Chapter 2

RUNNING IS THE laziest exercise ever invented.

It is. After some time, you get used to the pain in your legs and the soreness coming from your calves becomes a numb sensation, a tab open somewhere inside the brain. It’s there but you stop paying attention to it.

As for focusing, there’s a moment where you learn to dial down your brain just enough so you don’t drop dead in the middle of a running session.

I’m not a fan of working out.

I’ve never done it willingly. I hate the way sweat drips and clings to every inch of my body, the restless sensation that comes with heavy breathing and chest pain, and I’ve never got that endorphin rush after finishing a treadmill session. I’m left with limp limbs and heavy eyes.

My sharp-edged, toothpick-like body isn’t a result of exercising. Feeding tubes and a protocol for eating disorders transformed me into what acquaintances refer as a body transformation, a success story against obesity. This imaginary goal for some people.

I don’t hate my body. I stopped doing so years ago.

But I started earlier in life than anyone should. I didn’t understand what my grandmother meant when she started to call me fatty, chubby bunny, or any other degrading nicknames regarding my six-year-old body. I became aware of it as the time went by and hoped no one at school would see me like that until, one day, she picked me up and called me her little chubby dummy in front of everyone. I didn’t feel embarrassed at that moment, not even when my classmates and friends started calling me that.

It was when I turned eight that I understood that they were doing it with the intention to hurt me.

And still, sweet eight-year-old Emma didn’t understand why.

It was hard to explain to my mother why I was upset; it wasn’t the fact that I was fat in their eyes; it was the fact that I had done nothing for them to want to hurt me. Teachers wouldn’t say anything or even laughed in complicity.

Tears of desolation came from me, grunts of frustration from my mum, eyes full of tenderness from my dad, some threats to punch my friends and teachers coming from my older brother, Ben, and Sonia, my little sister, who was only a toddler that couldn’t process the discussion unfolding in our living room during her nap time.

So, in my mom’s efforts to cease the name-calling, she forbade my grandmother to keep calling me those names, even if her intentions weren’t bad. Later, she enrolled me in swimming classes, which of course I hated with a passion. Sometimes I was so out of breath that I would inhale chlorine water. In those moments, I wanted to stop and accept any type of name-calling coming from anyone. I didn’t care anymore.

Two years into swimming, my body changed and the body dysphoria settled in.

Ten.

I was ten when I spent time looking in the mirror, measuring the width of my shoulders, my lack of hips and waist. I didn’t care that I was a strong ten-year-old that could play hide and seek without panting for breath or that I was swimming like a fish; I looked nothing like my classmates with their lean bodies and small frames. I was ten.

I stopped swimming; I started tennis; I stopped tennis; I started doing martial arts; I stopped that, and I changed to volleyball. I went through various sports that would shrink me, stretch me, make me bigger, make me lose weight, and destroy my prepubescent brain with body image issues.

The irony in all of this is that I wasn’t fat, or whatever people were seeing to begin with. It took a box full of pictures and being in the recovery stage of an eating disorder to realise that I was just a kid. At six, at seven, at ten. It wasn’t a good scene at the facility that day.

I run because running is the laziest exercise ever invented and because I was told to do it if I didn’t want my atrophic muscles to leave me bedridden forever. And if I didn’t want my lungs to collapse with my ribcage. I think that would force anyone to run a marathon.

I do it in the morning before my practice. Green Park is close to my office on Regent Street; eleven minutes away if I jog.

My office is a studio flat definitely not made to be an office. I have a front desk where Silvia arrives at 8:00 am—sometimes followed by me, sometimes I’m earlier than her—where I take a shower and gather the clinic papers of the patients that I’ll see that day.

The air is cold enough to know that it’s seven in the morning. The trees rumble against the wind that tries to sweep them away with no success. The park fills with people who come to walk their dogs or run, too. That’s my cue to leave and get coffee for Silvia and me on my way to the office.

