Breathe, Annie, Breathe (6 page)

Gasping for breath, he pulls himself to his knees and settles between my legs. “Annie.” He swallows. “You okay?”

“Don’t stop.”

I reach for his waist and we tug at our running clothes until they’re heaped beside us. His toned body is sculpted like a statue, and when I set my chin on his shoulder so he can kiss my neck, I discover another tattoo on his shoulder blade—it’s a black lightning bolt superimposed over a black circle.

And then his hand dips between my legs. I let my body relax, and he gives me what I didn’t know I needed so bad. I cry out and he quiets me with his mouth, kissing me until I feel sated all over, like after a Sunday afternoon nap. I don’t think a thing till I feel him pushing against me.

“We don’t have a condom!” I whisper loudly, and his eyes pop open and he rolls off. From the corner of my eye, I watch him wipe the sweat from his face and clench his eyes shut. Shit, what was I thinking? I’m not on the pill anymore. I don’t know this guy. I haven’t even told him my last name. He’s not my boyfriend. I don’t love him. He’s not Kyle.

Another sob, a different kind from before, builds in my throat.

I rip away from him and work to turn my clothes the right side out and jerk my panties and shorts back on. I untangle my sports bra, shove it over my head, and force my arms through the holes. Slap away the blades of grass stuck to my knees and elbows.

“Annie?”

Ignore
him
.

“Sorry, I got carried away. You’re just so pretty,” he says, grabbing his T-shirt up from the dirt and wiping his hands with it. “I never do it without a condom. Seriously, I’m sorry.”

So
he
does
stuff
like
this
often?
I’ve only kissed one other boy my whole life. I yank my sports bra down over my chest and reach for my tank top.

Following my lead, he dresses quickly, even though he’s still raring to go, if you know what I mean.

“Please don’t tell my brother about this,” he says with a distressed look toward the trail. “I can’t mess things up this time. Please don’t say anything.”

“I won’t,” I snap, more at myself than at him. He looks taken aback, running his hands through his hair, swallowing.

I leave him behind, hurry back onto the trail, and resume my glacial pace. And of course, two minutes later, he overtakes me, darting through the tunnel of trees, leaving me in his dust, streaking toward the sun.

•••

At home, I rush for the bathroom.

I peel my damp, sweaty clothes off and let them fall to the tile floor. My panties come off last.

Kyle’s laughing voice rings in my mind.
“I don’t care what kind of underwear you wear as long as I can get them off you.”

Even so, I always wore cute lacy sets anytime I knew we’d be together. I wanted to feel pretty for him.

I look down at the plain white panties I wore today. They’re good for running—they keep wedgies at bay—but they certainly don’t make me feel pretty. They make me feel gross. I
am
gross. What I did today was skanky and selfish.

I wanted to
feel
something new, to connect with someone, but all I feel is more confused. And scared. Tired. More alone than when I go to the drive-in by myself.

I turn the shower nozzle to ice cold and climb in. Water rains down on me and I pray it will make me clean. “Forgive me,” I whisper.

Guilt changes as you get older. I cheated on a spelling test when I was eight and beat myself up over it for months. No matter how hard I scrubbed, I kept imagining the correct answer was still written on my hand in black ink. Then, freshman year, Kyle touched me down there for the first time on the school bus on our way back from a field trip to the Cumberland Science Museum. He draped his jacket over my lap, unzipped my jeans, and made me feel like a totally new girl. It was exciting until I got off the bus and started freaking out mentally. Was Kelsey looking at me funny? What if someone saw us? What if a rumor went around and people at school made fun of me? What if it got back to Nick? What if he told Mom? What did it say about me that I let my boyfriend touch me in a public place? Was I dirty?

There are levels of guilt, and today I entered the big leagues.

I lean my head against the shower tile as water pounds my back.

I doubted I’d stay single forever. I mean, I want to have kids one day, and that generally requires a partner, but I never thought I’d nearly have sex with a stranger. And that I’d do it on the trail where I’m training to honor my boyfriend.

I turn the water up as hot as it will go, burning my skin scarlet red.

Today’s run forced the thoughts out of my head, but they’re screaming back now.
Jeremiah. Kyle.
I wish I could go back in time to that Sunday night. Silent sobs begin to shake my body.

When I first heard, I couldn’t sit still. Scrubbed the dishes. Poured Halloween candy into a dish. But an hour later, the shock wore off and I cried hysterically. Mom and Nick took turns holding me, to rock me to sleep. But the sleep didn’t come.

