I feel my heart starting to race. The car lights in the background are blinding, but it’s not nearly as blinding as the stinging headache I have after the violent crash. There is blood splattered all over the shattered windshield; I’m hanging upside down, and I can feel the blood rushing to my head. “Gabriel, are you all right?” I turn and look towards the passenger’s seat where my friend is hanging.

He groans, and I feel a slight sense of relief to know that he is still alive. “My head…” he grumbles, and I suspect the blood is his.

A black shadowy figure is slowly coming towards us. “Gabe!” I snap, “he’s coming,” and I grab at my seatbelt, but it jams. My fingers feel numb, and I feel panic starting to take over. Blood mixed with sweat drips down off my head into the ceiling of over turned car.

I hear a clicking sound –it’s a gun. My heart skips a beat before it starts pumping so hard that I swear it’s going to burst out of my chest. The shadowy figure walks towards the passenger’s side of the car. I shouldn’t have been drinking. Maybe if I hadn’t been drinking I wouldn’t have cut this lunatic off and pissed him off to the point he would run us off the road. I feel Gabe’s hand reach out and grab my arm. “Jonathan!” he shrieks, and his voice wreaks of desperation. I’m so helpless. There’s nothing I can do –what can I do? The gun goes off, and Gabe’s blood splatters all over me and his arm drops.

I scream and cry, and I suddenly feel someone shaking me. Had I been dreaming? I open my eyes, and despite it being pitch black in the apartment I can still make out Tyler’s face. I am on his couch in his shitty apartment, and I had apparently woken him up. “Jonathan, man, wake up!” his voice calls me back to the present moment.

I jump up, and I can feel my fists clenched. I’m not thinking straight, and I go to swing at him. I’m glad I don’t hit him; as a former boxer I have a pretty mean punch. Tyler has a bit of training as an amateur boxer, so he is quick to react. “Jonathan!” he shouts, “It’s me, man, chill!” Tyler turns on the lamp that is right next to the couch on an old end table Tyler had picked up at his second job at the dump.

I throw my legs over the side of the couch, knocking the blankets and pillow to the floor when I do this, and I rub my eyes. I’m drenched in sweat, and I feel like shit. It had seemed so real. “What time is it?” I groan.

“It’s four in the morning,” Tyler says, and I can see he has a mix of emotions etched on his tired face –he’s worried about me, sure, but he also looks pretty pissed for being woken up at this hour.

“I’m sorry,” I say and take a deep breath to calm myself down; I still feel like I’m in that damn car.

“You were calling out for Gabe,” he says, “man, you were screaming like crazy. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I say, but Tyler is not buying it.

“I’m going to make some coffee,” he says and turns on the lights. The one room I’m in is a den, a bathroom, and a kitchen. The toilet is in the middle of the kitchen, and I have to piss –but I’m not going to kick him back into his bedroom, so I keep my mouth shut about it. “Listen, Jonathan,” he says once he’s got the coffee brewing, “I know you were there when Gabe died… you never really talk about it. I know it had to be rough. He was just a kid. If you need to talk about it, it’s cool. You can talk to me.”

I nod. “Thanks, but I don’t know if I really want to talk about it.” I stand and head towards the little bar that was the kitchen table. I sit on one of the bar stools, and he plops a cup of coffee in front of me. I’m glad he threw on a robe; the dude sleeps in his underwear, and he’s forgotten I’m here a couple of mornings.

It’s been a rough couple of days. Tomorrow is supposed to be my first day back at the gym after my unpaid leave. I had told some of those bitchy boxers about my almost-sexual encounter with the MMA fighter chick, Laurel, and Laurel had lost her mind and gone to my boss about it –calling is “Sexual harassment.” So I’ve just been lounging around trying not to spend what little money I have on alcohol. Then there was finding out that my ex-wife is hiding the fact that she’s pregnant from me; I still haven’t told Tyler or Marty about that.

“So you want to head out tomorrow night?” Tyler yawned, “Marty was saying something about grabbing a bite when we get out of training.”

“Weren’t you supposed to have a date or something?” I ask.

Tyler rolled his eyes. “That hoe dumped me. She was kind of a slut anyways.”

“Sorry,” I say, and Tyler just shrugs his shoulders.

He then grins, “Hey, I got you. You’re my little house-wife.”

“Shut up, man, I got a job now,” I say, but I manage to chuckle slightly.

“Yeah, training soccer moms in self-defense courses and cleaning up after female athletes. Way to go,” he jokes. He takes a more serious tone then, “How is that going?”

“It could be better,” I say, “that psycho Laurel is still giving me hell. She wants me to get fired. I guess I can’t blame her. We almost slept together and then suddenly I show up working at her gym, and she’s pretty insulted that I was hired to help train them. I didn’t tell you that there was a giant blow up of my face in the boxer’s room that they had been using as a dart board, did I?”

Tyler laughs. “Man, that’s cold.”

“Yup,” I nod and take a big swig of coffee; I’m definitely going to need a few cups to wake myself up if I’m going to be any good at the gym today. It had been a pretty restless night, and I feel bad for waking up Tyler. He’s been pretty awesome letting me stay here. I’ll admit I would have rather had stayed at Marty’s mansion, but since Marty’s girlfriend had moved in with him that pretty much went out the window. I’ve learned a lot about Tyler since moving in with him; for one thing, I had no idea he lived in the ghetto. I had no idea he had a younger sister who had died. I had no idea that Gabe had known his sister. I had no idea he had to work a second job at the dump to keep afloat. He’s never made any indication that he was not as well off as Marty and me, so it was kind of strange stepping into his world all of a sudden. I got to love the guy though; he’s really had my back these past few weeks.

The two of us finish our coffee, and Tyler heads to the shower –thank God that’s not in the kitchen, at least. I couldn’t imagine showering in front of him while he ate his breakfast. It’s weird enough taking a piss in his kitchen. Whoever designed the layout of this place should have the shit beat out of them. I shake my head slightly and change into my work uniform, getting ready for a long day the women’s only gym.