3.2 Him

Our portraits on the wall caught my eye after cleaning the kitchen one night. Our childhood shots felt so old, yet those days weren’t that far away. And the teenage ones were literally recent history. I have only just begun my young adult life, but time is flying by, and I feel a sense of urgency to get my life together in tandem with Mama’s nudging. She is so dead-set on me being a yoga instructor, but is that what I want to do? I love yoga and want everyone to love it too, but is it my calling? I’m not sure, but it’s a pretty good place to start. And if this is truly the path for me, I need to get in better shape.

I exercised daily as much as my muscles could take. When the temperature was too hot to jog, I swam. Even Tofu joined me a few times. When she first came to us, I was neutral about getting a pet. But she’s kinda growing on me. She loves Mama like nobody’s business, but I think she wants to love us too, if we let her.

One night, as I returned home from a jog, I saw him walking by our house. I could have sworn he was about to turn into our walkway, but he saw me and kept going. He had this forlorn look on his face as he glanced sneakily in the window. I didn’t speak to him, and he didn’t speak to me. For now, I’d like to keep it that way. I’d only seen him the one time he came over that night when we still lived in Willow Creek, but I could never forget his face. Ever since Mama connected the dots for us and confessed to having feelings for her home wrecking accomplice, I knew he was the guy.

I started seeing him at the gym too. Even though I had my backyard workout routine and jogging, I went to the gym more often to do strength training and get acquainted with the yoga instructors. One day, I noticed a new instructor and went to introduce myself to him. But, of course, he was in there chatting it up with him and another guy. For a man I’d neither met nor knew personally, I felt oddly acquainted with him. He was like an uninvited guest in my life, showing up everywhere I went.

At first, I wanted to turn around and do something else before he spotted me, but that was silly. We lived very close to each other in the same town and went to the same gym, apparently. And he was banging my mom. As much as I’d love to pretend he didn’t exist, this dude was already part of my life, whether or not I liked it. Besides, I couldn’t let him deter me from my goals. He could find a new gym to go to if my presence bothered him.

I walked up to the instructor, completely ignoring Mama’s man friend, and asked if a class was going to start soon. He said he could start one immediately if I was ready. I was completely unprepared for what happened next.

The man friend smiled at me and said, “I’ve been seeing you around the neighborhood. You must be new here.”

Did he really just pretend like he didn’t know me? I’m sure I had the most incredulous look on my face and couldn’t decide if I was more dumbfounded by that stupid line or surprised he actually spoke to me. Knowing we never met, I understood the caution he took. But I was honestly kinda tired of the whole situation. I was tired of seeing him everywhere I went. Tired of him being this invisible fourth resident at our house! This secret they kept drove me mad. We knew Mama was dating someone. Plus, she told us she had feelings for the man she cheated with, and he kept turning up, so he had to be the guy. It was the only thing that made sense. And even though I’d rather he just disappear, he made her happy. She may have messed up, but she deserved happiness. I don’t want Mama to be alone forever, and if he was the one that did it for her, I could learn to be okay with it. I just needed them to stop pretending they weren’t in a relationship with each other! Maybe I could help them out…

“I’m pretty sure you know who I am,” I said, with my whole chest.

I startled him pretty good. He smiled uncomfortably and searched for words before replying.

“…Yes…I know who you are. I wasn’t sure if you knew who I was.”

Did he just try to flex on me?? He might have meant something to my mama, but he was no one to me. And if you wanna get real real, he’ll never mean as much to her as I do. I am her son—the first born! If he thought he’d roll up in our house, setup shop, and make her forget about us, I’d make sure he never has that thought again.

“Tell your mom I’ll call her later.”

I was so conflicted. I wanted to be offended by him thinking he could just command me to be his errand boy or whatever. But I knew he was just trying to make an effort.

The class was about to begin, so I took a mat in the back so I could watch him. If he had no skills, he had no business being with her. I also just wanted to be better than him.

I was so distracted by my fake rage; I didn’t realize the class had started. The first pose was difficult for beginners, but he nailed it. I was relieved and mad at the same time. Mama cared about fitness, so he needed to as well. But him nailing the first pose didn’t help my case to be better than him.

He kept up with me for the next few poses, and again, I was relieved and hated on him at the same time. He even bested me once when I lost my balance and had to do the alternate pose instead. It was so embarrassing.

Luckily, he struggled with the next pose and fell flat on his back!

But then he recovered and did the pose perfectly. Honestly, I had never been able to arch my back like that yet. Maybe he was better than me. But that didn’t mean I’d give him a pass. It’d take more than good yoga skills to get me on his side.