Roy lived in those goddamned nasty sweatpants. I don’t think he washed them once in the first month we dated. That was just the tip of the unhealthy iceberg. I wish I’d known how huge of a lie was below the surface when he first said, “Fitness is my life.”

We met in spin class. He seemed warm and open and kind and God, those biceps! But he didn’t introduce himself at first. I’d catch a smile during cool down. A wink on his way out, hand towel draped casually over the shoulder. A “you go first” gesture on that day we almost ran into each other trying to get through the door at the same time. We laughed.

But, no, he didn’t make his move until I saw him at the juice bar down the street from the gym, which was strange because of what he was drinking. I ordered my usual post-spin smoothie and when I turned around there he was, wearing those gray sweatpants that exposed maybe a little more than most people were comfortable with. His square jaw and broad shoulders made my face flush.

“Aren’t you…?” he asked.

“Tracy. From Joanna’s spin class, yeah! Hi!” Did I sound like a preteen? Because I felt like one.

“That’s right! Damn, she’s good,” he said. He turned his whole body to face me, like a spotlight, all attention on me.

“It’s obviously a great workout. But I feel like each class is, I don’t know, like a journey!” Why was I gushing about Joanna? It was just a spin class.

“Totally. You must work out a lot,” he said, leering. It was an invitation for me to say more.

“I do pilates and spin regularly, sometimes a self-defense class. I try to stay fit.”

And that’s when he said it: “Fitness is my life.”

I should have run for my life. What kind of psychopath says, “Fitness is my life,” while chugging a Big Gulp full of Coke in a juice bar? More than that, what idiot believes him? But those perfectly sculpted arms sucked me back in when he handed me my smoothie.

“Thanks. These are kind of my ritual. “ I took a sip.

“It’s good to have a routine.” There was an implied wink.

By the time we broke up I’d realize that a major part of his nightly routine involved the Domino’s pizza tracker.

His phone chimed. “Crap,” he said. “Hey, it was great talking to you. Lemme get your number so we can grab a drink sometime.”

Wow, that was forward. But I appreciated that there was no question about if he was interested unlike every other guy. We exchanged numbers. And the wait began.

A week later I was anxious I still hadn’t heard from him. What’s more, he hadn’t been back to Joanna’s spin class. I was out with my girlfriends at some dive bar that doesn’t have a sign out front commiserating about all our miserable dating experiences in the big city. We were like Sex in the City, but not all white. Or straight. Or single. We were nothing like Sex in the City.

“Oh god, guys, remember Frankie, though?” Luz asked, laughing. Luz was a tiny, Puerto Rican mami. I gritted my teeth. Luz put on her best New York Italian accent, which was terrible: “So, yo, my ma’s cookin’ dinner, you wanna come over or what?”

She turned my clenched jaw to a ridiculous smile. “I’ll point out he did that more than once.”

“You ever even have a date that wasn’t all about his mama?” asked Luz’s butch girlfriend, Markeisha.

“I plead the fifth,” I said.

“Still better than Erik with a K,” chimed in Charlotte. Unlike her Sex in the City counterpart, Charlotte was a chill trans Thai chick from Queens.

Markeisha added more, starting to slur a little (we’d been there a few rounds). “Really! You’re going to invite the bitch you’re dating backstage to your Broadway show, where she’s gonna catch you getting a blow job from a chorus boy?!”

“Fuck that puta!” said Luz, pushing a dread back off of Markeisha’s face.

“I never did, though!” I said. All us drunkards had a good laugh at that one.

Then, my phone rang.

“Oh no, girl, do not answer that!” yelled Charlotte, losing control of the volume of her voice.

“It’s ladies night!” Luz said.

“But it’s that really fit guy from my spin class!!” I said.

“You gotta make ’em work for it.” said Markeisha.

“Hello?” I answered it.

“She be givin’ it out like candy” said Markeisha, shaking her damn head.

I whisked myself away to the quiet hallway by the bathrooms.

Roy wanted to see me; I was so excited. He’d lost his charger but as soon as he was back to full power he called me. And he hadn’t been back to Joanne’s because he took a job in a different neighborhood. We made plans to meet up Friday night.

