Isla is based on someone I saw in passing. Annabelle started as the one who would yank her out of her shell.
But as always seems to happen the characters I write have their own ideas about what their stories are. What I had thought was going to be a gentle flirty four-pager turned into... well, this.
It had several different titles during its gestation. I guess the one I'm publishing it under has meaning for Izzy and Bella both.
-:- Falling -:-
I slunk nervously through the double doors and out into the main exercise area, feeling exposed, ridiculous and completely out of place in my newly-purchased leggings, running shoes and lycra top. The air was cool, verging on chilly, and I shivered as I walked under a downdraft from the building's air-conditioning system.
I had never been inside an actual Gymnasium before, and apart for the brief tour I'd been given with one of the staff I had, quite literally, no idea of what I was getting myself in to.
I stared around at all the men and women, busy and focussed on their various fitness-related activities.
I felt small and lost.
Everyone looked so comfortable with themselves. No matter their size, shape or general condition, every one of them seemed to fit within this space.
I envied them all.
Then I took a deep breath, sighed it out.
After all - nothing ventured, nothing lost.
A line of bicycle-like machines with pedals and comfortable-looking seats was closest. I picked one of the machines, sat self-consciously on it, and stared at the screen with its friendly and encouraging green start button.
It was well past time to do something about the sorry state of myself.
"Come on," I said, softly. "You can do this."
I managed thirty minutes before I felt too sweaty and yuck to continue, and I groaned as I slid my burning thighs off the seat and tried to stand on my spaghetti legs. I stood, breathing hard. Then I staggered off to try to find the showers.
I was a realist. I knew this would be the first step of a long journey.
But I was also proud that I had taken it.
After all, that was what mattered.
.:.
It would be hard to put my finger on the precise chain of events that had woken the urge in me and driven me to sign up. Some strange combination of the weather, disgust with myself at needing to go up a size in trousers once more, and the fortuitous arrival of a promotional flyer in my postbox - clearly they had all played their roles well.
I'd have found it even more difficult to explain how and why I went the second time, when my legs were screaming bloody murder at me and I had to roll myself out of my bed in the morning to even start the day. Any illusions I'd harboured about my physical health were swiftly incinerated; the long-ago memories of being able to run and dance and play netball for hours at a time were just that - memories.
But I persevered. Stubbornness flowed from some deep reservoir that I didn't rightly understand, and I dug in and refused to give in to the strident, unhelpful part of me that wanted to laugh all this nonsense off and go buy and consume large quantities of chocolate.
I slowly stopped resenting the time I spent on the machines, and then, in some weird psychic twist, I began to enjoy the hour, sometimes two, that I could spend on bike or a treadmill or stair machine every second to third night.
I had nothing else meaningful in my life, and this gave me time amongst people, doing something positive with the hours I'd otherwise be wasting, mindlessly browsing the Internet to stave off loneliness and the black crow of depression that alway cawed in the shadows, waiting...
My favourite became and then firmly remained the spinning bikes. They were marshalled against a low wooden divider, beyond which was a vacant space that the gym clearly had not yet formed a concrete plan for. I'd sit or, later, stand on a bike, sweating and burning, staring off into the empty space and wondering what it would become.
Soon enough my curiosity was sated - workmen would be clearing up when I arrived in the evenings, and day by day strange bulbous wooden structures seemed to spring up like fantastic fungi. As more structure was added I realised that it would be a series of climbing walls, part of an expansion into lifestyle-related activities that the gym was starting to advertise.
Thick mats were put down as the various sections were completed, and people began to clamber up, down and sideways along the angular, protrusion-studded framing.
I'd sit, peddling, sweating myself gradually slimmer as I watched lithe, wiry superhumans do things with their bodies that I could not even comprehend.
I saw people hang by their hands. I saw people race one another from hold to hold - cheered on by onlookers. I saw people fall, two or three metres sometimes, onto the padding - sometimes even onto their faces - and they'd stand, laughing, high-fiving their friends before they'd go and try again.
Madmen and madwomen, all of them.
But they were beautiful, unworldly and inspiring, and I enjoyed watching them, envious of the sense of camaraderie they all seemed to share.
And I'd feed off the periphery of their happy buzz to push my body harder.
.:.
My health improved quickly. My back pain dissipated and then departed. I lost a dress size, and a bra size, and one lovely bright autumn morning I caught a rather good looking man giving me a wistful glance as I made my way in to work.
It had been a while since I'd been aware of anyone looking at me, and that brief window of knowing I'd been noticed made my week and hardened my motivation even further. Where there was one, there might soon be others.
