Chapter 80

Willa walked past the 80-year-old swim-capped women in waist-deep water, flailing their arms in a vague approximation of the letters Y, M, C, and A, and tapped her membership card against the electronic reader. The 18-year-old boy behind the front desk did not look up from playing “Among Us” on his cracked cellphone, nor did he offer a toothy grin and welcome her to the first day of her best life.

She clomped up the metal stairs and stopped in front of the indoor-cycling room, where the mic-less coach was yelling at two paunchy men in sweatpants and one very pregnant woman who were attempting to pedal in place on creaky bikes to the beat of “the Macarena.”  

There were towels, at least.

Willa grabbed one and turned left into the cardio room, where she was immediately hit with a warm blast of this gym’s signature scent: Eau de Athlete’s Foot, which included notes of unchecked sweat, coffee breath, and the unique gummy bears-meets-gasoline aroma of Red Bull.

This was her first workout since Jamie died, since the overdose, since rehab. Willa had come so far since then; she hadn’t had a drink in months and didn’t do any real drugs anymore, mostly sticking to marijuana as a means to manage anxiety and sleeplessness.

But even with all of that progress, Willa felt weaker. Weaker in body, with the new softness around her middle that made her bike shorts bite into her waist. Weaker in mind, as she struggled to motivate herself to step on a Stairmaster and trudge to nowhere in a no-frills gym that lacked cool lighting, a DJ-worthy playlist, and hot people to compete against.

“Fitness, for you, is complicated,” Paige had said during one of their inpatient sessions. “It’s a rush, with the activity, the sweating, the hard work, the endorphins. There’s the community at the studios, which has the potential to be a healthy outlet but at FitFams took on cult-like proportions in your life, leading you to ignore important people, tasks, and red flags. You wanted so much to belong, to be in the Popular Crowd, that you lost your moral compass. You were addicted to Dee’s approval.”

This had made Willa squirm in her chair.

“Then there were the aspirational bodies that you mercilessly compared yours to,” Paige had continued. “There was also the sanctimony, the feeling of superiority over people who were not fit. And there was the arrogance, vanity, and self-centeredness. You assumed people were looking at you and had the energy to care about small changes in your body.”

Willa had felt herself sizing Paige up in that moment — pfft, you don’t work out — then silently admonished herself.

“There was the victory you felt when you put on a pair of pants and realized you’d gone down a size, and the crushing defeat when that same pair of pants was maybe a little tighter after a tumble in the dryer,” Paige had said. “You were addicted to the adoration you got from your clients, whose approval gave you tiny boosts throughout the day, like the ‘likes’ on your Instagram posts. If you didn’t get that adulation — it could be crushing.”

“Listen,” Willa had said. “I’m not going to drink anymore. I’m not going to do any real drugs anymore. I’m working so hard to be a better person. Now you’re saying that’s not enough? That I have to give up fitness too?”

“Exercise does not have to be about losing weight, looking hot, having abs, and being ‘in shape,’” Paige had said.

“You’re serious?” Willa had snort-laughed.

“Yes. Exercise can simply be about being healthy and mindfully noticing the sensations of a body in motion, which can help regulate your nervous system.”

“That’s hilarious. You’re talking about some Tai Chi shit? My ass will start looking like a trash bag full of cottage cheese.”

“The approach you’ve been taking to fitness — to exercise, to coaching, to that whole world — how’s that been working for you?”

“Oh, sarcasm. That’s new.”

“The answer is that it has not been working for you,” Paige had said, before dismissing Willa for dinner.

So now Willa was shifting from foot to foot in the cardio room of this smelly gym, feeling like an alcoholic who had promised his friends — the people he’d puked on in the past, the people who knew about his DUI — that he could handle a few sips.

One of the Stairmaster machines was unoccupied, so Willa climbed on, placing a foot on each pedal and starting to move.

Suddenly the Depression Vulture crash-landed on her head and started squawking in Dee’s voice, telling Willa that she’d never burn enough calories on this boring machine. Willa could feel her shoulders sinking under the weight. Her legs felt too heavy to move.

“I gave you the chance to be special, to be exceptional, to be extraordinary. You were ungrateful and unworthy,” the bird cackled. “Now look at you. You’re so basic.”

Willa stopped pedaling on the machine and braced herself on its handlebars to keep from collapsing.

Then she took a deep, ragged inhale and imagined stretching a rubber band around the vulture’s beak and looping it again and again until it was so tight the bird could no longer make much of a sound.

Then Willa searched her brain for the red metal toolbox that contained all of her coping skills. Snapping it open, she found a small, dusty, empty bottle of vodka, a short straw, and membership cards at FitFams and three other boutique studios in Atlanta. She pushed those to the side — next to Basic Algebra and trivial facts about the cast of “Friends” — and rummaged through the box for something useful.

She came across a Venn diagram. One circle represented her Emotional Mind and the other her Rational Mind. The place where they overlapped was called her Wise Mind. That’s what she needed right now. The ability to stay calm and see things as they really were. To accept. To know the difference between helpful and harmful, safe and dangerous, true and false, and to avoid judging all of that and herself.

She started pedaling again.

“You got this,” a woman said, genuinely and spontaneously, as she passed by. “You’re doing great.”

I’m trying, Willa thought. I’ll keep trying.

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