Breathe, Annie, Breathe (15 page)

“And Matt can work with you on some exercises to strengthen your knee and thighs. That’ll help.” He pulls a deep breath and scribbles something on my chart. “But, Annie? I have to tell you, I’m not sure if your knee will make it through the race.”

I drop my face into my hands. I think of Mr. and Mrs. Crocker. Of Connor and Isaac. Of Seth. All the people that Kyle cared about most. They were all so excited when they heard I was finishing the marathon on his behalf. How shitty would it be if I failed? If I disappointed them?

And as much as I hated it at first, running and training have become a huge part of my life. I’ve made friends with Jeremiah and Matt and Liza. Who am I without this training program?

Matt squeezes my shoulder as I tell the doctor thank you. We make our way out of the office to the parking lot, where Matt grabs my shoulders and turns me to face him.

“Listen, Annie. I’m no doctor, but I want you to know that whatever you decide, I’ll be there every step of the way.”

I wipe a tear from my eye before it trickles out. “But what about your one hundred percent race-day success rate?”

He waves a hand at me. “This is all up to you. I’ll do everything I can to get you there. But you have to keep talking to me. Tell me everything you put in your body.”

“I can do that.”

I say good-bye to Matt, then sit in my driver’s seat, grip my steering wheel, and stare at a redbrick building.

I can’t give up now.
I
already
let
Kyle
down
once.

After I turned down his proposal, he dumped me, and I thought nothing could hurt worse than that. Mom kept encouraging me to ask old friends to hang out or to spend time with my brother and his friends, but all I did was curl up on the couch and watch reruns of
Friends
and
Law
&
Order
, anything to get my mind off him. Every time I saw him at school, his face looked ghost white, like Elmer’s glue, and I never saw him smile anymore. How could he stand it? I couldn’t even fall asleep at night.

A few weeks later, he skipped his mom’s Sunday family dinner and came to my trailer. “I wasn’t thinking. I made a mistake.”

“When you asked me to marry you?”

His deep chocolate eyes lit up. “No, that wasn’t a mistake. It was a mistake when I broke up with you.”

He promised not to propose again until I was ready, and we crawled under the covers and made up, showing how much we loved each other. The terrible feelings weighing my body down floated away as he kissed me everywhere. His mother would’ve flipped out if she’d known we were doing it during her weekly turkey dinner.

When we were finished, he pulled his polo shirt back on and zipped his jeans. “I have to go home before Mom sends out a search party.”

“You just want leftovers,” I teased.

“Damn straight.” He loved his mother’s cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes.

We kissed good-bye, and that was the last time I saw him.

If I hadn’t said no to his proposal, he never would’ve come to my house that Sunday evening to apologize. He wouldn’t have missed his mom’s dinner.

He would still be alive.

It’s my fault.

In the present, I forget to blink until my eyes start burning. Decide to call Jeremiah. He answers on the first ring.

“What’d the doctor say?”

“What you told me. That some knees aren’t made for long distances. That maybe I should quit.”

“What do you wanna do?” Jeremiah asks.

I sniffle and wipe my nose. There’s only one answer. “I need to finish this for Kyle.”

A long pause. “Then let’s get you there.”

“He’ll be here.”

Mom glances down at her watch. “He’s five minutes late.”

“And he’s never been late before,” I reply. “I hope nothing’s wrong.”

Mom and Nick share a look.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing,” they say in unison.

“Can’t we just start moving your stuff inside?” Nick asks. “We’ll leave all the heavy boxes for Jere to carry.”

“Two more minutes.” I check the time on my phone and look to make sure he didn’t text. He didn’t. “Fine, let’s go.”

Nick leads the way through a busy courtyard up to the dorm where I’ll be living. It’s five stories high and made of brick. A group of smokers is lounging on benches. Kids are tossing a Frisbee. The courtyard is full of laughter. And yelling. And whooping.

Mom sees the smile on my face and wraps an arm around me. “I’m so, so proud of you.”

Hearing that makes me happy and sad at the same time—sad because now that we’re finally getting along, I’ll really miss her. A piece of me wants to stay home and commute to school, but I need some newness in my life. And some time apart might be good for us.

“Annie!”

We turn around to find Jeremiah sprinting up.

“I’m so sorry I’m late.” He swallows hard. “I misestimated how long it would take to walk here. I didn’t factor in welcome-back-to-school gridlock.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It means that everyone and their mom stopped me to talk about nonsense. I barely escaped Gloria, the little old lady who runs the copy center at the library. They have a new high-volume color printer, by the way.”

