I Swear

4. JAKE

I hate treadmills. Boring as hell. I want to be headed somewhere when I run.

Running before school in Seattle is tricky. During the winter it’s cold and in the spring I’m drenched, but I’m not afraid of a little water, and once you get going, you warm up pretty quick.

Besides, when I don’t run, I can feel it.

I could feel it when I was sitting in class and couldn’t concentrate enough to take notes. I could feel it when I saw Leslie in the hallway and she ignored me. I could feel it when Brad let loose with some crack and Coach made the whole team stay for an extra scrimmage.

When I run, none of that crap gets to me.

The farther I run, the smaller my problems get.

I know it’s all about the chemicals in my brain and the way my body deals with stress, but it seems way simpler than that. When I wake up and run, something shifts. And I don’t mean the things in my life magically get better. Or even change.

It’s more like I change.

It’s not a big change. It’s a tiny shift—like when my mom moves a picture frame a couple of inches to the right so that it’s hanging level on the wall again. Before she does that, it’s like all you can see in the whole living room—that crooked picture. Once it’s fixed, all you notice is the picture. You don’t spend time thinking about how screwed up it looks—just who’s inside the frame.

Running is like that. It makes me see all the same stuff—really see it—without thinking about how screwed up it is.

This morning was warmer than it had been, and when the alarm went off at six a.m., I rolled out and pulled on the shorts and long-sleeve running shirt I had set out last night after I got back from Leslie’s. I grabbed my Nano and headed downstairs to pull on my shoes by the front door.

As I passed Jillian’s door, I heard something and stopped. The door to the media room was cracked open a bit and I could see a light in the corner. It was coming from the laptop Jillian and I share. My eyes were full of sleep crap, so I rubbed them and finally focused on Beth on the air mattress in the corner, peering at the screen. Her shoulders were shaking. The sound I’d heard was her sniffing.

I thought about asking her if she was okay, but Krista was passed out next to her and Katherine was on the pull-out. Besides, Beth is always okay—or isn’t interested in talking about if she isn’t okay.

The sun was already coming up when I hit the sidewalk outside our house and started down the block. I love mornings like this in Seattle—you can see Mount Hood from the hill where we live, and when it’s clear and the sun starts coming up, you get this awesome view that reminds you why it’s not so bad to put up with the rain the rest of the time. The air was fresh and I thought about Leslie and wondered what time she’d made it to Portland last night.

I’d begged her to let me come.

“It’ll just be easier if you’re not involved,” she said.

“But I am involved,” I said.

She sighed and looked down at the floor. I hooked a finger under her chin and gently pulled it up toward my face. One more time I leaned in close to her. One more time I tried to kiss her. One more time she pulled away.

“Jake, don’t.”

I stepped back and shook my head. “I don’t get you.”

“I know,” she said.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing, Jake. Everything is right with you.”

“Then why won’t you kiss me?”

She didn’t have an answer. She never did.

• • •

Thinking about Leslie crying late last night made me push my speed so I could get back home to shoot her a text. Mile six was a killer, but I punched through it and was walking the last block to cool down when Macie rounded the corner in her black 5 Series Bimmer, trying to break the sound barrier. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I’d have stepped off the curb and been run over, but I stopped short as she blasted past me. She threw up a hand and smiled like she was on the campaign trail with her dad.

I shook my head and frowned, stepping into the street as she passed, then standing with my arms outstretched in her rearview mirror, silently asking, “What the hell?”

I’m sure she didn’t see me. Macie Merrick never looks back.

• • •

No text from Leslie when I got back to my room. I shot her a message and jumped in the shower. No text when I got outta the shower, so I called her phone. No answer, so I left her a voice mail.

I was in the kitchen eating some cereal when my phone rang. I grabbed it and answered before I saw the ID. I knew it was her.

“Hey, dude.” I smiled into the phone. “How’s Portland?”

There was a pause on the other end. “Jake?”

It was Brad.

“Oh—hey, man. What’s up? Sorry—thought you were Leslie.”

There was a longer pause this time. “Oh. Shit.”

“Brad?”

“You don’t know yet?”

“Don’t know what?”

“The girls were at your place last night, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “What don’t I know?”

“You haven’t . . . talked to them this morning?”

“I just got back from my run. Your girlfriend almost mowed me down on the corner, but no, I haven’t talked to them.”

“Oh, man.”

Silence.

“Brad? Where are you? What is going on?”

“I’m at school.” He paused. “Sitting here in my truck . . .” His voice trailed off.

I looked at the clock. What was he doing at school already? I felt a weird, tense place in my stomach.

“What don’t I know, Brad?” My heart was racing again like I was still running. He was making me nervous.

“Hurry up and get here, and I’ll—”

“Brad! F*cking tell me already.”

Another long pause. I turned around and flipped on the water to rinse my bowl out.

“Leslie is dead,” he said quietly.

I stood there, blinking, holding the phone in one hand and my cereal bowl in the other. The sound of the water against the stainless sink roared in my ears. I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t hear. Finally I gasped—a long, slow choke of air rattled into my chest and out again as soon as it came.

“What?”

It was all I could get out. I heard glass breaking. I saw my cereal bowl against the granite countertop. It had been circular and now it was tiny triangles—specks of white.

“They found her in her garage this morning—in her mom’s car. It had been running all night.”

“What do you mean?” I could hear the words he was saying, and they seemed to be coming out in order, but none of them made sense.

“She had a bag on her lap—like she was packed for a trip or something. But she never left the garage.”

I tried to pick up the triangle of bowl on the counter but my hand wouldn’t work, and as the shard fell into the sink with the others, I felt my knees begin to buckle. I leaned back against the counter as my mom rounded the corner with her briefcase, her heels clicking on the dark wood.

“Jake?” She said my name like a question. Her wide, blue eyes searched mine for answers, then darted to the shards of bowl on the counter and in the sink, the water running hard and loud as I slowly melted down the cabinets and onto the floor. I was holding on to my phone like it was the only thing that would keep me upright. As I looked at my mom—framed by the doorway—the room seemed to shift an inch or two, like the whole world had dropped off center to the left.

Not a big change.

But it was all I could see.

Brad kept saying my name into the phone. His voice sounded far away behind the roar in my ears. My face was hot and wet with sweat and something else. I couldn’t see clearly and wiped at my eyes. My hand came away wet, and that’s when I knew that I was crying. I felt a weight in my chest like I was underwater, and realized I needed to breathe—it wasn’t happening by itself. I gasped and choked into the phone.

“Brad.” And then again, louder. “Brad.”

“Yeah, man. I’m here.”

“Where’s Jillian?”