I liked my job well enough.

It paid my bills and kept me busy. Plus, during my breaks, I could work out, and any time I could work out, I took advantage of it, which was why today sucked.

“I’m so-sorry, what?” I leaned forward in the metal chair toward Marc. He sat at his desk, which was covered in protein bar samples, paperwork, healthy recipes, and two-gallon water jugs. It was a mess, just like most of the stuff in the broken-down gym, but Marc, the owner, didn’t seem to care much about shaping it up.

The gym had been passed down to him from his father, and it was clear that he wasn’t passionate about the project. After he graduated college with a theater arts degree, finding a job that paid enough for rent in New Orleans was almost impossible. When his father offered him the gym, he took it with arms wide-open.

Marc wasn’t a business man, but with his theater degree, he could sometimes act the part.

“Yeah…I’m sorry. You’re fired.” Marc looked down at his paperwork and shuffled through it, avoiding eye contact. That was how he handled everything—he avoided dealing with issues directly, and then he’d later complain and place all the blame on the employees when really, it was his own lack of leadership causing the decline of the facility.

“Oh?” I replied.

He placed the paperwork down. As he looked up, he shrugged. “That’s all you’re going to say? Oh? Don’t you want to know why you’re fired?”

“Will it change your de-decision?”

“No.”

“Then, no.” I started to leave, but he kept talking.

“You made three clients cry yesterday,” he told me.

“They were acting weak.” They’d all had three more sets of chest presses in them, and they’d failed to complete the task. “I thought my job was to push our clients.”

“Exactly—push,” he agreed. “Not destroy. I mean, listen, you’re the best personal trainer we have when it comes to the actual fitness aspect. You’re well-versed in the equipment and how to demonstrate the correct way to use it. You have a solid education in fitness and wellness, and you know technique inside and out for how to transform a body. Hell, you did it to your own body. Physically, you’re a Greek god. Your muscles have muscles and your body is fucking insane, but emotionally…? You don’t give the right emotional support for people on their health journeys.”

I stared blankly. “You’re firing me because three people cried yesterday?”

“Yes—no. I mean…”—he groaned—“Elliott, don’t you see that you can’t be there for people in an emotional, compassionate way if you’re so cold?”

“No?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Is that a question?”

“No.”

He sighed, baffled. “Most of our clients here are looking to lose weight. Many have struggled with weight loss and self-worth issues for most of their lives. Can you see how having a trainer shouting at them that they aren’t strong enough isn’t the best approach?”

“But it’s true—they aren’t strong enough.”

“Words aren’t always necessary,” he stated.

“I hardly speak to them. I hardly speak to anyone,” I replied. It was true, too. I kept my words to a minimum. Most people didn’t have a clue that I even stuttered, which was exactly the point. I hardly stuttered anymore, anyway. Stuttering was a weakness of mine, and over the past few years, I’d made it my mission to not reveal any weaknesses to anyone. I took a lot of speech therapy, and currently my stutters only came out when I was thrown off or upset.

“That’s another issue,” he told me. “Everyone says you’re weird.”

“Weird?”

“Like, you’re mute, unless you’re calling people weak. You don’t engage with the clients. When they’re good, you don’t tell them.”

“How will that help them?”

“It’s called positive reinforcement. It’s beyond helpful.”

“I’m not going to do that,” I told him.

He nodded. “That’s fine, because you’re fired.”

“Oh?”

“Dude, why do you say everything like it’s a question?”

I remained silent.

He stared at me. “You can leave now.” I pushed myself up from the chair and before I left his office, he called out one last time. “Make sure to clean out your locker, too. The new trainer is coming in in about thirty minutes.”

I headed to the locker room and collected all my things. As I walked out toward the weightlifting section, I overheard a few people celebrating the fact that I wouldn’t be back again. They all hated me, which was shocking.

How could they hate a person they didn’t even know?

I kept to myself for the most part, hardly spoke a word, and still they made up stories in their heads about the creature I was. It bothered me a bit that I could be the monster in someone else’s story.

I never wanted to be a villain.

All I wanted—all I ever wanted—was to be the hero of a story, yet somehow, over time, I lost my way, and I was certain I was too far gone to ever go back.

* * *

In the back corner of Daze Jazz Lounge on Bourbon Street, no one bothered me. I sat in the booth every night, drinking whiskey and writing in a notebook. I was never bothered, always alone, except for when Jason wandered over.

He wandered over each night to sit across from me with a bottle of Jim Beam in his hand. He’d always cap off my already full cup and strike up a conversation. “What do you mean they fired you?”

“That’s all there is to it,” I said, flipping a page in my notes.

“What an asshole,” Jason said, growing more upset than I was. “You worked your ass off there. Marc is such a dick.”

I shrugged.

“Dammit!” he hissed, hitting his hand against the table. “I know you’re nonchalant and don’t give a shit about much, but that’s messed up,” he complained. “Listen, if you need extra cash flow, you can work a few shifts here, whenever you need to.”

I gave a half-smile and thanked him. Jason’s father owned the bar, and I lived upstairs in the apartment overhead. Jason used to live up there, but when he moved in with his fiancée, Kelly, he offered me the spot. It was almost half the price of my rent at the time, so I’d snatched it up.

“Also, did you get my messages about the bachelor party?” Jason asked.

“You sent me ten messages.”

He smirked. “It was eight, you dramatic asshole. So, does that mean you’re in?”

“Out.”

“Come on, how often is it that your best friend gets married? You’re the best man!”

“I do-don’t party. Your fraternity pals hate me.”

“They don’t!” he lied.

“They think I’m weird.”

“You are!” he agreed. “But you’re my ride-or-die weird best friend, and if they have a problem with that, fuck them. If you want, I’ll uninvite them all and you and I can just have our solid bromance and go get drunk on our own.”

“Isn’t that what we do here?”

“Yeah, but we’ll do it with, like, strippers!”

I chuckled. “I’m gonna pass, but I’ll be at the wedding.”

Just then, Jimmy Shaw stumbled into the bar, breaking us away from our conversation. He’d been stumbling into the bar for the past few months since finding out his wife was leaving him. We both turned toward him as he fell into a booth and placed his head down on the table.

“Hey, Jimmy!” we both called out.

He kept his head down and waved.

“You okay?” we asked.

He stuck his thumb up then proceeded to sob. Jason grimaced. “If you’re okay, I’m gonna go take the Jim Beam over to that sad sack. It looks like he needs it more.”

I agreed and watched Jason go console Jimmy. My best friend was a good man through and through. He’d been that way our whole lives, too. Every time I tried to keep to myself, he’d kick the door down and barge right in.

As Jason took care of Jimmy, I went back to my whiskey and my notes.

I might’ve been a recluse, but with whiskey, my notebook, and Jason, I was never really alone.