Lose the Weight, Find You

The kayak tipped before I got one leg over the side, and Trent laughed loudly enough for the whole dock to hear. "Careful, June," he called, a paper plate balanced in one hand. "Maybe wait until after the weight-loss challenge." The water slapped the hull. I grabbed the dock rail, my cheeks burning as three people turned to look. A moment earlier, Trent had been helping me carry a tray of lemon bars to his sister's engagement party. Now the tray sat abandoned beside the cooler while I tried to untangle my skirt from the kayak seat. "I'm fine," I said. Trent's grin widened. "You know what I mean. You'd fit better if you lost a few pounds." His sister, Paige, looked down at the ring on her hand. Someone by the picnic table made a small, uncomfortable cough. The moment stretched while I waited for Trent to recognize what he'd said. He didn't. I climbed back onto the dock. My damp shoe squeaked against the boards. I looked at the man I'd been dating for eight months, the man who'd told me he loved my laugh, my cooking, my "big heart." Apparently, he'd been keeping a list of acceptable parts and unacceptable ones. "Did you really just say that?" I asked. "It was a joke." Trent lifted his plate. "You've been talking about getting in shape. I was helping." "I didn't ask for help." "You don't have to make a scene." That was the sentence that did it. Not the joke. Not the audience. The easy expectation that I would swallow the hurt and rescue him from feeling awkward. I picked up the tray of lemon bars. "I'm going home." "June, come on." I walked past him. Paige murmured my name, but I kept going. I heard Trent's shoes on the dock behind me and then his voice, lowered as though a quieter insult would be kinder. "You're overreacting." I stopped beside my car and turned. "Maybe. But I'm still leaving." I drove to my apartment with the lemon bars on the passenger seat and my hands shaking on the wheel. I didn't cry until I got inside. Then I sat on the kitchen floor, still wearing my damp shoes, and cried for the version of myself who had laughed along with every small cut because she wanted to prove she was easy to love. My phone buzzed. Trent: I didn't mean it the way you took it. I stared at the message. I could type a paragraph explaining exactly how I'd taken it. I could ask him why he'd thought the joke was worth making. I could wait for him to say the right thing. Instead, I wrote, "We're done. Don't come over." His reply came before I set my phone down. Trent: You're making a mistake. I blocked his number. The next morning, I walked into the Bellwether Community Center and asked about the beginner running group. I'd driven past the flyer on the way to work three times. Each time, I'd told myself that running was for people with light bodies and expensive shoes. That morning I was tired of turning assumptions into walls. A woman at the front desk pointed me toward the gym. "The group's meeting inside. The leader's Miles." I found a half-circle of people near the bleachers. Most looked like they'd come straight from work, in ordinary clothes and old sneakers. A tall man with close-cropped brown hair was holding a clipboard. He looked up as I approached. "You're June?" he asked. "Is it that obvious?" "I was told to look for someone carrying a lemon bar tray." I glanced down. The tray was empty now, but I was still holding it. His mouth twitched. "I'm Miles," he said. "We start with walking. No one has to prove anything today." "I can run." "I believe you." He set the clipboard down. "Do you want to?" I wasn't used to being asked the difference. "I want to find out if I can," I said. "Good answer." He didn't offer a pep talk or look me up and down. He just handed me a name tag and showed me where the group kept its water bottles. We walked the indoor track for twenty minutes. By the last lap, my breath had grown ragged and my calves had begun to ache. I didn't like being the slowest person. I liked even less that I cared. When I stepped off the track, Miles was waiting by the water fountain. "How was it?" he asked. "Hard." "Was hard the same as bad?" I took a drink. My face was damp, and I could feel the elastic of my waistband pressing into my stomach. "Not today." "Then that's enough for today." Outside, the early evening air smelled like wet pavement. I stood on the sidewalk with my empty lemon bar tray tucked against my ribs and looked at the community center doors behind me. I didn't feel transformed. I felt sore, embarrassed, and a little stubborn. For the first time in a long while, that felt like a beginning. *****