In Broken Places by Michèle Phoenix

a tall, broad space flanked on one side by bleachers and on the other by high windows. Ifigured I might as well get this visit over with on my first day at school, because chances were slim I’d ever enter the space again. Gyms, in my experience, had nothing to offer but sweat, which I considered humanity’s greatest design flaw, and pain, which only looked noble in the worlds of Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan . So I looked around, acknowledged the gym’s size and technology, and mentally checked it off my list of places to see.
    Gus was giving me a rundown of the competitive sports in which the school’s teams participated when a door above the bleachers opened and a man carrying a bucket entered the gym. Years of effort had trained me well in the art of greeting men who, even from a distance, appeared to be rather attractive. I looked away and focused on my double chins, which Trey insisted I didn’t have. But in the distorted mirror of my mind, they were the size of a cherub’s rear—and nowhere near as cute.
    “Hey, Gus,” the sandy-haired man said, raising a hand in greeting.
    “Scott! What are you doing working on a Saturday?”
    “Beats sitting at home,” the younger man answered. “Where’s Bev?”
    “I traded her in for a younger model!” Gus laughed. “Actually, she’s giving a little guest of ours a tour of the ladies’ room. Don’t go too far—she’ll be wanting to see you.”
    “Not going anywhere,” Scott answered, hiking up his jeans and hunkering down to peer more closely at the benches in the bleachers. “I’ve got a boatload of gum to scrape off before I’m through here.”
    “Great thinking, my friend! That’s one less thing for old Gus to do!”
    “A custodian?” I whispered to Gus, my chins swinging against each other in my mind as I spoke.
    “The head coach and health teacher,” he answered.
    “Scott Taylor!” Bev shrilled from right behind me, scaring me so badly with her deeply Southern exclamation that I thought I’d have to make a trip to the ladies’ room myself. “Get your buns down here so you can meet my new friends!”
    Her voice echoed around the gym as Scott threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Yes, ma’am!” he yelled down to a beaming Bev.
    “Smart boy,” Gus whispered to me, traces of husbandly pride in his smile. “When Bev gives an order, the only correct answer is a resounding ‘Yes, ma’am!’ Learned that on my honeymoon.”
    Scott trotted over to us moments later, and I realized he was taller and younger up close than he’d appeared from afar. A quick glance took stock of his short, wavy hair, his deep-brown eyes, and the shadow of stubble across his jaw. I added love handles to my chin obsession and bent down to straighten Shayla’s blue hair clips.
    “Scott, my boy,” Gus said, “I’d like you to meet Shelby Davis, your future wife.”
    I straightened slowly—dumbfounded. If Shayla’s eyes could have outgrown her face, they would have done so at that moment. Just as my embarrassment was outgrowing my poise. I looked from Gus’s cheerful smile to Shayla’s frozen stare to Bev’s Cheshire grin. I looked into the rafters, I skimmed the gym’s blue floor, and I sent up a prayer, once again, for a spontaneous Rapture.
    “Well, it sure took you long enough,” Scott said, and I could see from my peripheral vision that he was extending a hand toward me. “Where’ve you been all my life?”
    The smile in his voice proved either that he had a healthy sense of humor or that he shared a delusional disorder with my former friend, Gus. “Running from humiliating moments just like this one,” I answered his question, shaking his hand without ever actually making eye contact.
    “She’s the English teacher we’ve been waiting for since the beginning of the school year! And this,” Bev added as if this were the most normal conversation in the world, “is Shayla. Shelby’s daughter.” She caught herself. “I mean . . .