I rewarded myself with a lunchtime shopping run for a new gym outfit - ankle-length navy tights and a mid-blue long-sleeved quick-dry top that caught and enhanced the colour of my eyes.
I was extremely pleased with the effect. It was so much better than the shapeless camouflage I'd made do with up until now.
That night, buoyed with a newfound confidence, I ventured in amongst the weight machines. I stared at the pictographs, watched other women using them and then, fighting off my natural shyness and fear of drawing attention, I even went so far as to ask one or two of the friendlier ladies what to do and how to do it.
And from there, my routine and knowledge started to expand geometrically.
I began to understand the language that my body was talking. I started to sleep properly. I began to read up on healthy diets and cut a lot of rubbish out of my weekday meals. And I learned how to give myself time to rest over weekends.
By the date of my twenty-sixth birthday I had lost my second dress size, and my small group of friends were all astounded when I appeared at my birthday drinks in a tiny little red and black cocktail dress that they'd last seen me in at my twenty-first.
For the first time in many years I could proudly admire myself in a mirror, and wear tight clothes in comfort - without any choking sense of self-consciousness.
I was, very nearly, happy.
.:.
A girl appeared on the walls. Whip-thin and of average height, she'd have blended well into a crowd were it not for the long, ornate, brunette braid that first drew my attention as it dangled like a banner behind her.
Once I'd noticed her I found it hard not to see her everywhere; I'd come to the gym and find her lifting free weights, or running at pace on a treadmill, or holding a plank position for minutes at a time.
She always wore calf-length black leggings and a tight sky-blue cotton-lycra vest through which a sports bra would occasionally peek; I had an amusing daydream in which she had a wall-to-ceiling wardrobe containing nothing but pair after pair of these three items of clothing.
Her eyes were a rich hazel, and while she didn't smile much, when she did the slight gap between her two top teeth just made her all the more endearing and fascinating to me.
I watched as she grew in popularity with the other climbers - I soon worked out it was because she seemed to be an anthropomorphic spider rather than a human. I'd sometimes simply sit and stare her in disbelief, almost entirely forgetting where I was as I watched her cling to infinitesimal handholds and imaginary footholds that others simply could not find, let alone use.
I once even ventured out onto the mats to try to verify if a hold I'd seen her dangling from was as small as I thought it was.
It turned out to be even smaller, and I shook my head in thorough disbelief at her voodoo powers.
She had stark musculature that looked like it had been etched directly from an anatomy textbook, a stunning-if-slightly-angular face, and a caustic tongue that could clear the floor around her when she very occasionally felt the need to deploy it.
I was awed by her, and tried to be subtle about the way I watched her.
But she caught my stares; she never said anything, she'd just arch an eyebrow slightly, smile a small smile, and go back to whatever she was doing.
I'd flush hot and try not to do it again.
And I'd always fail.
She was simply too mesmerising.
As time went on it seemed to me that she slowly gravitated towards me during her time off the wall. It was never overt, but when I looked around from whatever I was doing she'd be nearby; as if there were some weird field between us that kept us within a Goldilocks orbit of one another.
And that pleased me far more than it really should have.
.:.
Winter arrived, icy and grim, and soon enough came the long, dark and lonely end of the year. I somehow managed to avoid gaining any weight over the holidays - thanks, I suppose, to the newfound appreciation of just how hard it would be to lose it again afterwards.
My mother was horrified by my sudden coolness towards her cooking and it took me a great deal of patience and vast expenditure of tact to prevent her taking mortal offence as I skipped her roast potatoes at our family Christmas lunch and opted to load up on protein and salad instead. But my self-evident health and quiet happiness mollified her somewhat - and my sister backed me all the way to the wall.
New Year's resolutions brought a fresh influx of faces at the gym as people made their traditional oaths to counter the Christmas spread. I ignored almost all of them; I had strong suspicions that most of them would make it through a month and then succumb to laziness.
But I did notice one of them, a tall, fair-haired, reasonably attractive man with what seemed to be a ready smile. He was usually around when I was, and seemed friendly enough, so I'd smile at him, greet him, occasionally make small talk with him. We settled into a nodding acquaintance of sorts; trading hellos and snippets of meaningless conversation in passing.
One evening I made the cardinal error of telling him my name, and regretted it almost immediately as he took that as an expression of interest and started coming over when I was doing weights or running, or when he decided I looked approachable, or when he was bored.
He'd stand in my peripheral vision, talking at me, interfering with my concentration, ruining my mood, impinging on my space, and constantly commenting, advising or suggesting how I should do things.
It very quickly drove me insane.
