CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
One for No, Two for Yes
Late March sucks. The only good thing is that my preferred running weather is finally here, because the daytime temps are sometimes reaching the mid-fifties. Being able to run outside again is a godsend. That said, I’m not f*cking happy. No, I’m not in the depressive fog that fell over me after the incident at the union, but I’m not exactly cheerful, either. I miss the hell out of Chris.
Sabin was wrong. Chris is still with Jennifer, and I do everything that I can to avoid him and especially to avoid seeing them together. It’s as though we got divorced and have shared custody of his siblings and Zach. We just can’t be around each other. I’m sure it’s made him uncomfortable the few times that we’ve all been together because I can’t act like nothing is wrong. It takes all my energy to smile and make friendly chitchat. I chose not to sit with him and the others at Sabin’s play last week. It was too hard. The best I can say is that so far I have managed to avoid being introduced to her. As far as she knows, I probably don’t exist, and I prefer it that way. I keep as far away from Jennifer as possible. Even from a distance, though, I know that she’s pretty, but not too pretty, which makes things worse. I can’t even tell myself that he’s just f*cking some hot piece of ass in a meaningless college-boy kind of way.
I don’t discuss the Chris-Jennifer situation with anyone. Estelle is praying for me, and for Chris and me, and while I was tempted to roll my eyes when she told me, I couldn’t. It’s not often that Estelle is straightforwardly sincere. The boys don’t broach the issue with me. There’s really nothing to say. Sabin hovers more than he needs to, but I appreciate it.
I take comfort in the fact that none of them seem particularly enthused by Chris’s new relationship. I gather they are polite, but they don’t include her in their group. Eric conceded that she doesn’t fit the way that I do. Or did, I guess. The short period of time that I had with all of them, when things felt perfect and safe, is over. It’s not the same now that Chris and I are barely speaking.
Despite my earlier insistence that I wasn’t ready for something serious with Chris, I’m not showing signs of being the opposite of that with other guys. I never feel like flirting with anyone, and I haven’t even gone on any dates. I am more social than I’ve been before while attending Matthews, meaning that I actually talk to other people and study with small groups outside of the Shepherd crew, but I am not attracted to anyone. I wasn’t ready for Chris, but what’s clear now is that I don’t want anyone else. For him, that’s obviously not the case.
After Sabin turned Chris away from my door right after the episode at the union, Chris tried talking to me one more time. He came to my room, and I opened the door, but before he could even say a word, I shut it in his face. I don’t hate him; I never could, but I sure as shit don’t want to talk to him right now. It’s brutal to go from what we had to this. My heart f*cking hurts all the time. Although I want him back with me, I am not going to throw myself at him, or beg, or otherwise make an ass out of myself.
At least planning for graduation is offering some distraction. Annie is coming to Madison for the ceremony, and I cannot wait. Not only that, but I asked her if she would help me move back to Boston and stay with me for a while. I thought she’d turn down such an enormous request, but to my surprise she jumped at the chance. Her marriage broke up a few years ago, she has no children, and she said this is the perfect reason to take a much-needed break. She’s stopped practicing as an attorney full-time and instead does a lot of consulting from her Chicago home, so it’s fairly easy for her to travel when she wants. The truth is that I’m going to need help leaving Matthews and settling in back home, and I’m proud that I got myself to directly ask for help. Annie is proof that sometimes relationships can fall apart and be rebuilt, so I cling to that.
And I run. Every day, no matter how much I don’t want to, I run because of that hope.
I am barely past campus grounds on my Saturday morning run when my feelings start to boil over.
F*ck everything.
I am going to run until I puke.
I am going to get that magazine internship that I applied for.
I am going to hang out with Nichole this summer.
I am going to let Annie mother the shit out of me.
I am going to ask—no, insist— that James come to my graduation.
Chris can go f*ck himself.
Naturally, it’s at this moment that Chris’s truck turns the corner and pulls alongside me. I glance to my left as Estelle waves from the passenger seat. I avoid looking at Chris. I don’t realize that Sabin and Eric are riding in the bed of the truck, sitting on milk crates, until Sabin yells to me. Chris drives ahead so that I am running behind the truck.
Sabin sticks out his tongue at me and grins. I stick out my tongue back, but I am not in a smiling mood. I wait for Chris to step on the gas and put distance between us, but Sabin slaps the side of the truck. “Slow down, Chris! We got ourselves a live one!” He lifts his guitar and rests it on his knee while he strums and looks at me.
I give him the nastiest look possible. My music is not up loud enough to block out his booming voice, and I promise myself that from now on I will crank the shit out of my playlists.