My memory of our first date is foggy. Roy took me to this hip, impossible to get into restaurant in the Village and he actually wore real clothes; he reminded me of a male model that didn’t quite make the cut for fashion week. He listened to what I was saying and remembered details and the wine was good and the staff was attentive and the chandelier was sparkly and the wine was good and the dessert was to die for and his hands were soft and his gaze was hungry and the wine was good. Next we were in a nightclub I’d never heard of grinding up against each other and the music was bumping and the drinks were strong and the crowd was a blur of smiles and we were in the back of a black SUV and we were tearing at the wrinkled sheets of his bed and my heart was racing and his smile was crooked but sexy and my hands were sliding over mountains and valleys of muscle on his back and then I was in heaven.

I remember the next morning much clearer. I woke to the sound of Roy retching in the bathroom and saw just the back of him kneeled in front of the toilet – of course he was in those stained sweatpants. This did nothing for my headache or churning stomach. I rolled over right onto a box of unopened condoms. Fuck. Next week I’d find out I got gonorrhea. He assured me he’d been tested but that there was a lab mix up and he got someone else’s results. It was nice that he paid for my antibiotics.

We saw each other in spin class again and I couldn’t focus on anything but him. A few more great dates and we were a full-blown couple. We traded keys to each other’s apartments. I gave him mine on a key ring with a vintage circus strongman (mustache, striped unitard, barbell). He said he loved it because it showed strangers how important fitness is to him.

One night I came home to find him scarfing down the aforementioned Dominos pizza.

“It’s cheat night, Tracy! You want some?” he asked. It wasn’t cheat night. Or maybe it was always cheat night? Hours after I’d fallen asleep, I woke to him retching in the bathroom. He said he had a stomach bug (He was, of course, bulimic).

The sex was* great**. And afterwards he was always so sweet. One night he turned to me and said “Tracy, there are only two things in life that make me feel okay: working and you.” And knowing him, that meant a lot.

[*usually, **sometimes he couldn’t keep it up, but he’d go down on me for days]

One night I finally met his best friends who were a couple, Kelley and Lilah. I really hoped that we’d all get along. Kelley was a twenty-something weakling Williamsburg hipster. But he didn’t seem to be into anything artisanal, only the most mainstream and commercial stuff. And Lilah was a middle-aged doula for the well-to-do. Seemed like a potentially great night. But Kelley spent most of the night being passive aggressive towards me. And Lilah kept cutting in and chastising him for it. It got weirder when Lilah used spit to clean a spot of sauce from Kelley’s face. Kelley then argued with Roy but it was slightly more playful, like boys on a playground. The meal took a turn when Roy put his hand on mine in the midst of an argument with Kelly. Kelley started raising his voice and ended it by throwing his Coors Light all over Roy. Lilah apologized, told Kelley it was bedtime, and they left.

Roy and I had some really nice normal times, too. Roy bought me Dixie Chicks tickets. I’d wanted to see them my whole life. We hosted a quintessential New York orphan’s Thanksgiving after going to the Macy’s parade. I bought him a new pair of sweatpants for Christmas, which he then started wearing religiously. We spent many a Saturday jogging through and around Prospect Park. And, of course, lots of spin classes.

Then Roy disappeared. No texts. No calls. He wasn’t in spin class or at his restaurant. No sign of him at his apartment. I was worried and pissed. Luz suggested that maybe I should take a break from Roy. Markeisha told me to dump his ass. Charlotte joked that she wanted his number.

Roy came back, his face a wet mess and he smelled of cigarettes. His mom had cancer and he had gone to be with her in the hospital (Later I’d find out that he’d actually gone to Miami with a Cuban model he met at his restaurant). He said he couldn’t live without me and I was the only thing holding him together. He said he only smoked when he got really stressed (another lie, he was secretly smoking off and on the whole time we dated). I felt bad for him and it was kind of nice to see him so vulnerable.

Like an abused rescue dog, Roy didn’t leave my side for weeks, except for work. He even came to my pilates classes. He wanted to quit his job so he could spend more time with me. I laughed it off. But I started to feel a little weird.

Eventually he did quit his job and start teaching and personal training at the gym we met at. He took over Joanna’s spin class after she left. He took on Kelley as a personal training client and they started training together during my pilates class. That way afterwards the three of us could grab a juice (or Coke). Kelley’s passive aggression towards me lost some of its passiveness. And on nights Roy didn’t spend with me, it looked like he hadn’t slept at all. It was all too much.

I decided Luz might be right.

“Maybe we should take a little break,” I told Roy over dinner at my place.

