My Remedy (Open Door Love Story Book 3) (8 page)

My aunt rolls her eyes. “Uh huh. It certainly appears to me that you’d like to be in a relationship with his hot body at the very least.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Please don’t talk to me about hot bodies, Aunt Nina. I’m emotionally scarred enough as it is.”

She chuckles. “How can I
not
notice, though? All those muscles! Just out there on display. And his butt is very cute.”

“Seriously stop now. You sound like a perv! This is such a double standard. Imagine Uncle Stan talking about Ginger like this.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry ... not sorry.” She giggles like a tween.

It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Fine. You know what? Duncan is hot. I will admit to being attracted to him. But you were right about something else. Neither one of us should be getting involved romantically with anyone right now – especially another addict.” A random sob attacks me out of nowhere. “I know that I have let Dad down in so many ways...”

“Isabelle Sundall,” she says, alarmed. “You stop it. I was only teasing you, not trying to get you worked up. I’m sorry.” Aunt Nina grabs hold – wrapping both arms around me and hugs me until I can barely breathe.

I do stop crying, though. “I don’t think I have any morals, Aunt Nina. I have an idea of right and wrong, but I just don’t care most of the time. I’m trying so hard to be a good person ... yet I still want all the same things I want when I’m drinking. Not to think about the past, not to feel lonely. Not to be abandoned.”

She tips my chin up, forcing me to look her in the eye. “Hey. Your mom screwed up, Izzy. That’s on her. Your dad loves you so much. Stan and I do too. You may have disappointed us, but never enough for any of us to abandon you. Okay?”

I nod and the towel on my head comes undone.

She furrows her brow. “I’ll let you get dressed. Are you going to a meeting today? I think you could use one.”

“I am. At four.”

She nods and leaves the room, closing the door behind her. I lay down on my bed in the towel, not in any real hurry to put on clothes. I grab my pad of paper and a pencil from the bedside table and begin to sketch. At first I don’t have a plan. I sometimes like to doodle just to get the creative juices flowing. After a while though, it’s obvious that I’m drawing Duncan.

His puppy dog eyes stare out at me from the page. As long as I can keep him in my head and on paper, things will be fine. We can both act like adults. We will be spending a lot of time together, but as long as we are working, or at the gym, or at a meeting, I think it’s well within the realm of possibility that we can keep things friendly and flirty and not cross the line.

I rip the paper out of the pad and jam it between the mattress and box spring. I can’t bring myself to throw it away.

––––––––

T
he pain I was in on Sunday is nothing like the pain I’m feeling Monday morning. I am sitting on the toilet and absolutely certain that I’m going to have to remain here the rest of my life. I can’t get up. My legs don’t work. My butt has appeared to have grown new muscles expressly for the purpose of causing me more pain.

“Izzy?” Uncle Stan calls, knocking on the bathroom door. “You okay in there? I’m ready to walk the littles whenever you are. I already put the big dogs in the yard. We need to get Loki walked. She’s going home at ten.”

“I’ll be out in a minute!” I call back, surveying the room for something, anything to grab onto so I can pull myself up. The vanity and towel rack are out of reach. Toilet paper holder it is. I hope this sucker is bolted into the wall, because I’m about to rely heavily on it.

I twist (bad idea) and position the part of the tp holder flush with the wall between my thumb and index fingers on both of my hands. I count to three in my head, giving myself the courage to move. And then ... I get up enough to hover before falling back onto the toilet seat again.

Now I’m mad. This is fucking ridiculous. My body is a mere twenty years old. I should be able to get off of the toilet. I count to three in my head, louder and with more determination! Up!

I get to standing this time and grin at myself in the mirror over the sink. I look like an idiot, but I am admittedly proud of myself. I have beaten pain! My face falls as the realization hits me that I have to bend down and pull my underwear and pants up. I nearly blacked out getting them on and up the first time.

I count. I pull up my pants. I vow to forego beverages for the rest of the day.

Duncan is over in the training yard and waves to me as I hobble by on my way to the kennel. Bless him, he doesn’t laugh at me. Instead he gives me a frown and hollers that we can stretch out really well before our session today.

Uncle Stan and I walk the dogs and then I finish up my chores at a snail’s pace. Frankly, snails probably move faster.