The arch of the park’s entrance appears. Beneath it, a familiar figure in a long black coat approaches, walking a small dog on a lead. Theodore’s blue scarf moves with the wind like the curls of his brown pup do, too. It’s adorable. The dog, that is. Theodore is looking down at his phone, walking absentmindedly, letting himself be dragged by his dog.

I zip the collar of my sport jacket up to my mouth and bury my hands inside its pockets, crestfallen eyes on the ground. I’m good at making myself small and avoiding people but with him, I don’t feel like I need to do that. I’ll pass by him not caring if he sees me or not.

It’s been a couple of days since the Whole Foods disaster. I was hoping to never encounter him again, but, apparently, hope is not enough. He’s in the same park as me, just steps away from crossing my path.

I’ve got to pick up my pace if I don’t want him to see me. I'm just inches from him when he looks up from his phone but I keep a straight face, looking forward, not slowing down at all.

“Em?” he asks, taking a step back. The dog yelps at the sudden drag. “Sorry, Chase. Hey, how are you doing?” His voice is clear and loud. Passersby are looking at me because he’s speaking loudly in my direction. He keeps saying my name followed by some heys. The attention is too much; my face is getting warm. If I don’t answer, he will get annoyingly louder.

“Oh…” I turn around looking unbothered though I’m irked. “Hi… I’m fine, thank you.” I look away, ready to move on.

“I’m fine, too, thanks for asking.” The sarcasm is heavy in his voice. It doesn’t matter that he mumbles it. I hear it.

“Oh, I wasn’t planning on asking.”

He smirks in satisfaction as though glad he’s annoyed me. Some things never change, I guess.

“Why? Living in one of the most upper-class neighbourhoods made you uptight?” He teases me and in the same breath tries to make me laugh. He used to rip laughter from me. The problem is that I don’t find him funny anymore.

“Are you serious?” My voice comes as flat and heavy as I can manage. “Are you following me? Why are you following me?” It’s an idea that just came to me because this is too convenient.

“Whoa, calm down.” He raises his hands in surrender, letting his dog wrap him up in the lead. “I’m not following you. I just assumed you live around here. A pretty uptight neighbourhood, if you ask me. Thought I’d ask since we keep meeting.”

“We don’t, this is just a terrible inconvenience.”

“What I mean is that I just moved to Soho and I keep seeing the same faces. I just thought you lived here too.”

The air has tightened. He looks just as uncomfortable and annoyed as I am, but I’m not the one who started this interaction, so I won't entertain him by trying to fix it. I’ll just end it.

“Well, I don’t. I just have my office in the area. To which I’m…” I look down at my watch; this arse just left me and Silvia without coffee, “… running late. So if you excuse me, I have to get going.”

I turn around again. This time, I pay no mind to his calling, or how he’s dragging his dog with him in my direction while trying to walk as nonchalantly as he can.

“You should stop dragging your pet like that and just take it for a walk around the park.” I pick up the pace so I can leave him behind faster but his long legs make it impossible to lose him.

“I know. I just…” He starts panting when he reaches the spot next to me. He has his dog in his arms. He's tired. I wouldn’t dare to think that I’m in better shape than Theodore Eullie, but I smile at the idea. “I just wanted to apologise.”

“Well, that’s a first.” I’m growing pissed off by the way he manages himself around me as if it isn’t obvious that I don’t want to talk to him. In his mind, we are friends that haven’t seen each other in a while. “It’s a little bit late, you know. It’s been years.”

“What?” He stops. The genuine confusion in his voice makes me stop too. “What are you talking about?”

I turn around.

I've been told that when I get angry, you have to pay special attention to my face to notice it. I look way too serious. And by the way he’s scrutinising me, I see that he doesn’t know if it’s a good idea to keep talking to me.

“What are you talking about?” I bounce the question to him.

“About the other day, at Whole Foods. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

He’s pretending to be sorry. There’s no way in hell that he’s this fucking oblivious.

“And what exactly do you think upset me?”

He wasn’t expecting this question. He shifts his weight between his feet and squares his shoulders, just as he used to do back in med school.

“You’re fucking serious. You have no idea, do you?”

He tries to talk again but I have no fucking time.