He was a deer caught in the headlights. “What’s this about? What do you mean?” he asked.

“I just feel like I maybe need a little space.”

“Space? Come on, baby. I need you.”

“I just think I kind of need to have some me time.”

“Me time? Fuck that. We got something special. You don’t see me out flirting with other girls.”

“Other girls?”

“Before I met you I’d bounce from girl to girl. I don’t even remember their names! But you! You’re all I care about! Well, you and fitness. But mostly you.”

“I think you should go.”

“Fuck that. We’re eating.” He stood up, his chair toppling to the floor with a crash.

“I want you to leave. Call me when you’ve calmed down and you want to talk about it like adults.”

“Adults? I’ll give you fucking adults.” He threw his vintage strongman keychain on the table. “How’s that for adults?” He muttered this as he walked out, slamming my apartment door behind him.

“Told you he was no good,” Markeisha said. She was patting my back, though. We were on my couch. Luz was on the other side of me, handing me tissues.

He never called. He never texted.

Charlotte sat forward in my recliner, patting me on the knee. “You’re better off, honey.”

I believed them and I was done. But there was the matter of his key. And the stuff I had in his apartment…

It was Wednesday at six. Spin class. Perfect time to pop in unnoticed, get my stuff, and leave his key. I opened the door to his apartment quietly, just in case. When I didn’t hear anything I walked into his living room, moldy Dominos boxes everywhere. Gross.

And then I heard grunting coming from his bedroom. It was him. Motherfucker. And my stuff was in there. Maybe I would just leave the key and forget the stuff. Then I heard two sets of grunts, both male. What the hell?

I crept up on the slightly ajar bedroom door. Peeking through the crack, I saw Lilah sitting on that ratty ottoman Roy wouldn’t throw out. She was fully clothed; sitting cross-legged – body language some mix of referee and conductor – her attention on whatever was happening across the room where I knew the bed to be.

“Try again,” Lilah instructed.

“It’s not… I don’t think you’re hard enough,” Kelley said from the side of the room where the bed was.

Then I heard a sniffle, which turned into muffled crying. I recognized it from when teary-eyed Roy came back after allegedly visiting his cancerous mom.

“It’s okay, Roy. Try again in a minute,” Lilah said.

“I can’t do it.” Roy cried. “I want to please you. Both. But it’s the… the stuff.”

“Aw, come here,” said Kelley. I heard the slap of the men embracing. Roy began blubbering.

And that’s when I sneezed. The jig was up. What did I have to lose? I threw open the door. In the span of a few seconds I scanned the room. Roy’s sweatpants were crumpled on the floor. Kelley was on his back on the bed, legs wrapped around Roy’s back. Roy had collapsed on top of him, a crying heap of a mess. It should go without saying that they were both naked. There were crystals of some kind (Crack? Meth maybe? Is there a difference?) and a pipe on the bedside table. Roy and Kelley looked up at me, sweaty, eyes bugged, and out of their minds. Lilah sat unruffled, she may have even yawned.

“What the fuck?” I threw his key at the bed, and left.

“Wait!” Roy was yelling after me in the hallway.

I turned. He was still naked.

“Go back to your apartment. Goodbye” I stomped onward.

“I’m not gay!” he yelled down the stairwell behind me.

“Well, you’re not straight, Roy!” I yelled back. I paused for a second. “Which is okay! What’s not okay is lying to your girlfriend about it!”

“I didn’t want it. Lilah made us. I want you.” We were out on the snowy sidewalk now. Even Gary, the homeless guy out front, was looking at Roy like he was crazy.

“Marissa from your old restaurant told me about the Cuban you ran off to Miami with!”

“She told you about Ruben?” He was still naked.

“Ruben? I thought you didn’t remember the others’ names! Have fun throwing up every fucking thing you eat.”

“I only keep down what you make me. That’s how much you mean to me!”

“This relationship is sick!”

“No, you’re all that matters. Well, you and… But mostly you!”

I got quiet and calm. I felt bad for him. I took his hands in mine. “I can’t be with you anymore. Get help. You’re not well.”

“Bullshit! I’ve never been in better shape!” He shoved me. Homeless Gary stopped me from falling. I thanked him. I steadied myself and walked away.

“Goodbye,” I said over my shoulder.

“Fuck you, bitch! Fitness is my life!” He stood naked, screaming, crying, muscles rippling in the street. “Fitness is my life!”