Duncan comes into the kennel. “Can I help you? I feel bad I didn’t warn you that two days after CrossFit is even worse than one day after.”

“I have to put food in this bowl,” I say, and hold the scoop out to him. “I’m not stalling this time. I literally can’t bend down and put the food in the bowl without spilling it all over the place.”

He takes the scoop and puts the food into the bowl. “Did you take any ibuprofen? A couple of those might help.”

I nod. “I took three in order to get out of bed.”

This time he does laugh a little. “Shit. I’m so sorry. Stretching and, believe it or not, working out again will help.”

“Do you ever feel like this anymore or is your body used to it?”

“There’s nothing like the pain of your first time,” Duncan says, cringing. “I’m still sore after almost every workout, though. You come to rely on it. There’s sore and then there’s hurt. You are more sore than anything, right?”

I take in a deep breath and let it out, inspecting how my body really feels. “Yes. My muscles – every muscle I have including ones I wasn’t aware of – are sore, but I don’t have any sharp pains or anything.”

“Great!” He offers me his elbow. “Shall we hit the gym, then? I’ll let you touch a barbell today if you’re really good.”

I loop my arm with his. “Can’t wait.”

I come out of the bathroom at the gym and Duncan is waiting for me. “I thought I was going to have to send a search party.”

“Sorry.” I pull the shirt away from my stomach. “I’m wearing Gaby’s outfit again. I really need to get some clothes of my own.”

“It’s okay. You’ll get some when you can. She’s not one to worry about getting her stuff back immediately. The thing about CrossFit is that people have to keep themselves from coming to the gym every day. She knows where to find you.”

I can’t imagine that I’ll ever be itching to come to the gym and have to make myself take a rest day, but I do have addiction issues (snort) so I’ll never say never.

We start off doing some deep squats, which actually do feel good once I’m “down in the hole” as Duncan calls it. Getting up out of them is no fun, nor are the runner’s lunge, the scorpion, or walking out our dogs, yet I do feel surprisingly better after ten minutes of warming up.

“Let’s do a slow two hundred meter jog just to get our hearts going.”

“Different colored tape on a pole?” I ask.

“Nah, we just run to the second planter on the sidewalk.”

Right. Sure. “That sounds really accurate.”

Duncan shrugs and takes off for the door. His slow is my fast today.

We jog out to the planter and back. Hector, who’s been sitting behind the counter working on the computer, is now standing next to a wooden box in the center of the gym.

“Start her off with some step-ups, today. Take pity on her, okay, bro?” Hector knocks on the box and goes back to sit down.

Duncan stands in front of the box, swings his arms back, and then jumps and lands on top of the box. He straightens his body. “This is a box jump. This is what you want to work up to. For now, just step up onto it.”

My legs scream in disapproval, but I step up onto the box. Seems easy enough.

“Okay, now step down and step up with the other leg.”

I do as I’m told.

“See? Not too hard. This is what I’m talking about when I say we scale things to each person’s ability. From here, I’ll have you try jumping up onto a thirteen inch box, then seventeen, then twenty, which is RX for women.”

“RX?” So much lingo to learn!

“Prescribed. Basically if you’re doing a movement or a W.O.D. exactly as written, you’re doing it RX.”

“Can you do everything RX?”

He shakes his head. “No, my chest-to-bar pull-ups need improvement. I can only get myself to chin height before I have to lower down.”

I do twenty more step-ups, and by the end my legs are feeling so much better than they did when I walked into the gym.

Duncan grabs a barbell that’s hanging vertically on the wall with one hand and brings it over to me.

“This is a training bar. It weighs ten pounds. Do not, I repeat, do not drop this on the ground. You will bust it. Same goes for the heavier barbells if they don’t have plates on them – the plates are the weights. You’ll get to a point where you can drop the bar, but that is months from now, so just don’t.”

I salute. “Got it. Loud and clear.”

Duncan has me hold the training bar overhand, hanging in front of my thighs, in both hands with my fingers wrapped all the way around it and my thumbs tucked under my fingertips.

“This is called a hook grip,” he says.

I start to lift the bar up toward my face. He puts his hand on top of it and grabs hold of the bar. “I said I’d let you touch it, I didn’t say you’d get to lift it today.”

I wasn’t all that excited to get to the weight lifting before, but now it intrigues me. “I think I can lift ten pounds without injuring myself.”

