“Are you still taking the Prozac?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I hate that stuff. It makes me feel flat. I’ve been off it for years.”
“You might just need to have your prescription adjusted. Go talk to your doctor.”
“I don’t like that I have to be on that shit.”
“Yeah, well, depression’s not great either.” I dipped my head to look him in the eye. “Are you still seeing that therapist?”
Another long silence. “No.”
“Mike. You have to take care of yourself. It’s harder to pull yourself out of it than it is to keep yourself from going down. You don’t want twelfth grade all over again.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, a little sharper than usual. “It’s just the Prozac fucks me up, makes me tired. I can’t work out like I want to on it, and I want to look good for her.”
“I don’t think she cares about that.”
“Everybody cares about that.”
“Look, she loves you. She wouldn’t be with you if she didn’t.
Level with her. Tell her what’s going on with you.
Get back on your meds, get back in therapy.
If you don’t want to work for Tony, fine.
Find something else. Coach a sport, open your own gym, go back to school, or find a place that can give you more than ten hours a week. ”
He didn’t answer.
“You’re calling your doctor,” I said. “Tomorrow. And you’re filling your prescription at my pharmacy.”
He jerked to look at me. “What? Why? That shit’s like ten miles out of the way!”
“Because I want to know you’re taking it. I love you and I want to make sure you’re okay.”
He looked at me. I didn’t blink.
“All right,” he said finally.
“I’m going to be around more,” I said. “We’ll hang out.”
He drew in a deep breath. Then he glanced at me. “Thanks for the jewelry box thing. I still think she would have liked the bear though.”
“Ha.”
“And thanks for driving her up to the cabin next month. Tony’s gonna pay me for the repairs, so that’ll help. It’ll all be fine. I just gotta get my shit together.”
“It will. It will be fine.”
And I would do everything in my power to make sure it stayed that way. For both of them.