I stepped out of the shower and reached out for the towel I had placed on the hanger. The first thing I dried off was my face and then I reached the towel behind my back to wrap it around my body. However, before I could fully cover myself, the bathroom door opened. I came eye to eye with Trisha, who quickly shut the door again soon after, our short awkward encounter only lasting a few seconds.

“Sorry!” She shouted through the door. “I didn’t realize somebody was in there!”

“It’s ok, I’ll be out in five minutes,” I answered with a laugh. The best way to get out of an embarrassing moment was to laugh about it yourself. That way you could share the humor and laugh along rather than feel like you’re being laughed at.

I quickly continued to dry off my entire body and put on my clothes. I didn’t want to be any longer in there than needed. If Trisha had come in, she probably had done so for a reason, even if it was only to put laundry away or something. I tried my best to stay out of the way as possible so I wouldn’t become a burden to them. Although they were ok with me staying here, I didn’t want them to have to take care for me as well. I already offered to pay them back in some way. Occasionally I would cook dinner, I helped clean the house, and I even told them to go away for the weekend and that I’d take care of Emily. That weekend was to start the next day.

After hanging up my towel to dry again, I went downstairs and into the kitchen to get myself something to drink. Trisha was already there, making a pot of coffee. She smiled at me and started apologizing once again, “I’m so sorry about that.”

I shrugged it off. “It’s ok, I should have shown somehow that I was in there.”

“Yes, but it’s my fault that the lock is broken and that I don’t have any other way to show that it is occupied,” she argued and filled a cup with coffee before gesturing to me to ask if I also wanted some. When I nodded, she took another cup out of the cupboard and filled that one as well.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. Plus, I’m going to be living on the road with three guys for a while, I’m going to have to get used to getting walked in on.”

“True.”

We went to sit at the kitchen table to drink or coffee. It was completely silent in the house. John had taken Emily out for a while to watch a kids movie at the cinema, meaning there was no high-pitched squealing at all. Trisha and I also weren’t speaking to each other, not having anything to say, but I could tell she had something on her mind. I wasn’t sure whether or not I was supposed to ask her what she was thinking about, but staying quiet also seemed like the wrong thing to do. Lucky for me, she already started speaking.

“I know this might be a very weird question to ask, and I don’t know exactly know why I’m asking it,” she started off, looking more at her cup of coffee than at me, “but how the hell do you manage to look like that?”

“Like what?” I frowned and brought my own coffee to my lips to drink.

“I don’t know… Like a fucking model?”

I nearly spit out my coffee as her words reached me and started making sense. Putting down the cup, I stared at her as if she had gone crazy. “I by no means look like a model!"

“Oh, please,” she scoffed and shook her head, “you’re nearly perfect.”

“Trust me, I’m not. I’m actually still trying to gain some weight, but it’s a lot more difficult than you think.”

“I already gain weight when I look in the direction of a slice of cake. You cannot tell me that it is difficult to gain weight.”

“Well, yeah, I can do it too if I decide to eat junk food 24/7 and not work out, but there’s a difference between doing that and trying to gain weight healthily.”

“Then I’m going to ask you to help me, but not to gain weight, to lose weight,” she insisted, leaning back in her chair as she gave me a mild version of an evil eye.

I shrugged, not minding one bit if she wanted me to. There had been a reason as to why I had been offered a job to be a personal trainer at some gym. I actually considered it fun. “Alright. We’re going to start today. Colton and I were going to go outside to the park but we always start with running. I suggest you come with us for the running part and try to do your best and then I’ll continue further with Colton, not because I don’t think you’re not capable of doing what we’re doing but because you need to take steps and not overwork yourself.”

“Today?!” Her eyes nearly bulged out.

“Yes, otherwise you’ll never start. I’ll even make us a good healthy dinner tonight.”

----

Two hours later, Trisha and I were in workout gear. Since it was still way too cold outside, we were quite layered up, but only in clothes that were made for working out outside during the winter months. Trisha had her own running pants, but had to borrow one of my long sleeved shirts and light jackets. I was totally going to convince her to buy her own, though.

We waited for Colton to show up, who was already jumping up and down as I opened the front door. He obviously had already been running for a little while, probably from where he came from to the house.

“Trisha’s coming with us for the first part,” I announced and gestured her to follow me.

“Oh, shit. Now I have to keep up with two girls! Fuck, one is hard enough!” Colton groaned, still hopping from one foot to the other so he wouldn’t get out of his rhythm.

Trisha shook her head and held up a hand to dismiss him. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll probably be out of breath before we’ve reached the end of this road.”

