I liked running.
One of our crew had taken it up and suggested that it might help me to blow off some steam, too. He was right. It was solitary, yet not. You just didn’t have to interact with any of the people around you or even look at them long enough to catch their eye. In an instant, you were gone, yards away, on to something else.
And I hated running.
It left my feet sore and my lungs burning. Some days I barely had the energy to get through soundcheck if I went for a run first. At least I could sit down during the concerts and rest my weary legs.
I should have known that it was too hot to run in Dallas, but I didn’t listen to that small, rational voice inside my head. The need to exercise, to work off the large breakfast I’d had, was too strong. The voice that told me I needed the pain, needed to hurt if I was going to improve myself at all… that voice won out. And since I couldn’t actually claw my skin off and rid myself of the extra pounds that way, going for a painful run in the blistering heat was the next best option.
I didn’t know how far I had run, but according to my phone, I’d been gone for over an hour when I finally returned to the venue. It was already bustling with people, setting up our equipment and getting everything ready for the show later that night. Maybe I had been gone longer than I thought. No one even seemed to notice my absence or my return.
In a haze, I scurried past everyone, searching for the venue bathroom. My vision blurred and I clung to the walls to hold myself up. Was I drunk? I felt drunk. This was nothing like the runner’s high I had been promised, and more like a really bad trip. Finally, I stumbled into a small bathroom stall and collapsed to my knees in front of the toilet. The omelet I had eaten for breakfast, and the hash browns too, paid me a second visit.
I supposed I no longer needed to worry about any weight gain from that meal.
As I pulled myself shakily to my feet and washed off my hands and face, my mind flashed back to a day years ago in California. It was the only and one time I had actually stuck my finger down my throat, and I had done it almost as a dare, just to see if I could. A test I had failed, but at least I failed it just the once. That counted for something, I had told myself then. Even if I skipped meals or spent too long in the makeshift gym set up in a corner of our studio, it wasn’t like I had one of those eating disorders. I wasn’t that crazy.
Or was I?
I ran a hand up and down my torso. Two ribs now. Months ago I couldn’t count a single one. My abs were still nothing to write home about, but I knew I had lost weight. Unlike Kate, I wasn’t tracking my progress, but she had an ultimate goal—to back to her pre-baby weight. Did I have a goal? I didn’t know. I just knew I needed this. I needed to lose. I needed to change. I needed something that was just between me, myself and I.
“Hey,” a muffled female voice said at the door. Bex. “Is that you, Zac? It’s just about time for the walk. Meeting at the doors in five.”
How long had she been there? How much had she heard? Realistically, I knew she had probably looked everywhere for me, and when I had been nowhere else, she had assumed by process of elimination that I was the one hiding in the bathroom. And anyway, I hadn’t done anything wrong. So why did I feel so guilty?
There wasn’t time for a shower, so I had to settle for a quick change of clothing, a few swipes of deodorant and a spray of some of Ike’s cologne to make myself presentable enough for the fans. With my hair tied back in a ponytail, it didn’t look horrible. Maybe no one would get close enough to smell me. I could only hope.
I didn’t want to sound ungrateful, though. The walk thing was still fairly new, having only started the previous fall, and I wasn’t sure we had really worked out all of the kinks yet. They weren’t roving meet and greets, but at times they felt like it. How close was too close? How much small talk was necessary to keep things from being awkward and how much was too much to be respectful to the cause? None of us really knew.
I hung back as Taylor gave his speech, easily hiding myself behind him. Even after we started walking I stayed to the back, where the fans always seemed more relaxed and just happy to be there. Still, a few tried to engage me in conversation, and I tried my best to be polite. Whether or not I succeeded was anyone’s guess. Most likely… not.
“This may be weird to ask,” one fan said, and it was pretty much a guarantee that whatever followed would be weird. I braced myself for the worst. “But have you lost weight lately?”
“Umm, I guess, a little,” I replied, knowing damn well that I had.
“How do you do it? I can never loose any,” another fan said.
I shrugged. “Running, eating healthier. Cutting down on alcohol. I’m not really trying or anything.”
