Meet me in the Middle

Chapter 1

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I make my way into the gym Diane chose to use for today's session, throwing my half-eaten breakfast sandwich in the bin, near the door. You can rest in this life, indulge in this life, love in this life. This mantra was exhausting. "Don't think I didn't see that Lieutenant Bishop, I'm going to have to write you up for that" Diane likes teasing me about my eating habits.

"Hey. I'm sleeping, I'm going to therapy to earn my wife's love back, but I have never been one to indulge in food. I don't like eating so sue me, and getting half of that greased up slice of bread in my body should be noted in that little black book you have on me." I tap at her bag, trying to sound sarcastic but it coming out a bit snarky. "Sorry. I think only talking to a shrink these last three weeks have been really bad for my sarcasm."

Diane barks out a short laugh while handing me the smoothie menu at the juice bar. I raise my eyebrow. Is she serious, I get to eat, well drink, something healthy again. Not giving her the opportunity to take it back I tell the kid behind the counter I want the green smoothie, ignoring the dramatic eyeroll from my gym partner for the day. "You didn't really eat half of that sandwich, did you?" I grin at her with a small shake of my head that she may have missed if she wasn't a freaking shrink that's trained to assess every little thing I do. "I can promise you that I will drink the whole smoothie though"

Taking the straw out of my mouth after swallowing half off it on our way to the treadmills. I look at her sheepishly and smile for the first time in weeks. The muscles in my cheeks, that has been laying dormant, making themselves known.

"You are one of a kind Bishop." She shakes her head in amusement. "I gave you an assignment to eat nothing but junk food and candy for five days and yet here you are, all giddy over a kale and some fungus smoothie." Her words getting further away as I basically skip to my treadmill having finished my first meal, if you can call it that, in five days. Like I said, not a fan of putting anything in my body that's bad for it.

"How's that ankle Bishop?" She points to it as we start stretching, but I'm jumping up and down too excited to take note of the question and jump on the treadmill, stretching my arms. "I can't believe I'm finally going to be allowed to run again. This makes me way giddier than my kale, cucumber, apple and mint smoothie. No fungi in there Dr. Lew..." I shut up immediately when she grabs my arm, demanding eye contact. "My ankle is fine. I promise. Dr. Lincoln looked at it on Monday. I have a doctor's note to prove it." I lean over the handles, grabbing the note from my bag and waving it at the good therapist. "I'm not pushing through the pain, I promise. I'm just happy to run again. It's been over a month, and I miss it almost as much as I miss my wife."

Diane gets on the treadmill next to me, choosing Central Park as our route and loading it on the projector in front and syncing it to our screens. My muscles are twitching in anticipation. "Nice. I don't think I've ever run in Central Park before." I think back to all my track meets and count the New York tracks really quick. "Yeah, Icahn Stadium six times. Never went sight-seeing now that I think back."

Diane tilts her head to the side and looks at me curiously. "Okay Bishop. We are jogging. I mean it. Taking it slow. I want you to enjoy the scenery and ease back into it." She holds her hand over the buttons so I can't increase the speed she already programmed. "Let's start with two miles in thirty minutes?" Maybe I should get my hearing looked at the next time I go for a check up because it sounded like... and from the expression on her face it seems like there's no problem with my hearing after all.

"Please tell me you're kidding?" I look at her dumbfounded, my legs now tingling to run away. For a slit second today I forgot this was still therapy to fix my brain. I just got so excited to finally work out again. "Diane, with all due respect I ran the ten thousand meters in thirty minutes when I won gold in the Olympics." I hate whining, but I mean seriously!?