And so we started. While I usually did go much faster, I made sure to stay behind with Trisha and encouraged her to keep going. I made sure I never said anything about how I usually would push myself a lot harder, because I knew she was doing exactly that but on her own level. All I did was give her tips on how to breathe properly and cheered her on. With having had the same experience just a couple of weeks before, I knew what and what not to do. And Colton made sure to stay in the same pace as well so he wouldn’t make her feel as if she was slowing us down. It wasn’t a bad thing at all to not push ourselves for one day.

About a half an hour later (it could have possibly been longer since nobody was keeping track of time), we came back past the house and said goodbye to Trisha. Although she seemed really happy to finally stop and get a long deserved break, I was very proud of her. Now it was just my job to make sure she wouldn’t give up. The beginning was always the hard part.

Colton and I continued to a park a little further away, this time going our usual pace.

“I got an email about the Pierce The Veil tour,” he told me as we were jogging past some people walking with dogs, probably going to the same park we were headed to.

I nearly jumped with excitement and let out a little squeal. “And?”

“You’re in!” He grinned.

“Really? Oh my god, yes!” I screamed and hopped onto his back. “Best manager ever!”

“I didn’t do any of this, this was all you. All I did was receive the email and reply to it. They were super impressed that you managed to write three songs and record them with decent quality. You should consider being a manager yourself.”

“And then fire you. Yeah, right. I’ve had enough stress, that’s way too much work for me. Plus, you have better connections.” I chuckled as he continued running at a slower pace with my weight on his back.

He gasped and ‘threw’ me off, which was more like a careful putting me down. “You’re just using me!”

“Of course I am!” I giggled and started sprinting down the road.

The park we went to was often used by people to work out. There was some equipment, like bars to do pull ups, but we mainly did things you could practically do anywhere. It wasn’t just full of sporty people, though. There were also families going out to let their kids play or to have picnics, couples going on a stroll, and people walking their dogs. It was a very diverse place, which was really nice since it was never empty or abandoned.

At that exact moment, we were doing push-ups on a concrete floor. I still struggled since I was busy trying to build up the muscle I was so used to having. Having been locked up in a hospital while chemo was draining my energy really made me regress a lot. Colton, however, was like a machine.

“Fuck,” I groaned as my arms were shaking, but I tried to keep going, and could see Colton still going at the same speed as when he started, “stop showing off, will you?”

“I’m not showing off,” he laughed and started doing a one-armed push-up, “now this is showing off.”

“Fuck you,” I whined and caved in. I let my arms bend completely, putting all my weight on the floor and huffed out in pain and annoyance.

As soon as the burning stopped, I turned around on my back and sat up. I stayed in that position for a while, just watching Colton not showing any signs of fatigue yet. It was so unfair. He lifted weights on a regular basis, and now he had challenged me to a competition. Sure, I knew I was going to lose no matter what, but this was something different. Only more motivation to keep pushing myself.

I decided to stand up and make it harder on him. What better way to do that than to sit on his back as he tried to do his push-ups? So that’s exactly what I did. The surprise of all my weight on him nearly made him lose his balance and fall down. However, he managed to keep going while laughing at my miserable attempt.

“You’re going to have to do more than that.” He challenged and managed to keep going without even trembling, only going at a slightly slower pace.

“Oh, I will,” I retorted and got off him again.

This time, rather than sitting carefully on him, I let myself fall forward like I was doing a trust fall. The impact and force of my fall caused his arms to buckle underneath him, making up both his the floor in a painful way.

“I thought you were strong!” I shrieked and couldn’t help bursting out into an unstoppable laugh.

“Why would you do that!” He laughed back, rolling onto his back, meaning my legs were over his stomach.

“Because you were doing too well!”

We continued to laugh on the floor, having some miserable attempts of trying to get back up, only making our giggles even worse. And then the worse thing possible happened. I looked into the distance to my right, where most people were walking and saw somebody I knew. I wasn’t prepared for anything like this at all.

There, Lisa was walking her dogs. Only, she had already recognized me earlier. I could tell she had been watching for a while. She was standing still in one spot as the two dogs kept sniffing around her feet.

My laughter immediately stopped when we made brief eye contact.

Due to me being silent, Colton was able to stand up and towered over me, looking down and raising an eyebrow. He held out a hand for me to grab. “Are you coming.”

“No, I’m dead now,” I tried playing off what happened, hoping I could forget about seeing Lisa, and stretched out my arms as I stuck out my tongue to look like a ‘dead’ animal.

“What am I supposed to do about that?” He snorted back in a joking manner.

“I’m dead, so I can’t answer.”

“Well, then I don’t have another choice other than to do this…” he proceeded to lean down and before I could ask him what he was doing, he had picked me up and thrown my body over his shoulder so I was now hanging with my head down his back and my legs on his front.

I shrieked loudly and clutched onto his shirt for dear life.

But all I could think about was how this would have been so much more fun if it had all happened with Jack.

Notes

I was going to cut this out, thinking it was an unnecessary filler until I remembered what was supposed to happen next.