“Yes, but not correctly.” He takes the bar and puts it back on the wall. “Our time is up for today.”

I grab the box and go stack it back with the others against the wall. Cera’s waiting outside the gym and waves at me through the glass. I motion for her to come inside.

She peeks her head in the door and looks around. “I’ve never actually been in here before. I’m afraid they’ll try to brainwash me and make me do unspeakable things.”

“I don’t know about the brainwashing part,” Hector says, coming over to us, “but the doing unspeakable things sounds fun.”

“So, you talk like that to everyone?” I say to him, and he nods. “I’m a little relieved.”

“Oh, God, Hector is the worst.” Cera winks at him. “In the best possible way.”

“Cera, are you sure you’re here to see me? I’m totally fine with being your excuse if you just wanted to come flirt with Hector.” Now, if someone had said something like that about me and Duncan, I would want to crawl away and die. Not these two.

“Don’t be silly. Hector can come see me any time he wants. He knows where I am,” Cera says, turning her back to him and focusing on me. She hands me a slip of paper with a horrible drawing scribbled on it.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“It’s the tattoo that I want you to spruce up for me.”

“Oh,” I drawl, maybe for a bit too long. That sets Hector off laughing.

“That looks like a dog drew it with its asshole,” Hector says between snorts.

Cera hits him, not at all playfully, on the arm. “Fuck off, meathead!”

“Uh-oh,” Duncan says walking up behind me. “What did Hector do now?”

I show the drawing to Duncan.

He nods. “That’s a great drawing of a, um, I ... I don’t know what the hell that’s supposed to be. Sorry Iz.”

“I didn’t draw this! Cera did!”

“For. Fuck’s. Sake. All of you can fuck right off then.” Cera grabs the paper and pretends like she’s going to storm out of the gym, but gets as far as putting her hands on the door before Hector puts his hand on her shoulder.

“Come on. We’re just being honest. I’m sure you’re wonderful at all sorts of other things.”

Cera turns around. “You know it.” She holds the paper up. “This says C’est La Vie. That’s French, bitches.” She points to the ... things surrounding the letters. “These are roses, and peonies, and poppies. Think you can make it look awesome?”

“Yes. I’m positive.”

Cera goes to hand me the paper, giving me a hard stare all the while.

“I got it,” I assure her. “I understand your vision now.”

“So, you’re an artist?” Duncan asks, surprised.

“Hell yeah, she is,” Cera says. “Show him the pics on your phone.”

I bring up my Instagram account and hand over my phone.

“Wow,” Duncan says. “These are amazing! I know you said you weren’t sure what you wanted to do with your life, but this makes a pretty strong case for art school.”

I take my phone back. “Okay, but who really goes to art school? Isn’t that like getting a theatre degree or a creative writing degree? What kind of job do you actually get besides teaching other people how to do your hobby?”

Duncan rolls his eyes. “You make art as your job, dummy. I have two friends from high school that went to PNCA downtown and they loved it. They’re working as artists – sure, one of them is also a bartender and the other a barista – but they’re doing what they went to school for.”

I do not picture Duncan as having arty friends. “You mean they have shows in galleries and stuff, or they just make a bunch of pictures to hang in their mom’s house?” I’m somewhat skeptical. Everyone I know has a real job and not some dream situation.

“They have gallery shows!” he scoffs. “In fact, my buddy Yoshi has got four pieces in a show right now. We should go check it out sometime.”

“You know,” Cera interjects, “it’s First Thursday next week.”

“What’s that?” Hector and I ask at the same time.

Cera waxes nostalgic. “It’s where a bunch of stores and galleries are open in the evening and there’s cheese and wine and people everywhere and you walk around and look at art and hang out with arty people and sometimes you buy overpriced jewelry.”

“Sounds fun,” I say. “We’ll all have to go.” I glance at Duncan. “Maybe next month? After you adjust to having three jobs.”

“How is that going for you Dunc?” Cera asks with mock concern. “Isn’t it a shame that you’re too busy with your three jobs to take Izzy to First Thursday?” She taps herself on the chin with her index finger. “If only you knew someone who could take your shift at the bar whose been hoping to switch to nights and counting the days until you find different employment so she doesn’t have to get up before ten in the morning.”