And I start to clean. I clean until the blood is gone, but even then I keep scrubbing. I scrub until my arms ache, and when my mom comes in the door I’m still on my hands and knees, scrubbing the floor like it’ll never be clean again. I’m shaking so bad I can’t even stand.
I don’t know how I’m going to run on Saturday. Running, the thing that has been everything, more than everything, doesn’t feel so important anymore.
CHAPTER 58
The hospital patched up LaoLao, gave her a blood transfusion and sent her home with a stern lecture about being careful with knives. She won’t be able to go back to the restaurant for a while. She’s spent the past two days tucked up in bed with Granny Dee fussing over her. Even Marcus has been trying to take care of her, when he isn’t in any kind of shape to be taking care of anyone but himself.
Last night I went into my grannies’ room. Marcus was in there; his room and their room are both on the ground floor, so he can wheel himself back and forth pretty easily. LaoLao was propped up by so many pillows she looked like she was sitting on a pillow throne. Granny Dee was sat on her bed.
“I’m sorry I can’t come see you run tomorrow,” she said. Because even though she’s not bleeding anymore, she’s weak, and the heat and the crowds wouldn’t be good for her.
“It’s all right,” said Granny Dee, patting LaoLao’s wrinkled hand with her own gnarled one. “I’ll stay home with you tomorrow. Wouldn’t be fair for me to go without you.”
“I don’t know if I want to go,” I whispered.
“Not go? But, Wing, this is what you’ve been working so hard for. You’ve got to go.” Granny Dee nodded so emphatically her glasses nearly bounced off her nose.
“I don’t know if I can win. I’m scared I won’t win and it will have all been for nothing.”
“That’s not true. Look at you! You’re the fastest girl in your school. My goodness, you’re the fastest girl in all of Atlanta!” Granny Dee said.
Marcus cleared his throat. “You know what, Wing? Remember all that crap I used to say about how I played football for the crowds? And because I wanted to go pro?”
I nodded.
“I’d give just about anything to be able to go out and throw a ball around with Aaron. I know I don’t have any right to miss anything, but I can’t help it. I miss playing football so much. Just football. Not the winning. The game.”
He looked at me. “Wing, just do what you do. Run.”
Granny Dee took my hand. “You don’t have to win, Wing. We’re so proud of you. And if you don’t win, we’ll figure it out. You can’t run with all this pressure weighing you down. Tomorrow, you run the way you did when you first showed me what you could do. Go on out there and be a show-off.”
“I want to see you run like that,” said Marcus. “I want to see you running for you.”
And now it’s finally here. The Riveo Running Girl Race.
The cheers are deafening.
The whole state has gone crazy for track and field with the Atlanta Olympics only weeks away, and it looks like all of Georgia has turned out for the Riveo Running Girl Race. Even Claire Gordon – Claire Gordon, a Georgia native and the fastest woman on the U.S. Olympic Team – is supposedly here. She said she wants to see “the next generation of great Georgia talent.”
I’m stretching at the starting line when someone comes up behind me and wraps their arms around me tightly, fiercely. “You fly today, you hear me? You fly.” It’s Eliza. I hug her back and then she lets me go, turns to the crowd, and holds up my hand, like she did at the pep rally, and the crowd goes crazy.
“You’re the fan favorite,” she whispers in my ear. “Don’t disappoint them. You can do this.” I watch, eyes prickling with tears, as she jogs to the side of the track.
I repeat her words over and over again in my head. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this…
But I don’t know if I can. My stomach is in my throat, my heart is in my feet, none of my body parts are where they are meant to be, and I don’t know if my legs are gonna know how to run when that starting shot goes off.
I look at the other girls staggered along the starting line. They are all fierce and focused. None of them look like they’ve been throwing up after races or like they really need this the way I do.
I need this.
I scan the crowd, looking for my family. I can’t make out any faces. From the track, everyone is a blur. The announcer is saying something, the race is about to start, and all I can think about is how much I need to see my family, to remind me what I’m running for. I wish my Granny Dee and LaoLao were here. Even though I wouldn’t be able to see them, just knowing they were here would make it better.
They won’t always be here, though.
I get into starting position, but when I close my eyes I see LaoLao slumping over in her own blood.
“On your marks!”
We crouch. I see Marcus crying in his wheelchair.
“Get set!”
I see my daddy kissing my mom for the last time in the kitchen, when none of us knew it was going to be the last time.