Eric is yelling at me, but his voice doesn’t have nearly the obnoxious power Sabin’s does. I remove my earphones. “What are you guys doing? I’m kind of busy.”
“I know.” Eric leans in and says something to Sabe and then he holds up his arm and points to his watch.
“What?” I really wish they’d get the f*ck out of here.
Sabin keeps strumming his guitar. “Eric tells me that you’re training for a half marathon.”
“No, I am not.” Eric is going to be in deep shit. Yes, he has brought up the idea of a 10K, but that’s only a little over six miles. I cannot run a half marathon. That’s over thirteen f*cking miles.
“I told them that you could run a half marathon at a standard marathon-qualifying time!” Eric shouts. His unreasonable exuberance grates on me. “One hour and twenty-seven minutes.”
Sabin leans off the side of the truck bed and calls out to Chris. “Stay with her, Chris. We’re going to clock her mileage.”
“Go to hell!” Not only can I not run a half marathon, but I am obviously not ever going to run a full marathon. I can’t stop myself from glancing at Chris in the driver-side mirror. We make eye contact for a fraction of a second, and even that is more than I can take. I put my earphones back in and jack up the volume. I refuse to have a yelling conversation with these lunatics, and I’m not in the mood to run behind the truck. And what are they all doing out so early in the morning together anyway? Damn bad luck for me that they happened to find me.
Unless Eric organized this. Damn him.
I keep my head down and do what I can to ignore them until they go away. What I’m not prepared for is that Eric seems to know my route, so just before I make a turn, I see him yell up to Chris, directing him where to go. Although I hate deviating from my routine, when we hit the end of the road that leads to the lake, I go right instead of left. Chris has already gone left, so I’m free.
Until I hear his truck peel back a few yards before he bangs out a U-turn.
“F*cking a*shole,” I mutter. I keep my eyes on the road and just run, not even flinching when his truck pulls in front of me again. Sabin and Eric are cheering and clapping, and I can’t help but crack a smile. They are ridiculous. I give in and accept that they are here for the duration of my run. At least I don’t have Chris in that truck bed facing me, too. Presumably his eyes are on the road. Eventually I circle back and pick up my favorite route.
Goddamn if Chris doesn’t keep the truck fifteen feet in front of me at all times, even waving the occasional car to go by us. I feel incredibly stupid, but I maintain my normal pace. Twenty minutes later, out of the corner of my eye, I catch Zach waving wildly to signal me. I look up and see him shaking his head. He cups his hands and yells at me.
Annoyed, I take out my earphones again. “What?” I yell, not hiding my aggravation.
”You’re too slow,” he calls out. “You’re way, way too slow.”
“Too slow for what?”
“If you’re going to run this half marathon, you better hurry up.”
“I told you I’m slow! Stop saying the word marathon! Go away.”
Back to the music. But my f*cking phone is dead. I can’t believe this. This has never happened. I have never run without music, and I can’t. Without the sound and the mood … Music blocks out everything: ankle pain, shaky legs, the cold, and most importantly, it prevents my mind from taking over. I start to walk. Within seconds Sabin is banging on the truck again, and Chris screeches to a halt.
“What are you doing?” Sabin looks unreasonably upset.
I catch my breath and hold up my phone. “Dead.”
He holds his hands out at his sides. “So what? Just run, baby!”
I can hear Chris all too well when he leans out the window. He looks right at me. “She can’t run without music.”
I hate that he knows me this well. I f*cking hate it. And I f*cking hate how much it hurts to look at him.
And then there is music blaring from his truck. I’m going to murder him. I walk faster and reach the back of the truck. “Can you please go home now, all of you, and leave me the f*ck alone?” My voice is cracking, and my throat is tight.
Estelle rolls down her window, too, and seats herself on the door frame, her feet in the car and her upper body hanging out the side, to watch me. “Come on, Blythe. Run.” The truck moves ahead again.
“Blythe, run, damn it,” Sabin insists. “Please. You can do this. It’s only … What? How many miles left, Chris?”
Chris holds out three fingers and then two. Three point two miles. He’s been clocking me.
I start running. He’s playing the first playlist that he ever sent me.
Eric hollers to be heard over the music. “You’re running a nine-and-a-half-minute mile. You need to be doing an eight-point-five-minute mile at the very slowest just to catch up.”
I’m pretty sure that I can go the distance, but I don’t think I can make the time. I’m a slower runner than even I thought. I’ve never paid attention to distance or pace before, but I do know that by picking up my pace by a full minute is going to be tough, so I’m really going to have to sprint. But, shit, I didn’t know that I could run over ten miles at all, nor that I have been doing it frequently. Now they’re asking me to finish this half marathon.
