*Author's Note: I saw a movie by this name several months ago and tried to watch it. I only made it about fifteen minutes before losing interest, but it gave me an idea for a story (completely unrelated to the movie.) I hope you enjoy it.
*****
"So what did you think?"
"It was okay."
"Just okay?"
"Yeah, I mean I don't really like doing the machines. They're kind of..."
Before her nephew could finish his sentence, she knew what he was going to say.
"Boring, right?"
"Well, yeah. Because just doing the machines is boring," he insisted in his typically polite way.
His Aunt Rachel had tried everything she could think of to get him interested in some kind of physical activity. She loved virtually everything from spinning to rock climbing and from pilates to swimming to resistance training. Working out was her lifeblood, and after four years of raising her now-twelve-year old nephew Tommy, she was running out of ideas.
She'd taken him with her on every kind of outing and adventure she'd done in the last year or so starting with canoeing on a very calm lake to bringing him to the gym to try using various machines—all to no avail.
Thomas, or Tommy as his aunt called him, was thin, quiet, and shy, and she knew that losing both of his parents had been devastating, so she gave him a lot of leeway. But she also knew he needed a hobby beyond video games, and her goal had been to find one that involved physical activity in the hopes of finding something he'd love and want to do the rest of his life. So far, it had been a colossal failure, but she wasn't willing to give up just yet.
She'd also lost her husband in the same accident that had claimed Tommy's parents, in which she and her then-eight-year old nephew were the only survivors in a broadside collision that took place on a dark, rainy road as they all came home from a Seattle Mariners baseball game.
Someone stoned out of his mind on legal marijuana had sailed right through a red light at 60 miles per hour. The van Rachel and her family had been riding in was virtually sheered in half with her husband, Charles, sitting on the same bench seat as his wife and their nephew but on the impact side.
Charles had been killed instantly as had her younger sister, Sarah. Her husband, Andy, who was driving, was killed when the front half of the van was rolled by the impact of the collision into oncoming traffic.
Rachel had been on the far side of the impact with Tommy in between her and her husband. The rear half of the van flipped several times then came to rest on its side leaving Rachel laying sideways while still buckled into her seat. Tommy was the only one not to suffer so much as a concussion, and he was able to unbuckle himself and his Aunt Rachel and help her to the side of the road when she, evidently in a state of shock, sat down with her head between her knees until help arrived.
She and Charles hadn't been able to have children, and Tommy was like the son they never had. When she later realized what had happened, her first thought was for the boy whom she later adopted as soon as the courts would allow.
The funerals and pretty much everything else during those first two weeks were a blur to her, much like the accident itself of which she had no memory other than going in and out of shock during the ambulance ride to the hospital.
Somehow they'd made it through not only those first few weeks, but four long years since that fateful night. Rachel had been 38, the same age her sister had been the night she was killed. At 42, she was still an very attractive woman with an amazing body kept fit though endless exercise and healthy eating. For her, exercise had been her salvation. For Tommy, it had been the bane of his existence.
"Can we stop for ice cream?" he asked after the got in the car following the failed workout attempt.
She knew she'd give in even though she wouldn't have any herself. The fact was, Tommy could still eat anything and stay rail thin, so as bad as she knew it was for him, she told him that would be fine.
"Can I have a Blizzard?" he asked hopefully.
A Blizzard was ice cream in a large cup jam-packed with things like Reese's peanut butter cups or Oreo cookies or some combination of sweet, fat-ladened candy or cookies. His Aunt Rachel gave him the look, and Tommy gave up.
"Okay, fine," he said knowing he'd be happy to settle for a small soft ice cream cone, just not one dipped in chocolate, something he'd only had once before and now wanted anytime they stopped at the local Dairy Queen.
"Tommy, Tommy, Tommy," his pretty aunt said as he happily licked the cone. "What are we gonna do with you?"
"What do you mean?" he asked without missing a lick. Literally.
"You need to do something, sweetheart. You can't just play video games all day."
"I do stuff," he countered.
"Reading comic books isn't doing something," his aunt informed him.
"Yes, it is. Reading is a verb and verbs mean action. So reading is doing something."
Tommy was polite, and he was also very smart. He had a point, and Rachel nearly laughed but managed not to.
"That's not what I mean, and you know it," she said trying to sound stern.
"Why do I have to exercise?" he asked as he removed everything left above the cone in one large, smooth swirl.
"Because it's good for you, that's why."
"But I'm not fat. Even you said so, Aunt Rachel."
She sighed then said, "Finish your cone, okay?"
Knowing he'd won another battle, Tommy also knew he didn't need to worry about exercise again until his aunt brought up her next new idea to get him interested.
That didn't happen for three whole days, and since school was out, that meant three days in which he was able to be a virtual couch potato where he went from playing video games on the TV to the desktop computer to his iPad. In between he'd go to his room and read comic books. All in all, those three wonderful, glorious days were the closest thing to heaven on earth Tommy had experienced. He'd love to try a Blizzard one day to find out if that was even better, but for now, this was pretty darned close.
He loved Batman and The X-Men, but his favorite comic book was The Avengers. He had pretty much every issue ever made and had watched all of the Captain America movies several times. Comic books let Tommy's imagination run wild, and it, in turn, took him all over the world and into the far reaches of the universe and back in the space of a few pages filled with animated action characters.
His favorites aside, Tommy would read almost anything that was illustrated and often asked for issued of Phoenix Resurrection and Deadpool or anything that looked exciting.
Rachel knew comic books had not only expanded his imagination but his vocabulary, as well. So while she'd have preferred him to prefer soccer or softball over X-Box or Batman, she knew how much her nephew loved adventure so it was something she didn't fight. But she wasn't ready to give up on finding some kind of sport or hobby that involved physical activity just yet.
It was the fourth day when Tommy's antennae went up when his aunt said, "Hey, come check this out."
"Can I keep playing? I'm almost to the end of this level," he informed her.
Rachel sighed then said, "Just pause it, okay? You can go back to it after I show you this."
Satisfied that he didn't have to put the game away, he hit pause then went over to the desk where his aunt was looking at something on the computer.
