Chapter 16: No Mercy and No Joy

On Tuesday, Hayden had interval training with Todd at the gym. While she did not fall off the treadmill, she did beg him with her eyes to allow her to stop before her lungs flew out of her mouth. However, he had no mercy. He kept his hand on the speed button moving it up when it was time for her to sprint and then back to a medium walk for the next three minutes. He made her keep doing those intervals for an entire half an hour!

At the end, she didn't speak; she just stumbled to the lockers where she puked up her morning oatmeal into the toilet. When she walked back into the main area of the gym, Todd was waiting for her with bottled water. She never bought the bottled water when there was a water faucet that she could use for free, but she took the peace offering while he watched her meekly.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded. "I got sick, but yeah, I'm okay."

"It's your breathing; you're going to have to learn to regulate it. You have to find your second wind."

She huffed. "It didn't seem like it wanted to be found." She knew what he was talking about. When she rode the bike, there was a point at about fifteen minutes in when she thought that she would keel over and die, but if she pushed on it would suddenly get easier and her legs would begin pedaling madly until she hit the wall and found her third wind.

Later, as Hayden's day moved on, it seemed to go from bad to worse. She was late getting to work because she made the mistake of going through the drive through at McDonald's for more oatmeal. Unfortunately, the line was slow and long. She ended up being ten minutes late to work and by the time she had a chance to eat; the oatmeal was a cold, hard lump that she dumped into her trashcan.

Then by the time lunch came, she was starving but had packed only a chef salad, not even half a sandwich or a fruit cup to go along with it. She was staring into her empty bowl wishing for seconds when Dani invited her to the Jazz Festival. The Jazz Festival was a big deal in her city.

The top R&B singers and groups were sure to appear. Then of course, there would be the old-time groups that never went out of style like Frankie Beverly and Maze and Patti Labelle. It was something that she and MyKell had attended every summer.

Hayden's life had been running smoothly not counting the week directly following her breakup with MyKell when she'd had her meltdown. Beyond that, she had coped with the end of a six-year relationship with as much detachment as she could muster. Yet every bit of ground that she had gained in the last two months was thrown out the window at the mention of the Jazz Festival. The realization that she would never go to the Jazz Festival with MyKell again first stunned, and then hurt her so deeply that it was like being bowled over.

MyKell would go to the Jazz Festival with someone else… It was over. He wasn't coming back. He was no longer a part of her life.

Hayden could have clutched her chest as the pain of it sank in for her. The sudden grief brought swift stinging tears to her eyes and she could no longer speak. All she could do was look away and shake her head, praying that the tears filling her eyes didn't fall.

Dani gasped. "Oh Hayden, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… I just want you to have fun. You're so much better off without that asshole! Don't you know how much he used you for your kindness? So he moved on to some other woman that he can use up. Good riddance!"

Oh my God… Hayden didn't want to have this conversation. Not when the tears were welling up in her eyes and they were sitting in the break room with their co-workers. However, Hayden had lost the ability to use her voice and didn't know how to tell her friend to stop. Just stop…

"Look, Hayden, if you change your mind just let me know, okay?" Dani touched her hand and Hayden just nodded her head. Dani quickly changed the subject and Hayden was grateful that a moment later her tears receded.

After their lunch break, Hayden went back to her desk, too afraid that if she stopped at the restroom the tears would return. She stared at her computer screen hands slack in her lap. There is no joy in my life. This is all…

~*~

Hayden had stopped at McDonald's again on her way to Fox Vinyl. She ordered a large chocolate shake, a double quarter pounder with cheese and a super sized order of fries with two apple pies. Her stomach ached terribly by the time that she entered the building.

Not because she had eaten all of that fast food, but because she had thrown it out the window and now her stomach felt like an empty cavern. She never packed an evening meal because she wouldn't have time to spare reheating a packed meal for dinner when she had one hour from the end of one job and the beginning of the next. So there was no way that she could survive on sandwiches and salads all week long for each of her three meals. Dinner was the time that she splurged on carryout; either a roast chicken dinner from Boston Market, or Italian Wedding Soup from the deli, and if she was lucky, the roast turkey special from The Cracker Barrel.

She'd blown that though…

Hayden walked into the little canteen for the first time since being an employee of Fox Vinyl, her stomach making sounds that unnerved her. It was worse than she had imagined. No surprise that the ashtrays and trashcans were overflowing but the floor was sticky. She didn't have to open the microwave to see that it was totally filthy… she could smell it! It smelled like… Abdullah.

The tables appeared to have been cleaned with a dirty sponge. She couldn't even smell the Pine Sol that she had used on all of the surfaces when she was the cleaning lady. Did the new person even use disinfectant?