Captainstrangecollector - Strange Collections

Testing the Waters

The bedroom door opens and she pads out.

Okay, she says. You can open them now.

She's modeling her new gym set for me. It's shiny and skintight, showcasing the months of hard work she's been putting in.

Ostensibly this is all for my benefit but I've started having suspicions about her motivation.

Wow, you look amazing, I say. I tell myself to keep quiet, to let whatever's going on find its own way out, in its own time, but the words are spoken before I can stop them.

Why the new outfit? I hear myself say.

I hate how my voice sounds but there's no getting around the fact that I'm jealous.

She looks at me quizzically, opening her mouth to speak, then closing it again without doing so. I brace. Too late now. She tilts her head and gazes up at the ceiling for a moment, before turning back to me, nodding. She takes a deep breath, exhales.

The instructor in the class is very handsome and tall and knowing that he's watching me makes working out enjoyable, she says.

I wait for more but realize quickly that that was the totality of her response.

My heart is fluttering. I'm at my own inflection point.

I love her.

I want her to be happy.

I don't want to be this person.

I want to be the person for whom this is, somehow, a good thing.

I adopt his face, summon his words from within and speak in his voice.

Thank you for telling me, I say. He's very lucky to have you in his class.

She smiles.

There's further to go, more to say.

Go.

Say it.

Be that person.

I think you should ask him if he offers private lessons, I say. Her eyes widen.

Further.

And I think, if he does, that I should pay for them.

Her eyebrows shoot up and a broad grin breaks out across her face.

Deal, she says.