The lies fell out so easily, especially when said when a goofy grin that suited the dumb blonde routine well. Would a guy like me really care about his weight? Did I look like someone who counted calories and ate vegan? Of course not. That was the way to get away with it. When the reality is so different from the image you’ve built up, who’s going to question you? The fans would see what they wanted to see, as they always did.
The conversation, thankfully, shifted away from my weight loss and diet tips, and I gradually shifted away from that group of fans entirely. I wasn’t trying to be antisocial, exactly, even though I was constantly accused of being exactly that. It wasn’t that I didn’t like people. I wanted to be social. I just never really understood how to be. It felt like I was constantly putting on an act, turning myself into whatever person I thought this group or that group of people wanted me to be. And I was good at it, but it was exhausting. Sometimes, like right then, I just needed a break.
I tuned out for the rest of the walk; I didn’t even hear Taylor’s speech. It’s sad to say, but I’ve learned how to operate on auto-pilot. Paste on a smile, nod at the right times, and no one noticed that I had checked out entirely. Maybe it wasn’t healthy. Or maybe it was the healthiest thing I did, the only thing keeping me sane at all. I didn’t know.
In what seemed like just a matter of seconds, it was all over and I was back in the venue. There still wasn’t time for a shower before soundcheck, but there was at least a little time to breathe. I found myself in the same bathroom, staring in the same mirror again, and I wasn’t sure I recognized myself at all.
I had lost weight; that girl was right.
It was noticeable, but only to someone who had obviously watched me closely over the years and probably knew me better than I knew myself. I could see it, because I looked at myself in the mirror every day, but sometimes I was convinced it was just an illusion. One day I looked thinner, the next day I was suffocating under all the excess weight I seemed to be carrying. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and I didn’t know which feelings to trust. Which was real? Maybe I should start weighing myself and counting calories. Then I would know. Then the proof would be laid out in front of me in black and white.
I could do it right this time. Be healthy. I was just a dumb, depressed teenager before, and it wasn’t like I was even trying to lose weight then. If I were trying now, and if I really dedicated myself and did it right, then I would have to be successful.
This was another test. But this time, I thought I was passing.
I gave the flab on my hips one last pinch, then shook my head and stepped away from the mirror. I had done all I could for that day. But the next day was a new beginning. In the morning, I could begin fresh and really do things right. Count calories. Go for a run every day, no matter how much pain it left me in. I’d earned the pain.
The bathroom door opened and I jumped, my heart racing. Why did it feel like I’d been caught? Of all the bad things I’d done and gotten away with over the years, why did staring at myself too long in the bathroom mirror feel like a sin?
“Oh, hey,” Taylor said, glancing me up and down with his brow furrowed. I was sure he was trying to figure out what I had been doing. What had I been doing?
“Sorry, I’m finished,” I said. “Bathroom’s all yours.”
Taylor patted my chest, sniffed the air and scrunched up his nose. “I dunno, man. I think you could use a shower. Did you take your run in a sauna or something?”
“Something like that,” I mumbled.
Even my own brothers had to scrutinize my every move. I hadn’t even realized that they had known about my run that afternoon, but apparently Taylor, at least, noticed more than I thought. It made me feel even more like I needed to hide, but what was I doing wrong? What was so wrong about trying to be healthier? It seemed I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. No one would ever be happy with any of it.
Except for Kate. With the roller coaster ride our last two years had been, health and diet were always at the forefront for her. She was naturally skinny, but being skinny and healthy weren’t necessarily the same thing. With everything we had gone through trying to get and stay pregnant, she’d become a walking encyclopedia on all things healthy living, and it only pushed me further to try to improve myself.
Leaving Taylor in the bathroom, I walked out into the green room where members of our band and crew were enjoying the last few minutes of relaxation before soundcheck began. A table was laid out with all the food and drink we’d requested, but none of it interested in me. I knew I needed to fuel up before our performance, but I couldn’t do it. Nothing was appetizing at all. I picked up a bottle of water and forced myself to take a few slugs, and even that seemed to sink to the bottom of my stomach like a rock.
This was a test, alright. But I wasn’t so sure about my grade.