To get through the funeral, Nick gave me a tiny white pill. It calmed me down enough to sit through the service and hold Mrs. Crocker’s hand as they flashed pictures of Kyle on the wall. I’ll never forget how his six-year-old brother Isaac asked his father why I was crying so bad, and his father choked out, “Because she’s never gonna see Kyle again.” He was too young to understand what was happening, and the more I thought about it, I didn’t understand it either.

Nick never told me what the pill was exactly or where he got it. As homecoming and Thanksgiving came and went, I begged him for another tiny white pill because I was so sick of crying. But he said it was a one-time deal. That winter, every time tears filled my eyes, they leaked into my throat and caused a cold. I was sick from November to January. Then I decided I wasn’t going to cry anymore. I was too angry. Angry at Kyle for leaving me here all alone, for not taking me with him. Angry at the universe for not hearing my pleas:
Take
me, not him. If I can just have him back, I’ll say yes this time. Yes, I’ll marry you.

Angry I didn’t get to say good-bye.

Today is the first day I’ve truly cried since. I feel guilty for having shivers when Jeremiah smiled at me. I like how he took care of my blister. Made me laugh. Mostly I loved that glimmer of hope I felt for just a second.

That second before I remembered Kyle would still be here if I hadn’t refused him.

“Today, I want y’all to do the entire run without walking.”

At this announcement, a few people gasp and two women who always run together give each other looks. Matt is giving our team instructions for today’s nine-mile run by Marks Creek. Sure, we’ve gone that far before, but we were allowed to walk. Even so, an older man quit our team after the ten-mile training session. It’s getting more and more intense.

“I can run that far as long as I’m chasing him,” the lady next to me mutters.

I laugh. We’ve been running on Matt’s team for three months, but I didn’t gather the courage to ask her name until a couple weeks ago. It’s Liza, and she’s definitely older than Matt. I don’t think she really
like
likes him. She just likes looking at him. Who wouldn’t?

Matt makes us stretch and drink another cup of water before heading onto the trail. I start the run easy and gradually increase my speed as I go along. Having cool weather in June is weird, but I’m grateful for the breeze. I’m also grateful I took a few ibuprofen before the run started. I’ve found my legs don’t hurt as badly when I take it.

When I hit the 4.5-mile marker, Matt’s assistant Bridget passes me lemon Gatorade without asking. After three months of training, she knows my preferred flavor. “Are you feeling okay, Annie?”

I work to get my breathing under control. “Yeah.”

“Good. Get going.”

“I’m not allowed to rest while I have my d-drink?”

She smiles. “Nope. Matt wants you to learn how to run and carry a cup at the same time. You’ll be doing that during the race. Just throw the cup away when you see a trash can.”

Grumbling, I hop back on the trail, finish the drink, and toss my paper cup. Check my watch. Think about my foot placement. Swing my arms. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

This is the first time we’ve run this route, the Cumberland Bicentennial Trail. When I told Mom where today’s session was, she said, “I’ve heard the spring dogwoods over there are beautiful.” My mother does know a lot about plants even though she has a black thumb. And she was right about how gorgeous this trail is: pink and white flowers are everywhere. It’s like Valentine’s Day exploded.

Soon I don’t have anything else to concentrate on. So I think about the real reason today’s run is freaking me out. I haven’t seen Jeremiah yet. And he didn’t call.

After last week’s run, after we hooked up, Jeremiah waited for me by my car. My thoughts were jumbled like multicolored gumballs in a jar, but I was coherent enough to give him my phone number when he asked for it. He gazed around the parking lot before punching the number into his cell. Was he looking to make sure Matt didn’t notice? His brother was dead serious about Jeremiah not hooking up with his clients. But he did it anyway.

At the time, I figured he was interested, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but it turns out it didn’t matter. Why ask for a girl’s number if you aren’t going to use it? Did he ask because he felt some sort of obligation? Or because he felt guilty? Did his brother find out and get pissed? Is that why he didn’t call? I’m pissed at myself for caring. I’m not sure why I do. Probably to give myself a reason not to feel so skanky.

“Gah!” I say to myself.

“What’s up?” a voice says. I nearly say the corny joke Kyle always said in response to
What’s up?

Helicopters!
he’d blurt.

When I turn to find Liza jogging up next to me, I’m really glad I didn’t say
Helicopters!

“Did you hurt yourself?” she asks.

“Nah. Just talking to myself.”

She laughs and nods. “Running definitely gives you lots of time alone with your thoughts. I’m sure I’ll be talking to myself soon.”

