The Gym Reunion
"She runs into her ex-boyfriend at the gym—ten years after they broke up, both of them transformed. He's no longer the skinny boy from sixth form. She's no longer the shy girl who let him go. The steam room remembers everything."
I almost don't recognize him.
The skinny Somali boy from sixth form is gone. In his place is a man—broad shoulders, muscled arms, the kind of body that comes from years of dedication.
"Asma?"
The voice is the same. The face, when I look closer, is the same.
"Dalmar." I grip my water bottle like a weapon. "It's been a while."
"Ten years." He sets down his weights. "You look—different."
"So do you."
We stare at each other across the gym floor.
Neither of us moves.
We were seventeen when we dated.
First love, first everything. We learned together—awkward kisses in the cinema, fumbled touches in his car, promises we were too young to keep.
Then university happened. Different cities. Different lives. A mutual fade that hurt more than any dramatic breakup.
I haven't thought about him in years.
I'm lying.
I think about him every time someone else fails to compare.
"Spot me?" he asks.
"What?"
"Bench press. I need a spotter." He gestures at the weights. "Unless that's too weird."
"It's not weird."
It's extremely weird.
But I follow him to the bench.
We talk between sets.
Safe topics at first—jobs, family, the mutual friends we've lost touch with. But underneath, something else is happening.
"You never married," he says. Not a question.
"Neither did you."
"How do you know?"
"No ring." I nod at his hand. "And you're at the gym at 10 PM. Married men don't have that freedom."
"Maybe I'm divorced."
"Are you?"
"No." He sits up from his last set. "Never got close."
"Why not?"
"Comparison problem." He meets my eyes. "Everyone fell short of someone."
"Of who?"
He doesn't answer.
He doesn't have to.
"I should go," I say when we've exhausted every acceptable topic.
"Should you?"
"We're exes, Dalmar. There's a reason we didn't work out."
"We were children." He stands. "That reason doesn't exist anymore."
"So what exists now?"
"I don't know." He steps closer. "But I'd like to find out."
"In a gym?"
"The steam room is private."
I should say no.
Ten years of carefully rebuilding myself after him. Ten years of telling myself I moved on.
But he's looking at me the way he did when we were seventeen and nothing was complicated yet.
"Five minutes," I hear myself say.
"That's all I need."
The steam room is empty.
At 10 PM, most people have gone home. It's just us and the heat and ten years of unfinished business.
"I never stopped thinking about you," he says.
"Dalmar—"
"Every relationship. Every woman. You were always there." He steps toward me through the steam. "I told myself it was nostalgia. First love is just chemicals. But seeing you tonight—"
"What?"
"It's not nostalgia." He reaches me. "It's unfinished."
He kisses me.
Ten years dissolve.
He kisses like he used to—hungry, desperate—but better. More confident. More skilled. All the awkwardness of seventeen burned away.
"Dalmar—we shouldn't—"
"We've been should-ding for ten years." He pushes me against the wall. "I'm done should-ding."
His hands find my gym clothes. My hands find his.
In the steam, we become what we never got to be.
He lifts me against the tile.
My legs wrap around him, my back against the warm wall, his body hard against mine.
"Ten years—" he gasps.
"Don't talk about time—"
"I'm making up for lost time—"
He pushes into me.
We're not teenagers anymore.
We know what we're doing now. Know how bodies work, how pleasure builds, what each other need without the fumbling guesswork of before.
"Yes—there—"
He moves with precision. The steam swirls around us. Someone could walk in any moment.
Neither of us cares.
"Dalmar—I'm going to—"
"With me—" He speeds up. "Like it should have been—"
We come together.
Clinging to each other.
Breathing hard.
Finally finished with what we started ten years ago.
"That wasn't five minutes," I say.
"You're not complaining."
"I'm observing." I push him back slightly. "What happens now?"
"Now I take you to dinner."
"It's almost eleven."
"There's a 24-hour café near my flat." He touches my face. "I don't want this to end yet."
"The sex?"
"The talking." He kisses my forehead. "The sex was incredible. But I want to know you. The woman you became while I wasn't looking."
"She's complicated."
"I have time."
We go to the café.
Talk until 4 AM. Fill in the gaps of ten years with stories and confessions and the kind of honesty we were too young for before.
"I'm not letting you disappear again," he says when he walks me to my flat.
"I'm not planning to disappear."
"Good." He kisses me—soft this time, a promise. "Same gym tomorrow?"
"Same gym forever if that's what it takes."
"That's dramatic."
"I'm a dramatic person." I smile. "You should have remembered that."
"I remembered everything." He takes my hand. "That's why I never got over you."
We don't get over each other.
A month later, he's sleeping at my place more than his. Three months later, we're looking at flats together.
"Second chances are rare," my mother says.
"This isn't a second chance." I watch Dalmar laugh at something across the room. "This is picking up where we left off."
"After ten years?"
"Some things are worth waiting for."
She's quiet.
"Don't let this one go," she finally says.
I don't plan to.
Not this time.
Not ever again.