Sabin and Eric shut up and let me run. Chris holds out his hand and flashes me two fingers as I run through the playlist that first kept me from walking. Last September feels like eons ago. I nod back and immediately hate myself for acknowledging him, for responding to the natural way in which we communicate.
“Faster, B. You have to run faster!” Sabin calls out.
My legs are burning. I’m not made to sprint like this, and it hurts.
“Look at me,” he says.
So I do. He spends so much time goofing around that moments when Sabin is real totally get me. I push a little more, and Sabin starts strumming his guitar along with the music. We must look like fools, but now I’m curious to see if I can make this time.
“Attagirl!” Eric claps.
Sabin is playing along to a song that I always run hard to. It’s one of those songs that would make me cry if I had any extra breath left to give. Even with the music loud, I can hear Sabin singing to me, so I focus on the back of the truck and push myself.
The music changes again. It’s this song by The Lumineers that I love—that Chris knows I love—and I can see him tapping his hand along with the music.
F*ck him.
I’m about out of stamina. It’d be impossible for me to finish at this pace.
“No way, Blythe!” Sabin looks pissed. He can see I’m weakening. “You are not stopping now.”
I just can’t. I can feel my legs slowing despite my efforts. I’m burned out.
“I thought you were a fighter, B.!” Sabin yells. “You’re not gonna fight for what you want, is that it? Stop being such a p-ssy. You want your man? He’s right here.” Sabin stands up and beckons me with his hands, then points behind him and gives me a taunting half smile. “Are you going to let him get away? After all this, you’re not going to just f*cking give up, are you? Run a little faster, and you might get him.”
Sabin’s being a goddamn a*shole. I hope he falls over while standing up on the moving truck. I hold up my middle finger.
“Oh yeah? A f*ck-you? Good to see there’s a little fight there after all. You better go after what you want. What’s yours. He’s right there, Blythe. He’s right f*cking there! Go get him.”
I hold up both middle fingers.
“Oooooh, my feisty girl is back! Maybe you’ll run a little faster now.” Even with the music at high volume, and Estelle and Eric singing and slamming their hands on the car to the beat, I can hear Sabin clear as a bell. So I know that Chris can hear him, too. “So what’s it gonna be? Are you gonna fight? Are you gonna win?” Sabin is full-on screaming at me now. “One f*ck-you for no, two for yes. Do you want him, Blythe? Do you want him enough? Do you f*cking love him enough?”
I hate Sabin right now, but I am running harder and stronger than I ever have.
And I hold up two middle fingers. Of course I love Chris enough.
Sabin grins and winks.
My emotions are raw now, and against my will I look in the driver’s mirror. Chris is watching, mouthing, Come on, come on … His face is serious, nervous almost, and his piercing eyes are glued to me. Soon I don’t hear the music, I don’t hear Sabin screaming at me, or my feet slamming into the concrete. I hear nothing but air and see nothing but Christopher. He wants this for me. It’s because of him that I have any capacity to power ahead in this run. I do want him, and I do love him. I would lay down my life for his, and what enrages me is that I f*cking know he would do the same for me. If I can run fast enough, far enough … If I can run through the heartbreak …
Eric starts clapping, and I know that I’ve hit the distance. I slow to a walk, pulling my eyes from Chris’s. I have to stop and put my hands on my knees. I can barely catch my breath. The truck stops, and Sabin hops over the back. The music turns off, and all I hear is my struggle for air. “You did it, kiddo! That was awesome. Get in and we’ll drive you back.”
My breathing slows enough that I can talk, but not enough to completely stifle the choke in my voice. I stand up and put my hands on my waist. It’s a battle to get my words out. “You’re a son of a bitch, Sabin. I love you, and I will always love you, but don’t ever f*cking do that to me again.”
“Blythe …”
“I’m not kidding. I know what you were trying to do, but it’s over for him. It will never be over for me, but it’s over for him. I don’t need the extra humiliation, I don’t need him hearing all of that, and I don’t need to fall apart again. So f*ck you for pulling that shit.” I drop my hands to my knees again. I feel like I’m going to throw up. “F*ck you.”
Sabe steps in closer and puts his hand on my back. “I’m sorry.”
I nod. “I know.”
“It can’t be over.” He sounds as sad as I am.
“But it is.”
Now Sabin’s voice cracks. “Why … why didn’t he choose you?”
I hear Zach’s words in my head. I tell Sabin, “He wants to hide, and I can’t take that from him.”
I look up at Chris in the driver-side mirror for a minute. For a moment I think he’s going to get out of the car, but he doesn’t. I turn around and walk away.
I am miles from the dorm, but I’ll walk it alone.