If I’d never met Kyle, would I be out with Kelsey right now…?
Through watery eyes, I look around my new, empty room. I definitely need posters asap.
I swipe my phone and look at the screen. No texts. No emails.
I start typing: Got 16-miler tomorrow. Wanna carbo-load with me?
•••
Sixteen miles.
If I finish, this will be the farthest I’ve ever run. I’m wearing the new knee brace Dr. Sanders prescribed—a thin band stretches around my knee that helps keep it in place, but now I have to think about foot placement all the time. I can’t let myself fall. I can’t step the wrong way. I can’t slip on a rock or it’s all over.
We’re running the full length of the Stones River Greenway twice today. I’m aiming to finish in three hours, which is a hell of a long time to stare at the same scenery. Who ever knew blue skies could get old? At least the Greenway has a few beautiful waterfalls and wooden bridges to keep me entertained.
“So what’d you do last night?” Liza asks, swinging her arms back and forth.
“Ate some spaghetti with Jeremiah Brown. You know, Matt’s brother? You’ve probably seen him on the trails pacing other runners.”
“Oh, he’s cute, Annie. Are you guys dating?”
“No. We’re just friends.”
She pulls her sunglasses down and glares at me. “Seriously? Just friends with a boy who looks like that? Have you seen him?”
Yes. Yes I have.
Since nearly everybody in Franklin knows what happened to Kyle, and Coach Woods told Matt what happened and he told his brother, it’s weird I have to explain this. This is the first time I’ve had to, actually. “Look, I’m still getting over somebody.”
“Bad breakup?”
I sip some water from my CamelBak and stare straight ahead. Point my toes. Swing my arms. Thirteen miles to go. A half marathon. Breathe, Annie, breathe. I sniffle.
“Sorry, I didn’t meant to pry,” Liza says softly.
One foot after the other. “It wasn’t a breakup…he…he passed away. I’m running the marathon for him.”
A long silence unfolds between us. And even though I don’t believe in the afterlife, I pretend that Kyle is up there with the sun, telling it not to overheat me on the day I’m running a sixteen-miler. Giving me the strength to push through the next thirteen miles.
Liza props her sunglasses on top of her head so we can see each other. “I take it you don’t want to talk about it?”
No, I don’t talk about him.
“There’s nothing left to say.”
We run for a half mile in silence. For six whole minutes. I start to feel panicky that I’m going to lose my running partner. Why would a glamorous, successful woman like Liza want to hang around an eighteen-year-old with loads of baggage? I’m sure she has more important things to think about, like her sexual harassment case and being a powerful woman and saying the word penis way too often for her liking.
“I didn’t tell you the whole truth about why I moved here,” she says finally. “My firm did want me to try this harassment case, but the real reason I decided to start over is because my boyfriend dumped me.”
“What?” I exclaim. Liza is beautiful, nice, and funny as hell. If a guy dumps her, what hope is there for the rest of womankind?
“He was an ass. Well, not when we were together, but after. He said I was too focused on my work. He didn’t understand why I worked such long hours.”
“You wanted to be successful.”
“Yeah…I wanted a partnership at my firm, but what does that really mean?”
Talking about such adultish things makes me a little uncomfortable, because what if I don’t understand something or I say something stupid? But I’m glad Liza feels I’m mature enough to confide in. “Um, I don’t know much about being a lawyer, but isn’t that, like, the top? Isn’t a partnership the thing to achieve?”
“You’re right, it is. But what about everything else?”
“Like what?”
“Like being happy. Like lying in bed on a Sunday morning with somebody you love? Or going to the beach? Or starting a family?”
Kyle always liked the little things in life: going to his dad’s cabin at Normandy, running the mile for the Hundred Oaks track team, playing Legos with his little brother, watching TV with me. He wanted to become a firefighter, to help people, plain and simple.
Liza keeps talking, “I worked all day every day, even weekends. I had no time for my boyfriend. No time for my family. I wasn’t healthy. I hadn’t been to the doctor in years and I was living off coffee and takeout. And yeah, I made partner, but when I got there, I realized I had nothing else except for money and a fancy title. And it didn’t make me happy. Everything is about balance…it took me so long to figure that out.”