A Symptom of Love (GERI Labs #1)

Chapter 1

Chloe

“ O kay, ladies, one more stretch for the day.” Chloe walks around the room, adjusting her mic and switching to “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton to lower the pace. She stops mid-room and drops to the floor to demonstrate a minimized version of a cobra stretch. “Stretching your abs is going to feel amazing after all the ab work you ladies worked so hard on today.” She exhales vocally, reminding them to breathe. “You should stop where it still feels good. Rest on your elbows if you need to lower the intensity of the stretch,” Chloe jumps back up to standing to make sure no one is doing more than they should. “Now back to child’s pose.” Chloe counts a few beats to let them recharge. “Great job, everyone.” She claps cheerfully as they all rise up to standing.

“That was incredible,” Louise says, rubbing Chloe’s shoulder. “I love your evening classes so much, Chloe,” she says.

“Thank you, Louise.” Chloe smiles, taking her mic off and fixing her ponytail.

Thank you, Chloe . Voices, smiles, and hugs appear and disappear as the ladies make their way to leave. There’s nothing like teaching an evening Pilates class to get a smile back on her face. Helping these ladies feel better and stronger makes her day brighter every time.

It’s not very often that she wakes up with a smile, probably close to never, but this morning was different. A blow to the concrete walls she’s worked so hard building around herself, yet it made her lips want to curl up all the way to her ears, and she had no idea why. Thankfully, she didn’t need to spend too much time figuring it out because Jimmy was able to undo the warm and fuzzy feeling in under ten minutes. By the time she was done getting ready and out the door, a familiar drained sensation had already been snapped back into place. Who said despondency wasn’t comfortable? Walls and fences are much-needed mental contraptions to allow one to go about their daily life peacefully and unpainfully. Why would she want to take them down?

Chloe shakes away the thought and packs her backpack. She turns off the lights, locks up the studio, and runs to her usual stop, barely making it to the 5 p.m. bus. Georgia Allentown’s 60 th birthday party is today, and Chloe promised to be there on time.

“Hey C.” The bus driver smiles at her as he opens the doors. Kendrick Lamar is blasting on the radio.

“Hey Al.” Chloe smiles back and plops into the seat behind him. You can trust Al to lift up your mood any day.

“Classes canceled again?” He looks at her worriedly through the mirror.

“No, big party today, Al. Had to leave early.” She checks her cell phone. “On my way,” she texts Jimmy, who doesn’t seem to be online.

“Go dazzle them,” Al says as he stops at her station.

“You’re too nice to me, Al.” Her laugh rolls in a trail behind her as she jumps off the bus and sprints to her old condominium complex, up the stairs to the third floor. They need to leave by 5:30 at the latest, which means she has a generous fifteen-minute window to shower, do her hair, put some makeup on, and get dressed. She jiggles her keys through the old peeling lock and storms inside. Jimmy is sitting on the couch in his boxers, feet stretched on the coffee table, watching one of his favorite TV shows that Chloe has already lost count of.

“Jimmy!” she scolds. “We need to leave in fifteen minutes! I texted you when I left work.” She undresses as she runs into the shower.

“I know, I know … stupid party,” he grunts and gets up to put some clothes on. He smells like soap, his hair tousled and still damp. Chloe turns around for a small kiss before stepping in the shower, but his mind seems to be somewhere else, not unusual for Jimmy—God forbid he has to turn off the TV for a few hours. She reappears ten minutes later, dressed and ready in record time, breaking her most recent record of twelve minutes. Jimmy is now wearing his black, and only, suit and tie, looking handsome but a little out of place.

“Is this what you’re wearing tonight?” he asks, looking critically at Chloe’s black dress.

“Yes, you said you liked this dress,” she says tentatively.

“I liked this dress. It was true when I said it,” Jimmy says, emphasizing the past tense of his statement, “but that was last year. You gained like two pounds since.” He looks at her belly. She may have gained a couple of pounds, but her abs are still visible, and objectively, based on the scale, she may have been underweight before. These two additional pounds make her breasts look a little fuller, and she’s actually been pretty happy getting some curves. But seeing his disappointed eyes has a crushing effect on her confidence right now.

“Should I change to something else?” she asks, despite it being the only cocktail dress she owns that could look fancy enough for tonight.

“I don’t know… Maybe stretch the top part down a bit, show more cleavage. And put on some more makeup, maybe red lipstick,” he says. She knows Jimmy loves red lipstick, or anything a bit more provocative, for that matter. Seeing other men turn their heads after his girlfriend somehow makes him feel proud. But she hates how it looks on her, hates how it makes her feel. She looks at her watch. Five-thirty…

“Jimmy, we need to leave now, or we’ll be late.”

Jimmy grunts again and picks up his car keys from the kitchen table. “I don’t understand why we always have to do everything last minute. You knew about this party like a month ago,” he says, annoyed. “You should have left an hour earlier to give yourself enough time to get ready and put some effort into the way you look. Your makeup is too minimal. It makes me look bad.”

“I went for a classy look.” She tries to smile teasingly, which doesn’t seem to be working for her, not tonight, not ever. “You know how much I dislike makeup on my face, plus sometimes less is more.”

“Not in your case, honey.” His face has gone sour.

“I was teaching a class, Jimmy,” she says calmly, trying to keep her composure. “You know we need the money.”

“If you spent less time at that worth-nothing college of yours, you would have more time to work and more time to spend with your boyfriend, like a normal person.”

As if spending time with her has ever been on his wish list…

“Well, I am sorry I also have dreams.” Her voice betrays her, not sounding as assertive as she would have liked right now. Since she re-enrolled herself in college to complete her long—but not forgotten—health science degree, she’s been hearing it with increasing frequency. Why he does not consider her a normal person for trying to pursue a college degree is beyond her. “I wish you were more supportive. You know how important it is to me.” She should be able to control her tone by now, having responded to this clause pretty damn often. But she can’t, apparently. Her voice breaks mid-sentence, and she takes a deep breath, trying to battle that too-familiar lump in her throat.

“Dreams are okay, as long as you don’t lose touch with reality,” Jimmy says, also not a new phrase of his, but this one hurts the most every time. Maybe because sometimes, when things get rough, she actually believes he’s right.