Nick stares him down. “You’re carrying the heavy stuff, Brown.”

“You got it.”

After Jeremiah gives Mom and me quick hugs, we head inside my dorm and check in. The front desk guy makes me fill out an emergency-point-of-contact form and sign for keys to my room and mailbox. He also hands over a huge student-life policy package, complete with all the rules of dorm living.

“This code of ethics booklet is bigger than a Bible,” I mutter to Jeremiah.

“It probably has more rules than the Bible too,” he replies. “I bet we’ll break every one this year.”

Mom and Nick share another look. Ugh. Maybe I can’t wait for them to be gone.

My room is on the fourth floor. When I step off the elevator, I find a common room with a big screen TV and cushy sofas. A girl is arguing with her mother about who accidentally left one of her bags at home in Alabama. Two girls who seem to be new roommates are fighting over who gets the top bunk. They are so loud you could probably hear them on the other side of campus.

A guy wanders down the hall wearing
only
a white towel tied around his waist. Jeremiah doesn’t find this odd at all, but Nick looks like he might kill the guy, and Mom does a double-take, blushing. I pucker my lips and make a kissy noise, to tease her, and she scowls at me. When I see the monstrous safe sex bulletin board, Mom and I both start blushing. Is that a bucket of condoms hanging on the wall? A little sign announces,
Take
as
many
as
you
need!

Noted.

I stick my key in the lock to my room. This is where I’ll be living until next summer. Here goes. I push the door open and discover I’m the first person here. Nick and Mom come in and look around at the tiny kitchenette and bathroom that links my room to Kelsey’s.

She and Vanessa texted me earlier, saying they’d be arriving in the late afternoon. I’m glad I got here before Iggy. This is so overwhelming I need the time alone to adjust.

“Want me to start moving your stuff?” Jeremiah asks, and I nod. He and Nick disappear out the door and I try to decide which bed I should take. The one closest to the door? Vanessa would probably like the window. No reason to start the year off with a fight like those girls in the hall.

I set my backpack down on the bed by the door and check out my closet, desk, and dresser space.

Jeremiah, a guy I thought was the epitome of muscle, staggers through the door, weighed down by a box of my stuff. “Oh my God, Annie, what’s in here?”

“Books, I think.”

“Did you pack an entire library?” He lurches to my desk and sets the box down. On the next trip, he brings a heavy box of my clothes. Sweat gleams on his forehead. I give him a break after he hauls my printer upstairs.

While Mom sits on the floor refolding all my clothes that got jostled in the box, I’m busy working to fix a bulletin board to the wall. Jeremiah takes the hammer and nails from my hand and swiftly hangs it. Hooray for my own personal handyman!

“Thanks,” I say, sorting my small pile of pictures I’m planning to tack up.

Jeremiah lifts a worn picture of me, Mom, and Nick at the
USS
Alabama
, the big World War II ship that’s docked in Mobile.

“Don’t ever go on a ship like that in July,” I say. “We boiled in there.”

He smiles and sets the photo down. He shuffles through the stack until he comes across a picture of me and Kyle from Thanksgiving the year we convinced our families to eat together. In the photo, I’m feeding Kyle a bite of pumpkin pie and he’s cringing.

“He hated pumpkin pie,” Mom says, refolding a tank top. “But he ate it that time because Annie tried to make it.”

My spine stiffens as I glance at Jeremiah’s expression: interested, but nervous.

“That was the worst pumpkin pie I’ve ever had,” Mom adds.

“Mommmm,” I whine.

Jeremiah makes a face. “Please don’t ever bake pumpkin pie for me, Annie.”

I shove his arm, making him laugh. Then he focuses on the picture again. “His name was Kyle, right?”

I nod and take the photo from his hand. I need to sniffle, but I don’t let myself. I should be able to look at a fucking picture without becoming a geyser. I slowly pick up a thumbtack and hang the photo. Let out a long breath.

Jeremiah grabs another picture and a thumbtack and pins it to the middle of the board, lopsided.

“No,” I say. “That looks terrible.”

“It looks fine,” he grumbles and hangs another picture in a not-pretty way.

“Ugh. Would you go get the rest of my heavy boxes already?”

Mom sniggers. Jeremiah and I both turn and give her a look. She clears her throat, then goes back to folding clothes.

