Just Another Casualty

They say life comes at you fast, but that phrase doesn’t mean shit until it actually arrives. One moment, life was annoyance at rush hour traffic, and me tuning the radio to local public broadcast to stave off boredom with the news at the top of the hour. And the next, life was the words, “another mass shooting this afternoon.”

For everyone in the United States, there is an automatic response to these words that reads like a mental checklist: where now, how many dead, and did they get the shooter? The need-to-knows before you can relax, say your thoughts and prayers, and swipe to the next story that demands your attention. But in the next moment, I heard the name of the city. And then the name of the fitness center. And somehow, I already knew you were gone.

22 dead (so far), 17 injured (so far). Suspected gunman dead, believed to have acted alone. I was already on the phone before they could announce if it was from police fire or his own weapon, pressing numbers on autopilot with my numb finger pads until I heard my mother’s voice on the other end of the line.

She was okay. She had seen it on the local news channel too, wondered what the fuss was with of all those sirens, and later, those helicopters. Yes, Mom, I did get a membership to Tone Up while I was staying with you, yes, that one. Yeah, unbelievably awful.

I don’t remember if I said anything to Mom when she asked me if I knew anyone who might have been in there. Something innocuous had to have filled the conversation gap between that question and Mom telling me about her friend Vicky who goes to pilates for seniors at Tone Up, but didn’t go today because she just had hip surgery last Thursday, and could I believe the timing? My God, what if she had scheduled it for next week.

I began to get lightheaded and told Mom, sorry, gotta go, traffic moving now. I love you too, and talk to you later. I pressed the “end” button and the car fills with white noise. I did not remember the rest of the drive, and now only remember being online until 2 a.m. when my eyes began to hurt from the blue screen light, compulsively refreshing Reuters' home page for updates. They wouldn’t announce your name until two days later, after everyone had been identified.

***

It turned out you had been gone scarcely over an hour before I heard about it. The shooter—your murderer—had struck during peak weekday hours, right as folks were getting off work. It was hard to find an elliptical, treadmill, or bike that wasn’t in use when it was that busy, and Monday was hands-down the busiest day of the week. Hundreds of people were in there with their airpods, zoning out to their podcasts or exercise playlists. People in the weights area were probably breathless from lifting. The locker rooms had only one way out or, in the shooter’s case, in. The bored, underpaid teenagers at the check-in desk likely didn’t think twice about the non-descript guy carrying a slightly oversized duffel bag. The large emergency exit doors in the back of the building were the only reason more people made it out of there with their lives and bodies in tact.

You were in the vinyasa power flow class when it happened, I later learned. I thought of that plexiglass partition between the studio and fitness area, picturing the large, fragmented shards that might be hanging there after he shot through it with that AR-15, trying not to picture what might still be on the walls. I used to see you there a lot, and always wondered if you getting into it had anything to do with Josh and me. You weren’t a yoga girl before that. It also made me wonder if I should drag my ass to one of those fitness classes too, if only to add a new hobby to the almost-empty list of post-divorce activities to try.

Well. If we’re really being honest, you were a bit of a hobby, or at least figuring out how to avoid you became one. When I moved back to Mom’s after Josh and I sold the house, I didn’t know if you still lived in the city. And if we’re being really, really honest, I was trying not to think about that. With all of the classic features that come with navigating a messy divorce, I didn’t even have to try that hard for a while. But, since a gym membership happens to be one of those classic features —a Hail Mary pass at avoiding the bodily softness that almost inevitably comes with depression over a shattered marriage—eventually, I guess I was bound to see you again. I was entering the locker room after trudging like a grandma on the treadmill for a whopping 30 minutes; you were leaving. The heart rate goal that I had failed to meet on the machine was suddenly achieved in that lingering moment when we made eye contact, but if you felt the same, you didn’t show it. You stared impassively as a stranger, and I couldn’t look down fast enough.

