The girl strides.
I struggle.
When I started running, I felt like I was in the Olympic four-hundred-meter final. Now I feel like exactly what I am--a suburban taxi driver who doesn't exercise enough.
I feel pitiful.
Uncoordinated.
My legs labor to lift and drag me forward. My feet feel as though they're plowing the earth, sinking in. I breathe as deeply as I can but there's a wall in my throat. My lungs are starving. Inside me, I can feel the air climbing the wall to get down there but it's not enough. Still, I keep running. I have to.
She goes to the edge of town to the Grounds, where the athletic field is. It's at the bottom of a small valley, so I'm relieved it's a downhill run. It's the coming back that makes me nervous.
When we make it to the field, she jumps the fence, peeling off the sweatshirt to leave it hanging there. As for me, I stagger myself back to a walk and collapse under the shade of a tree.
The girl does laps.
The world does laps around me.
A dizziness circles me, and I need to throw up. I'm also dying for a drink, but I can't be bothered going over to the tap. So I'm just there, all sprawled out and sweating profusely.
Christ, Ed, I breathe. You're an unfit bastard, aren't you? Even more than I thought.
I know, I answer.
It's disgraceful.
I know.
I also know that I shouldn't just lie here all long and awkward under this tree, but I'm beyond hiding from the girl now. If she sees me, she sees me. I can barely move, let alone hide, and I know I'll be stiff as all hell tomorrow.
She stops for a while and stretches as the air finally breaks through to reach my lungs properly.
Her right leg is up on the fence. It's long and lovely.
Don't think about it. Don't think about it, I tell myself. Halfway through those thoughts, she notices me but looks immediately away. She tilts her head and sends her eyes to the ground. Exactly like the other morning. Just for that sec
ond. It makes me see that she'll never come to me. I understand this as she takes the leg off the fence and changes to the other. I'll have to go to her.
When she stops stretching and reaches for her sweatshirt, I climb from the ground and make my way toward her.
She begins to run but stops.
She knows.
I think she can feel that I'm here for her.
We're about six or seven meters apart now. I look at her, and she looks at the ground about a yard or so from my right ankle.
"Hello?" I say. The stupidity of my voice feels beyond repair.
There's a pause.
A breath.
"Hi," she says back. Her eyes are still focused on the ground beside me.
I take one step. No more. "I'm Ed."