For the past three months, I’ve had a hard time maintaining the same pace as other people on my team. Either they’re too slow for me or I’m too slow for them, but today Liza and I manage to stay together for several minutes. It would be nice if I had company for today’s final four miles. It would be nice if I didn’t have to run the entire marathon alone.

“How old are you?” Liza asks.

“Eighteen.”

“You seem older,” she says, looking me over. “You’re very mature.”

“Oh yeah?”

“My older sister has a couple of teen girls. I went to their house for Mother’s Day and my nieces giggled for an hour about absolutely nothing.”

When I went shopping at the Galleria with the girls a few weeks ago, we ate a snack at the cookie store, where Vanessa and Savannah giggled for like ten straight minutes about these cookies with Justin Bieber’s face on them. I still don’t know what was so funny about that.

“How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” I ask.

“Thirty-two,” she says with a sigh.

“You seem younger.” That makes her smile. She’s very glamorous, with brown curls, full lips, and fancy sunglasses specifically for running. I wanted a pair of those, but I had to decide between them and gas for my car.

“So why are you running a marathon?” Liza asks. “You’re the youngest person on our team by a long shot.”

I look at her sideways and pull a deep breath. The only person who knows why I’m here is Matt—Coach Woods told him—and I want to keep it that way. When I don’t say anything, I guess she takes a hint because she changes the subject.

“I just moved to Nashville in January. I’m from New York.”

I’ve never driven that far north before. “Wow, that’s a big move.”

“My law firm transferred me down here for a major case.”

“And you have time to run?”

She glances over for a sec, then averts her eyes. “I don’t really know anybody except people at work. I needed to get back in shape and I wanted a fun way to meet people, so here I am.” She wipes sweat off her forehead. “But it’s getting harder and harder to make the time for these long runs. Last weekend, I was so pooped after that ten-miler that I just went home and watched TV the rest of the day. I didn’t do any work. I better be careful or I’ll lose my case.”

“Running d-does take up a lot of time.”

“You know what the worst part was, Annie? I was watching that movie
Sweet
Home
Alabama
on TNT. The one with Reese Witherspoon? And I was so tired, I bawled like a baby when Reese gets back together with her sexy ex-husband.”

I smile at Liza. I like her personality, and her rambling keeps me nice and distracted.

She goes on, “I guess the movie got to me—the whole realizing-who-your-true-love-is stuff and all that.” Liza suddenly goes really quiet, and I get the feeling she has more to say. “The training is good. I’m finding that it’s healthy for me to get away from the office. It clears my thoughts.”

“Running does that for me too.”

Liza chatters on about the case her law firm transferred her for. It’s a huge sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a bunch of women at a nationwide communications company.

“I can’t discuss the case specifically,” she starts, “but let me tell you, Annie, I never thought I’d have to use the word penis so much.”

She says it matter-of-factly, and it occurs to me that she wouldn’t be telling me about her job unless she thought I was mature enough to hear it. I smile.

“Hello,” a voice says. I look over my shoulder to find Andrew, this tall, middle-aged guy on our team. Instead of wearing a fanny pack, like Liza, or a CamelBak, like me, he carries a thick, plastic water bottle in his hand. He falls into step beside us.

“You’re gonna get in trouble with Matt for wearing those headphones,” I tease.

“Why are all you ladies so into him?
Matt
says
this, Matt says that
,” Andrew jokes.

“Um, have you seen him?” Liza asks.

“He’s not my type,” Andrew says. “I’m into short, curly-haired brunettes.”

God, is he hitting on her right in front of me? She raises her eyebrows at me, and I shrug. He’s okay looking, I guess, for somebody who could be my dad.

Matt jogs up next to us. Andrew yanks his headphones out, hides them under his shirt, and Matt smirks and shakes his head.

“Annie, let’s finish your run together,” Matt says. “We need to talk.”

I gasp. Does he know I hooked up with Jeremiah last week? My body tenses.

“You have to breathe while you’re running or you’ll pass out,” he says.

I remember to breathe.

“C’mon, Annie,” Matt says. “Let’s do some speed bursts. They’ll make you stronger.” He gestures for me to pass Liza and Andrew, and then he shoots off like a bottle rocket. “Let’s go!” he calls, and I sprint after him.

He makes me run at full speed for thirty seconds. Goddamn it makes my legs burn. I’m panting when he lets me return to a jog.

“Control your breathing,” he says.

In through the nose, out through the mouth. Breathe. Breathe.

“Good,” he says. “Now let’s jog for a bit and then we’ll do some more bursts.”

I give him my
I’m-totally-freaked-out
face.

