The Journey Prize Stories 28 Read Online Free PDF

spite of herself. She moves the pin in the weights to one hundred and twenty pounds. Mid-lift, she looks at her right arm, the new tough packet resting there. When she felt the new muscle for the first time, hermind flooded with worry:
a lump
. Her mind looks for reasons to panic everywhere. No, this is what she’s been working for—this hardness. Beside her, a man strains on the piece of equipment dubbed the birthing machine. Weights attach to pads placed against the inside of each thigh. He squeezes and releases.
Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
. Laura ties her shoelace to conceal her smirk.
    The woman, possibly a dancer, who balances on the exercise bench every night. One arm extended. A weight at the end of her arm, muscle a perfect arc, a soft band. Laura watches. The pure control of motionlessness.

    She logs in and the cursor flashes at her, asking her to fill in the box.
What’s on your mind?
, the pale blue text taunts her, flashes, implores her.
    She types in:
You are the only one pretending to be you
.

    There are people and their ways of moving. There are the storks and the straight-necked and the sufferers, backs bent, ears blocked out by the steel orbiting rings. The men who strut the length of the floor. The men who supervise the shapes of their muscles in the mirrored wall, sleeves summoned upright. How could anyone who goes to a gym think that women are the vain sex? Late at night, rows of men’s hands wrap the metal bars. One man, compact and anguished, paces to the water fountain after every set of repetitions.Another guy guides his body through cycle after cycle on the leg press, extends and withdraws, pumping the bellows of a great machinery. Laura feels it occasionally as she lifts—a roughness in her blood. She has realized that her muscles have their own busy lives. Sometimes when she pulls on the weights, there is an absence there; sometimes, there is a humming, a throbbing, begun before she makes her demand. Laura ignores these quiet pulses, learns to pull with the same force every time.

    When she tells Greg about the weightlifting, she makes sure to slip it in casually at the tail end of one of their phone calls, but he stops and his voice lowers on the other end of the line. “Whoa whoa whoa, what?”
    â€œWeightlifting,” she says.
    â€œThat’s awesome. How long? What?”
    â€œPretty much every day.”
    A long pause. “Since Mallory left?”
    â€œYeah, pretty much.”
    â€œWell, that’s great, Lo, that’s great, that’s really great, good for you. I mean, I’m really glad you found an outlet.” He pauses, waiting for her to say more, and pushes, “So, is it helping?”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œI mean, you’ve been having a hard time. Dad called me. He says you don’t answer any of his emails or phone messages.”
    â€œThat’s because all of his emails and phone messages are about kale.”
    â€œLo. Look. We all know what she did is pretty fucking terrible. I mean, who fucking—who just
leaves
like that? But, I mean, you two were always—”
    â€œAlways what?”
    â€œNothing, it’s just—”
    â€œAlways what?”
    His voice goes whiny, like it always does when he knows he’s losing. But he can’t stop. That’s the thing about him; he just never knows when to stop. “Well, you know as well as anyone. You two were always so different. I mean, I guess, I always thought. She was just so much
louder
. You know?” Then he says the worst thing. “Maybe it’s better this way.” He breathes and says, “Anyway, Dana says to come here for as long as you need, the kids want to see you and? They want to see you.” He waits. “I want to see you. Do you see anybody?”
    By the time she makes a pot of Roiboos tea and checks her email he’s already sent her links to articles cautioning against daily