I’m certain that was somewhat satisfying for you, certain as I am that you knew exactly why I was back in town. Though you had long ago blocked me on social media (justifiably, of course), we still had enough mutual friends for the news had to have trickled down to you, and it probably included some of the juicier tidbits. Besides, you were always just as much of a fiend for gossip as me. For years, you were the first person I would share any tea with. Just to be clear, you deserved every bit of your schadenfreude. It’s just part of the human condition to have a little bit of that when cheating and betrayal come full circle, right? Although I suspect that you were at least left with less credit card debt than I was when Josh decided to move on, again. Last I heard (last time I snooped on his socials, in other words), it was to a 23-year-old with a lip ring and a TikTok channel. I think her name is Braxtynne or something similarly ridiculous, something we would have once laughed at to tears together. Hopefully you got wind of that one and a good snicker before it was too late.

To paraphrase your last text message to me six years ago, I am indeed a bit of a coward and made an effort to duck and run when I saw you there, but made notes of your schedule so I could plan my sad workouts around it. I knew I deserved to be exposed in all of my frumpy glory, with my new extra pounds and crum-bum sweatpants, stressed-out skin, a greasy bun on the top of my head like fucking Pebbles from the Flintstones. A bone holding it together would have been appropriate— there’s a time when we would have laughed at that, too. Of course, my ego couldn’t take you, of all people, seeing me at my nadir. But even that wasn’t the hardest part on the days when I wasn’t so lucky and would suddenly spot you behind the glass window of the studio, arms raised triumphantly in a warrior pose. No, the hardest part was noticing that you didn’t look like me. Instead, you were glowing.

I don’t know how to best explain it, save to say that I thought seeing you looking like a fellow bedraggled cat would have been the thing that triggered my guilt response. I’m sure it would have, although why after all these years you would have any reason to be bedraggled, I’m not sure. No, it was actually seeing how whole you looked, your radiance, that tore me to pieces. Remember, the last time I saw you was when I had just crushed you by admitting that, yes, there had been something going on between me and your fiance. You were pale, shell-shocked, quaking. Your eyes were sleepless, wide and red as you shook your phone with the damning text message exchange in my face, redder than they had ever been over the decade that we were friends. You seemed wounded, helpless, and so small as I went through every cheating best friend’s elevator speech to explain that neither of us had planned it, it had just happened, and that I never wanted to hurt you, blah blah blah.

Of course, the guilt was there then, too. I had to do quite the set of mental gymnastics over quite some time in order to suppress it, so that I could sleep peacefully with the knowledge that I chose to fall in love with and marry the man you told me (so many times) that you wanted to be with forever. I won’t repeat the bullshit I told myself to justify it, save to say that the ego is capable of incredible feats to defend itself. But even so, shame was always lurking in the shadows. This guilt, though, it wasn't the same beast. This time, it’s wasn't because I hurt you; it was because you had clearly survived the harm I brought to you, like a phoenix out of the ashes, only for that rise to be cut short.

***

I read that they held your service on a Wednesday morning the week after the shooting. By then, the White House’s thoughts and prayers had already gathered dust and some new crisis was eclipsing this latest tragedy in the news cycle. It felt more respectful to not attend. I don’t know if Josh was there, and doubt it. The extent of our conversation about any of this was a text from him asking, “U ok?” and me responding with a thumbs up. I wish I could delete that number, but divorce leaves you with so many loose ends that seem to drag forever.

One of your photos on your obituary page is one I took. I took it at one of your birthday parties, who knows what year. We were still of barhopping age, so almost ancient times. I’m surprised you kept it, especially since it was one with Josh’s arm around you, but thankfully, it’s cropped so you can’t quite tell. Your smile is wide, cheesy, and hauntingly beautiful. The obituary said you were a dedicated public health nurse, so I guess you managed to finish the program we started together, the one I dropped when Josh and I eloped and moved away. “Put on hold”, I told myself at the time. I never did have your discipline or your common sense, and not enough of it rubbed off. The obit listed your surviving family members, names I recognized from a distant lifetime. It asked for donations in lieu of flowers to the name of a non profit that I did not recognize.

