I met him on a Tuesday—the sort of Tuesday that feels like Monday’s twin. The sky was gray outside of the Planet Fitness I was working out in, and my heart was, too. To fill the hole in my heart, I pulled my Lululemon leggings up so high that the waistband reached the underwiring of my bra and decided to get back on the Stairmaster.
But then he walked in, and suddenly, my world changed forever.
His name was Chase, a name so aggressively masculine it made me want to gouge my eyes out. His jawline looked like it could cut through trauma. His biceps screamed unhealthy attachment. His hair looked like it had been combed by many women before me… women who had regretted it later, sure, but who had loved it in the moment.
Chase walked over to me with a smirk on his face. He stared at me from behind as I shakily continued my Stairmaster workout, trying to pretend he wasn’t there. He kept his eyes focused on the Lululemon logo on the back of my pants, his glossy blue orbs unwavering.
“Hey,” he said as I dismounted the Stairmaster, his voice like gravel. “You’re breaking a sweat there, aren’t you, beautiful?”
I tried to respond, but I couldn’t. The look in his eyes and the stubble on his cheeks suffocated me.
He tried again. “What, have you never been approached by a handsome guy like me before?”
Still, my mouth felt dry. “No,” I choked. “I’ve just never seen someone so—”
“Ripped?” He finished my sentence, flexing his manly muscles. “Doctors say it’s a medical mystery. They’re not exactly sure how they got so big. Something about carrying the weight of generational toxic masculinity makes ‘em swell, I guess.”
I swallowed hard, my throat like sandpaper as his words hung in the air. Generational toxic masculinity. God, that was hot. I didn’t even know what it meant—I’m just a hot blonde, after all—but the way he said it, all rough and careless, made my knees buckle. He stepped closer, and a whiff of Old Spice trickled up my nostrils. He smelled like a bad boy, like the mold growing in high school locker rooms. It was intoxicating.
“I’m Chase. You got a name, sweetheart?” he asked me, reaching for my face.
I did, of course, but I forgot it. I forgot everything about myself when I looked at him. My mom’s phone number? Gone. My car’s license plate? Erased. The fact that I was a feminist? Forget it. All that was in my mind was Chase. “Hannah,” I squeaked out eventually.
“That’s a pretty name,” he growled. “So, Hannah, what brings you to Planet Fitness?”
“I, uh…I want to work out…?”
He snorted. “That’s what everyone says. Not me, though. I come here to sweat, to feel the pain and the burn in my body when I deadlift. No one’s ever helped me through my pain, so I feel it all at the gym.”
My heart exploded, both out of passion and sympathy. “Maybe…” I started, but I paused. He looked at me in anticipation as I finished my sentence. “Maybe I could help you through your pain.”
“You don’t understand,” he replied. “I’m a loner. That’s who I am. I don’t share my feelings.”
“You can share them with me,” I whispered. I looked at him with pleading eyes. “I can fix you, Chase. I know I can.”
After hearing that, he didn’t hesitate. His lips crashed against mine in the middle of Planet Fitness, hard and unyielding. I gasped at first, surprised at his forwardness, but soon I found myself wrapped in his tender embrace. When we finally pulled apart, he rested his forehead on mine. “I think you’re going to be the one,” he told me gently.
And you, I thought to myself, are going to be my first mistake.
We kissed again. It was aggressive, passionate, intense. We kissed like two people who would absolutely wreck each other emotionally within two months.
And as I kissed him, I knew deep down that I would never survive Chase. But I was going to love him until it destroyed me inside.
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