Marcos’s start at the gym was promising. He was a difficult person to decipher, but not impossible. Having spent quite a bit of time with him gives me a certain advantage in explaining everything—and not out of revenge.

Sandra was glued to her phone, listening intently to every word Lucas said, analyzing each sentence—or rather, the phrases. She knew Lucas well. He had a tendency to go on tangents, but she understood why they were still friends. Plus, he was recounting everything quite well, requiring almost no interruptions from her, which was a good sign.

We had left off when Marcos had just signed up at his new gym, a place without a name—though giving it one would have been a challenge, and describing it was even harder. To give you an idea, it was basically a dive.

Marcos had one goal: to get tocho—a word that held a spot in his Top 10 favorite words for quite a while. His entry into the gym could be seen as a victory. He maintained consistency and discipline, going almost every day. But his determination to overdo it meant that this routine didn’t last long.

To begin with, he joined a neighborhood gym, as I mentioned earlier. There was nothing wrong with the gym itself—far from it. The problem was with some of the people he met there, especially one individual: his first mentor, his "master" during those early days.

This guy was in pretty rough shape, largely due to overloading himself with weights for years. He also had a habit of leering at almost any woman who walked by, making inappropriate comments and ogling them lasciviously. Marcos, unfortunately, picked up all of these traits and later began practicing them among his friends—with predictably disappointing results.