Excerpts from the book

How To Stop Being A Sad Little Nerd And Lift Something Heavy

Wednesday, 3:47pm. Post-shower, still smelling faintly of fear and rubber mats.

I hadn’t been to the gym in a while. Before, I’d mostly shown up to keep my face fresh in Ethan’s mind. This time I had a much shittier reason.

I wasn’t there to muck around.

I’d finally admitted something I really didn’t want to say out loud.

I wasn’t safe.

If I ended up against a wall again, I wanted to be able to shove back.

I walked in and immediately got flashed by a wall of signage.

The Benji Industrial Complex.

PLEASE CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR BENJI

NO BENJIS IN THE FREE WEIGHTS AREA

BENJIS MUST RE-RACK ALL EQUIPMENT

BENJIS ARE NOT A SPECIES OF HUMAN, ACT ACCORDINGLY

Okay, that last one might’ve been in my head, but it felt real. Real rude.

Who was this Benji? Was Benji a person or a verb? What did he do to become a verb? That’s next-level screwing up.

I made a mental note to never become a Benji. Not even by accident. Not even on a spiritual level.

Ethan was near the free weights, helping a guy adjust his form. Calm. Focused. Completely at home in there.

He looked up and spotted me.

“Dink,” he said, like my name wasn’t also the sound a microwave makes when the kai was done.

“Handsome Man,” I replied, trying to sound casual.

I sounded casual on the outside. On the inside, my brain was doing a full haka and forgetting the words halfway through.

He walked over, wiping his hands on a towel. “You back in?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?” he repeated, eyebrow up.

That was fair. Sort of wasn’t a plan. Sort of was how you ended up wandering into alleys with strangers.

I stared at the Benji signs instead of his eyes.

Then I made myself do it. Say the thing. Be cringe. Be a grown-up. Horrific.

“I want to take this seriously,” I said. “The gym. Training. All that shit.”

Ethan nodded, not laughing, which was rude because I was clearly providing him with comedy material.

“What changed?” he asked.

Everything.

Nothing.

My whole life and also a guy with an accent.

I shrugged. “Auckland,” I said. “Feels bigger than I thought.”

“Okay,” he said, softer. “What do you want?”

I swallowed.

“I want you to train me,” I said. “Like properly. PT. Program. All of it.”

There. Out. Done.

I waited for him to say no. Or to say yes and then immediately hand me a pamphlet called How to Stop Being a Sad Little Nerd and Lift Something Heavy.

Instead, he smiled.

“Sweet,” he said. “We can do that.”

I blinked. “That’s it?”

He laughed. “That’s it.”

I nodded and tried not to grin like an idiot.

Then Ethan pointed past me.

“You see the signs?”

I turned.

He meant the Benji signs.

“Yes,” I said. “I feel targeted. Great job.”

“Good,” he said. “Rule one. Don’t be a Benji.”

“I would rather die.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said, then clapped my shoulder.

I flinched.

Barely. Ethan noticed anyway.

Ethan’s hand paused. He didn’t pull away like he’d done something wrong. He just moved his hand off my shoulder, giving me space without making it a big deal.

“Alright,” he said, voice normal again. “Let’s start with your goals and your baseline. You playing any sport?”

“I’m a bit’a,” I said. “Bit’a this, bit’a that. Anything where I can hit something legally.”

“Cool,” he said. “We’ll build strength. Power. Stability.”

Stability.

That word hit weird.

I didn’t say anything. I just nodded and followed him deeper into the weights room, where everyone seemed to know exactly what they were doing except me.

Maybe I could worship myself a little too.

For survival, obviously. I wasn’t turning into Braden.

Note to future self: don’t flinch. Don’t Benji. And maybe stop calling Ethan Handsome Man out loud, dumbass.

Ethan took me through a few moves. Easy stuff at the start. Nothing too strenuous.

We began with the light weights. The 2kg bells. The 5kg bells. Then back to the 2kg bells again. I’m guessing my screwed-up face betrayed how calm I thought I was acting.

As we got further into it, I couldn’t help noticing the bandage on his shoulder trying to sneak a peek out from under his short sleeve.

“What’s that?” I said.

No filter. It was there. I was curious. There was no point pretending I hadn’t noticed.

Ethan was casual about it. I couldn’t tell if he was rolling his shoulder to show me the limited movement or if it was just a subconscious tic.

“It’s a Bankart lesion,” he said.

I wasn’t sure what money had to do with shoulders, but he explained he’d picked it up the year before in high school and had been doing rehab for a few months.

He still had a long way to go.

So did I.

I was hoping for a cheat code. Something to get me from bean to buff without all the grind. Like an old-school video game code that made you invincible.

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start.

Rawiri popped into my head out of nowhere.

He’d introduced me to Ethan. To the gym.

Surely it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

I put the weights down and pulled on my serious-but-inquisitive face. Channelled my inner Braden and asked.

“Have you seen Ra lately?”

Ethan scratched his head.

“Not for a few weeks, bro.”

His face didn’t quite match his words.

“Are you two close?” he asked.

I nodded.

He turned away, picking up a couple of weights someone had abandoned on the floor.

“Are you going to leave me hanging?” I said.

Ethan stopped. Then he walked right up to me, close enough to drop his voice.

If I was in Dink mode, I might’ve mistaken it for flirting.

But I wasn’t.

This was about Rawiri.

He pulled me aside towards the locker rooms.

Again, Dink mode not activated. Bully for him.

“How much do you know about your mate?” he asked quietly.

I laughed, then realised how loud it sounded and killed it halfway.

“We grew up together,” I said. “Since kindy.”

Ethan paced. Scratched his head again.

“Bro,” he said. “That guy’s bad news.”

“You’ve gotta give me more than that.”

Ethan folded his arms. Serious.

“He’s on the run,” he said, eyes flicking towards the doorway. “He owes a lot of people a lot of money.”

I laughed again. Quieter.

“Bullshit,” I said. “That’s fucking bullshit. What, next you’re gonna tell me he’s a drug dealer?”

Ethan didn’t say a word.

He didn’t have to.

“He’s a drug dealer?” I said. “Fuck right off. That’s not Ra. He’s just a little… quirky.”

But Ethan wasn’t smirking. He wasn’t teasing.

And suddenly, I wasn’t either.

“That’s all I know, bro,” he said. “I train half the kids on campus. They treat me like a bartender. Nothing gets past me. You’re better off avoiding him.”

I stood there, stuck in my own head.

How was I the last person to know? Were the signs there the whole time and I just Dinked them all?

Cool. Now I’d turned myself into a verb too. Beautiful.

This verb needed to get stronger.