“Look, Theo. Whatever it is not letting you sleep at night, believe me, I’m fine. There’s nothing to forgive about the other day, okay? So if you don’t mind, please stop following me before you upset me again.”

This finally stops him from stepping on my heels. I leave him behind, not sure if he’s trying to follow me again or a mob of people have dragged him away. I shouldn’t care or think about it anymore, but in the ten minutes that I walk from Green Park to my office, I can’t stop thinking about all the things that I should’ve said to him. Or maybe at him, because I’ve never been sure about how dense he is.

I SHOULD’VE TOLD him to fuck off. It’d have been my last chance.

I’d like to think that after all this time, Theodore Eullie would have changed his ways of manipulation. That’s all that I can expect from him. His soft look, the way he acts so oblivious and how he frowns to make you believe that he doesn’t understand what you are saying… it’s all to prevent being held accountable for his actions.

Silvia looks at me with concern after I slam the door behind me.

“Well, good mornin’ to ya.” Her Irish accent makes everything she says a tongue twister. “Is everything all right? I mean, it clearly is not but I thought I’d ask.” Her upfront honesty makes my face loosen a little bit. To be honest, I’m glad she’s here to help balance my dry and bitter arse.

“I’ll manage. I tried to come early so I could bring coffee for both of us, but I had… an inconvenience. Sorry.”

“Oh, it’s fine.” Silvia hands me three folios with medical records of the patients that I’ll attend today. “I don’t drink coffee anyways. It messes with my gastritis.”

“Wait, what?” This is the first time I’ve heard this. “But we only have coffee.” I point over my shoulder at the coffee machine in the waiting room.

“Yes, I know.” She is so casual about how she never told me this, putting files and sticky notes on her wall with new appointments.

“Of course you know! You have been drinking it for the past three months since we got it.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, boss. I’m fine. I’ve had it worse.”

And I believe her. Silvia used to work for a cleaning service for a compound of apartments where the landlord was horrible. She went from cleaning bathrooms from previous rentals, which, most of the time, were uni students that had zero respect for private property, to having coffee at a front desk despite her gastritis.

“Well, I don’t want you to. We’ll get a kettle. Alright?” I know that I sound irritated but I hope she can understand that I’m mostly worried.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Silvia has a bright smile, her crooked bottom teeth adding personality to it. Her incredibly curly and ginger hair that gets in the way of everything also gives her charm.

“I’ll shower and I’ll be ready at ten.”

This independent practice is located in one of the wealthiest areas of London. Also being one of the most in-demand areas, I wasn’t able to find a proper office. That's why I had to grab a studio apartment and modify it so it can be used as my office. Josephine and I built a wall with the proportions I needed so I could have a small waiting room with Silvia’s desk at the front and my office, therapy room, and bathroom at the back.

When I came to see this place for the first time, I was glad the landlord took only 15 minutes to show me everything. After I left the place, I had to run into the closest pub to lock myself in the bathroom and have an anxiety attack in peace. You never stop learning how many small things become triggers. Not many people would understand why a studio apartment triggers an anxiety attack or why the specific cotton-like smell of a Dove soap bar makes you want to throw up.

Yes, I was triggered by the spaciousness, the white walls, and the navy blue short-haired carpet because they were just like Theo’s. The last and only time that I was in a studio apartment similar to my then-future office was when I was having sex with him. I only knew that place at night when the lights were off and the only light covering our bodies was coming from the muted television. I asked myself if that was the way it looked when the daylight was coming through the windows. It seems ridiculous how you can obsess over tiny details like those over the years. I considered not taking the apartment because I didn't know if I could stop thinking about my past, but I did. With my now fiancée’s help, we built a fucking wall and as time went by, as Josephine and I made this place our own in between heavy breaths and kisses, I stopped obsessing about what never was.

I hated this place at the beginning, but I made it hate me back by changing it and desecrating it with new memories.

I thought I’d never have to deal with flashbacks again, but when I step out of the bathroom fresh after my shower, I picture this place at night, with the lights turned off and the dim light of a TV screen.