I win.
After the race, Natalie comes up to me, looking out of place as always in her blazer and heels, always navy. I don’t know why she doesn’t wear Riveo sneakers.
“You’ll have to beat your last time to stay eligible,” she says, and my stomach clenches like a fist full of nails. “We like what we see. You’re good, Miss Jones, really good, and you’ve got the kind of … determination that we want to see in our Riveo Running Girl. But you do need to be faster.”
“But I won,” I say as sweat that has nothing to do with my just-finished race starts to gather at my temples.
“You won this race. There are a lot of girls who want to be the Riveo Running Girl. Each one is the fastest girl in her school. This is a nationwide competition, Miss Jones. If you want to win, you’re going to have to get faster. Consider this a little tip from me. I like you, and I’d like to see you win.”
My next race I shave off 3.2 seconds.
Just enough to stay eligible for the Riveo race.
Coach Kerry says I’m pushing myself too hard and that I can’t maintain it. She tells me I’m by far the fastest girl in Atlanta. I tell her that I’m trying to beat my own times, that I’m my biggest competition. None of the other girls on the team who entered the contest are fast enough to be eligible for the final race.
It isn’t running anymore. It isn’t even racing. It’s something else entirely. My footsteps used to run to the beat of Marcus’s heart, but now that he’s awake, I’ve lost that beat. There is no rhythm, only the jolt of my feet hitting the ground again and again. They shouldn’t even be hitting the ground, because that means I’m going too slow. To win this, I’m gonna have to fly.
Running for Riveo is the same thing as running for Marcus, I tell myself. Because winning the Riveo deal would mean money, and Marcus needs money. We all need money. But even running for Marcus doesn’t feel the same anymore. I used to think my running would wake him up, and now he’s awake, and maybe my running was part of it, but he’s not who I thought he was going to be. He’s not himself. He’s ungrateful. He doesn’t know how hard I’m working for him.
Still.
It’s worth it, I tell myself as I see my mom trying again and again to get another loan from the bank. It’s worth it, I tell myself, when Marcus starts seeing a special physiotherapist insurance doesn’t cover. It’s worth it, I tell myself, when I cancel plans with Eliza to train harder. It’s worth it, I tell myself as I glance at Aaron across the field. Looking so far away. Looking so small. Like he isn’t a real person at all.
It’s worth it.
It has to be.
CHAPTER 52
I can’t sleep, so I’m in the living room, flipping through an anime comic, when the phone rings. It startles me, and I answer right away. My palms have already started to sweat and I have a hard time gripping the receiver. I’m scared that it’s about Marcus. Scared that he’s slipped back into his coma or his heart has stopped. I’m scared the worst has happened.
It isn’t about Marcus. A different voice, one I haven’t heard in weeks but used to hear every day, slurs down the phone. “Wing? Wing? Are you there? Can you come get me? I’m, I’m at the Clermont Lounge.”
In the background I hear shouts and jeers. I close my eyes and try to picture him. Standing outside the biggest strip club in Atlanta. No, not standing. If he is anything close to as drunk as he sounds, he’s staggering, falling over.
I breathe into the phone, not sure what to say, not sure what to do.
“Wing? Can you come get me?”
A beat, and then he says the thing that would make me go anywhere, didn’t matter if it was the Clermont Lounge or the Playboy Mansion or what.
“I don’t think I should drive tonight.”
I haven’t driven since I took Granny Dee to drop off those apple pies. I know I shouldn’t be driving after midnight with just my permit. I know I shouldn’t be driving alone at all with just my permit. If my mom wakes up and I’m not home, and the car is gone, she’ll freak out, but … I can’t not go to Aaron. Not with the way he sounds.
I tiptoe down the hall, scrawl a note for my mom, just in case, and grab the keys to her car.
Driving puts all my senses on high alert. Every light and sound is amplified and I’m gripping the steering wheel with both hands, hoping I don’t get pulled over, hoping that the other drivers out this late are being just as careful as me.
I pull into the Clermont Lounge parking lot and immediately spot Aaron.
He isn’t alone. I don’t know why I thought he would be. There’s a group of three guys I don’t recognize with him. I pull up next to them. My hands are slick with sweat on the steering wheel. I roll down the window.