Gym | Afternoon | Wednesday | January 5

[therewaslife]

Bod could count the number of times he'd been in the gym on one hand. All of one time. He'd been here all of one time and that hadn't even been to do anything but talk to someone who he wasn't currently really even talking to anymore. So, that was a memory he had to force down.

He'd come down there today on a whim. Bod loved his books and he loved his quiet time but he still felt like he needed to do more things. He needed to fill his time with activities and motion to stop himself from falling into too deep a funk.

He wasn't a fighter though so he was going to ignore all the boxing and fighting equipment. Instead, he grabbed one of the basketballs and started shooting around. From close distances, he found that he wasn't bad. The further he got, the worse his aim became so he made a note to work on that. For now, he was running up and down the court, alternating between shots at either basket and working himself into a nice sweat while he did.

It felt remarkably good.

[Open place, open post]

Comments

[therewaslife]

"You know, I never thought something that awful about you when you wore your princess costume," he said, treading that dangerous line but it seemed necessary.

"You were sometimes unrecognizable but I still thought you looked like you underneath it all because I looked," he said, shaking his head. "And this is just a haircut and you can't see past it."

[vanillajello]

"Well I'm entitled to my opinion," Kate replied, hanging onto that mild tone for dear life. "I'm allowed to feel whatever I feel just as much as you are. You asked and I told you even though I didn't want to, so don't tear me to shreds over it."

[therewaslife]

"A haircut doesn't define who I am," Bod said, shaking his head and trying to rein in his own tone. "I just...don't understand how that suddenly makes me completely unrecognizable to you."

[vanillajello]

"How you look doesn't define who you are," she replied, quietly. "Of course it doesn't, come on, I never claimed it does."

As for that other part, she was choosing not to say anything.

[therewaslife]

"You just said I don't look like me anymore," Bod reminded her, shaking his head. "That seemed pretty definite to me. Why does that make me so completely blind to you now?"

[vanillajello]

"I said you don't look like you, I didn't say I think you aren't you." That calm thing was getting a little harder to hold onto. "I don't know about you, but I can separate those two things from each other. So don't make it a huge deal."

[therewaslife]

"What do I look like, then?" Bod had to ask, fighting off the urge to start arguing with her. "If I don't look like me, what do I look like to you?"

[vanillajello]

"Different, I don't know," she replied, helplessness slipping out. "Just different. Is that good enough?"

[therewaslife]

"Not the same person I was just a few weeks ago?" he asked, morbidly curious.

[vanillajello]

"Well no." Her tone wasn't harsh, but she was sure it'd sound like that to him anyway. "The way I see you has changed. The hair just makes it worse."

[therewaslife]

"I haven't heard anyone else say anything like that despite my hair," he said and closed his eyes. "I've been the same to everyone else. I suppose I should feel lucky or something."

In his mind, he knew why she'd look at him differently but it didn't ease the ache of knowing that she wasn't going to even try to look at him anymore. She just didn't want to see.

[vanillajello]

"Well as far as I know, I'm the only one you broke up with."

And looking at him hurt; what was she supposed to do?

[therewaslife]

If he was honest with himself, he'd know that too but he was still stuck on her telling him he didn't look like himself anymore all because of a haircut.

"I didn't -- " He stopped his statement there and shook his head. "Does everything I've told you make me sound like a completely different person to you?"

[vanillajello]

"What?" Kate made an incredulous face at him. "No. Jesus, Bod, will you just let it go? You're obsessing over a minor thing, stop it."

[therewaslife]

"And you can't get past my hair," Bod pointed out, shaking his head. "I'm not obsessing but considering what I've told you today, I thought it was a valid question."

[vanillajello]

"What does it matter if I can't get past your hair?" Kate snapped. So much for all that calm. "Maybe I don't want to get past it. I'm trying to move on, Bod."

[therewaslife]

"So am I!" Bod snapped back at her, glaring slightly now. "And I'm not doing very well at it. Perhaps you don't want to get past it but that hasn't stopped you from forming new opinions of me, has it? You're getting past what you really know about me."

[vanillajello]

"That's not what I said!" And she'd so not wanted to do this now. Again. Oh well. "When did I say that? It's hair, Bod, and you're making it into a bigger deal than it is."

[therewaslife]

"How can you not see that's what you've been saying this entire time?" Bod asked, shaking his head. "How? My hair is short so I look different. Your perceptions of me have changed so obviously you're thinking differently about me. So no, you didn't say it Kate but I can read between the lines here and that's what it sounds like to me."

[vanillajello]

"Well of course I'm thinking differently about you!" she snapped again. "Doesn't mean I think you're a different person. Don't you think differently about me? If you say you don't then you're a fucking liar."

[therewaslife]

Bod didn't really see how thinking differently about him didn't make him a different person in her eyes. He really didn't.

"I do but I'm fairly certain that what I think about you isn't what you think I think about you," Bod said and did that even make sense? He parsed it eventually and shook his head. "I know how you think I see you now. And you're so completely wrong but I don't think my opinion matters to you anymore."

[vanillajello]

"Should it?" she asked, with a touch of bitterness that she hadn't meant to let through. "That's kinda what happens when relationships end, you know. Some people's opinions stop mattering."

It wasn't anywhere near that simple but she really wished it was.

[therewaslife]

"That's not a question I can answer for you," Bod replied, shaking his head. "But if you really think that I'm someone who can think those awful, crude, horrible things about you, those thoughts you put into my mouth, then you do see me as a different person. There's no doubt in my mind about that."

[vanillajello]

"Maybe I think that way, maybe I don't." Kate honestly wasn't sure anymore whether it was him or herself she thought had those thoughts about her. But getting called a slut and a whore to her face by someone else since then hadn't helped, that was for sure. "You said you're trying to move on too. My opinion shouldn't matter."

[therewaslife]

"But it does!" Bod nearly yelled at her. "I'm trying to move on but I'm not doing a very good job of it. I ended our relationship for what I think are very good reasons but that doesn't mean I immediately stop loving you or I stop caring about you, Kate. How can you not understand that?"