It doesn’t take much longer to unpack the car and lock my bike up outside on the rack, and soon, it’s time for Nick to go meet his girlfriend. It’s time for Mom to head on back to the Quick Pick. And it’s time for me to start my new life.

Jeremiah must sense that I want to say good-bye to my family alone. “I’ll catch up with you later, okay? Text me if you want to hang out.”

I nod slowly. “Thank you for helping us.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it.” He gives me a quick side hug and goes into the hallway, looking over his shoulder at me. My room suddenly feels darker. I need to pick some flowers or hang posters on the wall or fish my cows out of the closet at home.

“You’re coming home Labor Day weekend, right?” Mom asks.

I nod. “I might come home before then though, you know, if I need to.”

“Call me anytime, okay?” Nick says. “Day or night. I’ll be here.”

“Thank you.”

My brother gives me a big hug. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Then it’s time to say good-bye to Mom. And that’s when I lose it. Tears streak down my face. It sucks that something so exciting is so sad. She embraces me and smooths my hair. She opens her mouth to speak, and I expect that she’ll say she loves me. That she’s proud of me. To go after my dreams. Or she’ll quote some “deep” line from that book everybody seemed to receive as a graduation gift,
Oh
the
Places
You’ll Go
by Dr. Seuss.

But she doesn’t.

A smile appears on her face. “Have fun.”

•••

My quiet lasts approximately half an hour.

And then the Vanessa-Kelsey-Iggy hurricane makes landfall. Squealing ensues. Parents are everywhere. Vanessa’s ridiculously hot brother, Ty, moves all her stuff in. He’s a 6'4'' NFL quarterback. The result is that girls we’ve never met are lined up outside our room to sneak a peek. He doesn’t seem to notice.

“Where do you want your TV?” he asks Vanessa.

“Over there?”

After he’s deposited the TV on top of her dresser, he looks out the window. “You’ve got a nice view of the quad,” he says.

“Thanks for giving me the window, Annie,” Vanessa says, smiling. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“That’s really nice of you,” Ty says with a grin that probably makes girls throw their panties at him.

Colton arrives, because he can’t seem to keep away from Kelsey to save his life, and fan-boys over Ty, giving him a high five and singing his praises.

“Dude, that pass you made last year in your game against the Seahawks was insane.”

“Thanks, man,” Ty says.

“Colton, you’re just as bad as the girls swarming in the hall,” Kelsey says.

“What girls?” he asks seriously. He goes to the door and peeks out. “Oh. Girls. Hello.” He shuts the door and sits back down beside Kelsey on Vanessa’s bed.

Vanessa gives me a look and whispers, “He’s got it bad.”

Colton can’t sit still. “I can’t believe we’re actually here. I mean, we get to do whatever we want now.” My mom has never been overly protective of me because she always wanted me to understand the real world, but Colton’s dad is the mayor of Franklin. That means Colton has always been under close scrutiny.

“No curfew!” Kelsey squeals.

Colton stifles a yawn with a fist.

“Not that you’d be able to stay up past ten p.m.,” Kelsey says.

“I could!” he replies, and much eye rolling ensues.

“Your curfew is still midnight,” Ty says to Vanessa, who sarcastically blows a kiss back at her brother.

Iggy flits into our room, sticking a hand out to Ty. “Are you our RA?”

“What?” Ty says, narrowing his eyes.

“Our resident assistant. You look like an authority figure.”

Vanessa mouths, “Authority figure.”

“Are you kidding me?” Colton asks. “You don’t know Ty Green?”

Vanessa collapses into a fit of giggles and Ty checks his phone, not amused. “C’mon, Vanessa, I told Papa we’d have dinner with him.”

Kelsey and Colton leave next. He says he needs Kelsey’s help getting his room set up.

Iggy decides to go join the Baha’i Faith Club, whatever that means.

And I’m alone.

It’s only 7:00 p.m. I do need to get to sleep early tonight considering I have a sixteen-mile run tomorrow. Only two months until the marathon. But 7:00 p.m. is way too early to pack it in. Laughter and music fill the hallways. I suddenly feel panicky, like I don’t know who I am or what I’m supposed to do. Can you lose your identity in a place that you don’t understand?

Do I even have an identity?

Would Kyle have helped me move in today? Would we have gone to dinner in Murfreesboro or explored campus together? Or would he have had to work at the fire station? If I had said yes to his proposal, I might not even be here. We probably would’ve gotten a place to live together by now.

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.