Chapter 50: Lift Hard!
Mike set him down in front of the squat rack with the ceremony of a man presenting a gift.
Liam straightened his shirt, recovered what remained of his dignity, and looked at the bar loaded across the rack.
"No," he said.
"Warm up weight," Mike said.
"That is not a warm up weight. That is a punishment weight. That is a weight you give someone you have a personal problem with."
"Forty kilos. Very light."
"For you. You are built like a geological formation." Liam gestured at Mike’s entire body. "I am a lawyer. My heaviest lift is a case file."
Mike smiled, stepped behind him, and positioned both hands on Liam’s shoulders.
"Down. Controlled. Back straight."
Liam looked at the bar. Looked at Mike. Looked at the exit, which was very far away. He got under the bar.
The first set was merely unpleasant.
Liam came up from the third rep making a sound he had never made before in his adult life — somewhere between a groan and a question, as if his body was asking his brain to please confirm this was intentional.
"Four more," Mike said.
"I will give you money," Liam said, still in the bottom position. "Cash. Right now. I have cash."
"Three more."
"Mike. I am a man of means. W-We can negotiate."
"Two more. You were talking so one doesn’t count!" Mike barked at him.
Liam came up twice more through sheer refusal to give Mike the satisfaction and racked the bar with considerably more noise than was necessary.
"Good," Mike said, nodding.
"I want you to know," Liam said, hands on his knees, "that I have never in my life wished harm on another person. You are changing that about me."
Mike wrote something in his notebook. Probably increase weight next set.
He increased the weight next set.
Lunges came after squats, which Liam felt was a human rights issue.
He moved down the open floor space with a dumbbell in each hand, each step a fresh negotiation between his muscles and his central nervous system, his face a portrait of a man mentally revising every decision that had led to this moment.
"Chest up," Mike called from behind him.
"My chest is in the process of shutting down," Liam said without turning around.
"Longer stride."
"I am at maximum stride. This is a medical fact."
"You are walking like a penguin."
"Penguins are efficient. Penguins have survived millions of years." Liam reached the end of the floor and turned around, which was its own ordeal.
Mike jogged to catch up, adjusted Liam’s posture with two fingers, and pointed back down the floor.
"Again."
"Again." Liam repeated the word like he was hearing it in a foreign language for the first time. "You said again?"
"Three sets."
"Mike. I would like you to look me in the eye and tell me you were once a normal person. That somewhere underneath all of—" he gestured at the expanse of the man— "... this, there was once a human being with normal human hobbies. Reading, television, sitting."
Mike considered this genuinely. "I used to play chess."
"Chess." Liam started the second length. "You played chess."
"Until I flipped the board."
"Because you lost?" Liam hoped this would distract him long enough for him to catch his breath.
"Because it was boring." Mike fell into step beside him. "Longer stride."
This either showed signs of anger issuers or showed Mike really hated to lose.
The cable machine arrived like an old enemy.
Liam stood in front of it with his arms already trembling from the previous forty minutes and looked at the weight stack with the expression of a man reading a verdict he had already known was coming.
"Arms," Mike said simply.
"They’re barely attached already."
"Bicep curl. Fifteen reps!"
"Fifteen." Liam took the handle. "You know, in most countries, what you’re doing would require consent forms. Waivers. Some kind of governing body oversight—"
He curled. His arm shook on rep eight in a way that was genuinely concerning.
"Good shake," Mike said encouragingly, peering at the tremor like a scientist observing a successful experiment. "Muscle fibre breaking down. This is exactly what we want."
"What you want," Liam corrected through gritted teeth. "I want a couch and a sandwich!"
"Sandwich after."
"Promise?"
"No. Protein shake."
"You bloody liar!" Liam barked but his body was reaching its limit.
Liam finished the set and let the handle go. "I want you to know I’m going to write about this. I’m going to document everything. Full account."
"Who will read it?"
"Darren. He will understand." Liam switched arms. "He might even sue on my behalf."
Mike laughed — the full chest laugh that Liam had come to recognise as the only consistent indicator that the man was, somewhere beneath the surface, a person.
"Your friend. He is big?"
"Yes."
"He should come train."
"I’m not doing that to him. He’s the only friend I have left."
Liam was on the mat for the final core circuit — lying flat on his back, staring at the ceiling with the thousand-yard stare of a man who had recently made peace with his circumstances — when he heard the door.
He didn’t move. Moving was not currently something he was doing.
"Five more," Mike said from somewhere above him.
"Mike. I am horizontal. This is my body’s formal resignation."
"Crunches. Go."
Liam curled up, came back down, and on the second rep caught movement near the entrance in his peripheral vision.
He came up on the third rep and looked properly.
Sophia Reyes stood just inside the gym door in a fitted sports set — dark green, matching top and leggings, hair pulled back in a high ponytail that swung as she turned to scan the floor. Gym bag on one shoulder, earphones in one hand, water bottle in the other.
She found him approximately two seconds later.
Liam, flat on his back on a gym mat, shirt darkened with sweat, one arm trembling visibly at his side, being watched over by a bald giant with a notebook.
Sophia looked at the full picture.
Then she pressed her lips together, and the smile she was trying to suppress broke through anyway — small, genuine, eyes crinkling at the corners.
She shook her head slowly, and turned toward the treadmills.
Liam dropped back flat on the mat.
"Mike."
"Four more."
"Did you see that woman who just walked in?"
"Crunches."
Mike was ignoring everything he was saying but Liam was quite talkative to say the least.
"I need you to understand," Liam said, staring at the ceiling, "that she cannot see me like this."
"Three more."
"Mike!" Liam was talking while doing it which was impressive even though it was between heavy breaths.
"Two."
Liam closed his eyes and realized Mike had blocked out his voice at his point until he finished his reps.