Now that it no longer matters, I have a confession to make. I wasn’t just clocking your gym schedule to avoid facing you. That was true in the beginning. But the reality is that I started aching every time I went to Tone Up, and not just from being sad and sedentary. I carried you home with me after that first and only glance we shared. There were days when you occupied my headspace more than the financial or emotional fallout from my cheating husband, more than the paperwork burden of finalizing this damn divorce. Girl, let me say it, I fucking missed you. I needed you more than I could speak words to, needed you to make me laugh at this somehow, needed you to bitch and rage with me, needed you to split my pathetic oven pizzas with me, needed to be a whimpering mess on your lap when none of that was working. People stepped in to fill those roles from time to time. But it was your company I wanted. You were the biggest piece missing from the puzzle I was slowly putting back together.

And believe me, I understand that it wasn’t mine to find. You had no reason to share your empathy with me, even if we were side-by-side tombstones in the graveyard of fools who fell for Josh. Yet, I still wanted you to know that I was broken without you. As sorry as I was, I had exhausted all the apologies you said you could stand when this first happened. The “sorries” were just as true as ever, and less important than letting you know I was still grieving you.

Armed with the knowledge of your Tone Up schedule and a note that took me weeks to write, I was steeling myself for the day when I would slip it in your locker, or under the windshield of your car in the parking lot. Sometimes I daydreamed about marching up to you, dropping it at your feet, and marching away. I knew I didn’t have the guts for that (as you told me long ago), but even this coward was almost ready to make sure it reached your hands, as much dread as it gave me.

Would you have torn it up? Perhaps. Would it change anything, besides lightening my questionable conscience a bit? Perhaps not. If it meant you knowing that I was at last facing the full brunt of the consequences of my actions, and that losing you still mattered more to me than any of it, it would have been worth it. I think it would have been worth it to us both to at least have a moment to say goodbye in a gentler way, even if silence was the only response you had to offer. You can say my head was fucked up over the divorce, but I still believe that.

But the cowardice won again. All it took was a phone call from a friend from the circle Josh and I had once shared—one of the few who didn’t vanish into the fog of our separation—letting me know that she needed a roommate. Then, a phone call from me to the job I had left, and surprisingly, they wanted me back. I could suddenly forget the dread, forget that missing puzzle piece and start restoring a different corner of the my life's puzzle. Within two weeks, I was states away, the note unceremoniously stuffed into the bottom of a moving box that probably has not yet been unpacked. I told myself that someday, it would make its way to you, and that I just needed more time to shake the dice.

And then they slipped through my fingers and rolled anyway.

***

Time goes on and sometimes I wonder if it was for the best, if you had already found your peace and didn’t need the heart on my sleeve mucking it up. Sometimes I wonder if that’s yet another lie I tell myself to feel comfortable about it all. I really don’t know anymore; time does go on but it hasn’t done much to help the confusion. Is this sense of loss over what could have been? What never could have been? Is it still over what was? The aftermath of life coming at you is the questions like that that don't leave even when they don't have answers. Nobody warns you about those.

The city is still discussing plans for the site where Tone Up used to be. To be fair, it’s there, but as a memorial instead of a gym. I’ve visited once. Your name is painted on the exterior with the others, as part of a mural. On a small altar outside the building with your nursing school graduation photo, some mourners left letters or cards addressed to you that you will never read. And that is where I finally delivered mine. As I walked away, I realized that final goodbye was happening in real time, and that everything I had wanted from it was suddenly and forever out of reach.

The one year anniversary is coming up, and it probably won't make national news—too much competition with the myriad other instances of mass violence and heartbreak that have happened around the world in the months since. Not that I mind much, as no one at work will ask me about it, and I can pretend that it’s just like any other day. I’ve gotten very good at pretending.