“You can do this, Annie. I’m pushing you because I know you can do it.”

After that speed-burst thing, the jogging
is
easier. But I can’t do another one of those bursts. It hurt!

“Relax your arms and shoulders,” he says, shuffling beside me. “Let that stress go. It’s holding you back.”

I roll my shoulders and shake out my arms.

“So I wanted to talk to you—”

And my arms and shoulders tense right back up.

“This week, you need to do speed bursts every day when you run. And I want you to start adding more peanut butter and eggs to your diet. You’re getting too skinny and you need to eat more as we start doing longer and longer runs.”

Is this what he wanted to talk about? Peanut butter and eggs?!

“I can do that.”

He gives me a smile. I’m guessing he doesn’t know.

“Ready for another sprint?”

I shake my head. He shakes his head back at me. “Let’s go, Annie. Pick it up.”

I jet forward through the dogwood trees. Matt stays with me the entire sprint, urging me on. We do three more sets of bursts. They make my chest ache like crazy—my heart doesn’t like the repeated starts and stops. Somehow I make it to the finish line, and with sweat dripping down my face, I kneel to the ground.

“C’mon, Annie,” Matt says gently. He helps me to my feet. “You did great. Seriously great.”

I roll my shoulders and swallow. I glance around to see if Jeremiah’s here. He’s not.

Matt squeezes my arm. “Relax. Let all that tension out.”

Let
go
, I tell myself.

Let go.

•••

I barely make it to the toilet before I throw up again.

I had to stop two times on the way home to vomit by the side of the road. I kneel and clutch the toilet seat, breathing deeply. I get sick again. Then again. Why is my stomach so screwed up? Those sprints today made me feel worse than when I first tried to run around the track, when Coach Woods caught me running like a baboon. At least I took those ibuprofen. How bad would I feel if I hadn’t?

The bathroom door creaks open to reveal Mom standing there with a towel. She squats next to me and pats my back as I get sick. The lactic acid built up under my skin makes me feel tingly, and not in the good way. If I can’t even run nine miles without feeling this awful, how in the world will I make it to twenty-six?

“Did you finish your run?” she asks quietly, patting my face with the towel.

“Yeah. Nine miles.”

“Wow. He would’ve been proud of you.”

“Mom, don’t. Not now.”

I feel her tense up next to me, and we both look away. I hear her sniffle. I feel bad for snapping at her, I really do, but does she have to bring Kyle up
now
?

“I can’t help it,” she says. “I just know he would’ve been amazed. Never talking about him isn’t healthy, sweetie. You need to let it out.”

I lean against the toilet, resting my head on my arm.

“I’ll call Stephanie,” Mom says quietly, brushing the hair out of my face. “I’ll tell her you won’t be at work tonight.”

“No!” I blurt, and then I get sick again. I clutch the toilet and hate my stomach. Hate it. “I need the money.”

“You can’t wait tables like this. People like it when their waitresses are healthy.”

She’s right. If I show up at work all sweaty and red faced and getting sick every two minutes, Stephanie won’t let me wait tables anyway. But if I don’t go in, I’ll lose out on at least $75 in tips. This is my big moneymaker night!

“Mom,” I cry. “I won’t be able to afford my training. I won’t be able to save money for college. I’ve only got like three hundred dollars right now.”

She pulls me over into her arms and hugs me. “I know, baby. But you can’t go to work like this. I wish you didn’t put so much pressure on yourself…I wish I could pay for everything. You know I would if I could.”

I know. I know.

•••

My alarm clock blares like a fire alarm.

I reach over and slam the snooze button. 5:00 a.m. I got off work at midnight, and now I have to drive to Nashville to go run seven miles? Or as Matt and Jeremiah would call it, a rest day.

The alarm goes off again. There’s no way I’ve snoozed for five minutes already! I groan into my pillow.

The aftermath of last Saturday’s run, in which I got sick for four straight hours and missed work, was so spectacularly bad I haven’t run all week. I skipped my three short runs and didn’t ride my bike to cross-train like I was supposed to.

If I run the seven miles this morning, will I get sick and have to call out of work again? I can’t risk missing work again this week…I won’t be able to pay for training, much less the gas to get to training. And what about supplies for college, like new sheets, towels, books, and stuff to cook with?

My stomach hurt so bad last week…I don’t want to feel that pain again.

When the alarm goes off for the third time, I reach over and turn it off, then burrow back under my sheets.

The next time I wake up, it’s to my phone ringing. The clock says it’s 7:05 a.m. Matt’s name flashes on the screen. Shit. I should’ve called him.