Page 77 of Past Tents

I didn’t bother changing out of my grungy gray sweatpants and the Green Valley High tee with the brown bear on the front even though I’d probably get hot. Hunching over my shoes, I laced them up and tried to find any excuse for why I needed to be alone in my misery. But Shane didn’t give me enough time to come up with anything before he was slapping a baseball cap on my head and shoving me out the door.

All the running I’d been doing had taken a toll on my muscles. I was sore and achy with new blisters on several toes. As promised, Jefferson didn’t try to make me talk. I plodded along a couple paces behind him, working the soreness out of my legs, which felt like leaden tree trunks. All of me felt like it had taken root in stale dirt and grown old. That was the effect of self-sabotage.

But as my feet hit the ground, I felt differently than I’d felt the past few days, running alone. The fact was, I wasn’t alone. Not like I had been in my twenties. My life was different now—with different, better people in it—and I had to allow for the possibility that I was different too.

I took care of my mental health. I took my meds. And in just a few weeks’ time, I had opened my heart to the possibility of loving the only woman I’d ever wanted, and she wasn’t scared off.

Until I got in my own way.

Jefferson kept a brisk pace and I forced myself to keep up, though I still trailed him by a couple yards. Every so often he’d glance back and make sure I was still there, but with music playing on his AirPods, he didn’t seem to have much interest in me. Which was perfect.

After fifteen minutes, my legs started to feel semi-normal and I picked up my pace a little, almost coming up next to Jefferson before he edged ahead, going faster. Fine. I could play this game.

I lengthened my stride the way I taught my team to do when they wanted to inch up on an opponent without using too much energy. Then, once they drew up parallel, they could pour on some speed and blow right by. It was a morale killer and was often the difference between first and second place in a race.

Without realizing it was happening, the fog began to dissipate from my brain. As I took in a lungful of air and blew it out, I felt like it made room in my body for a deeper breath. It felt good. I inhaled and started feeling human again.

My pace slowed to a jog because I didn’t have anything else to prove. Taking more deep breaths felt more important than speed. Jefferson caught up to me and I slowed even more until both of us were trotting at a cooldown pace. It wasn’t until then that I looked up and realized he’d taken me on a loop down the road and back along the path near the lake. We were already back at my house.

The scent of bacon hit me as we walked down my driveway, and despite the lingering nausea from lack of sleep, the idea of food didn’t repel me. Shane had made a fresh pot of coffee while we were gone and started some eggs and bacon in a skillet. Hash browns cooked on a flat-top grill on the adjacent burner.

Wordlessly, Shane handed me a glass of water. I took it into the bathroom and swallowed down my antidepressant before returning to the kitchen.

Ally was right. My psychiatrist was right. I needed the meds. I needed to think and feel for myself. I was the one who battled itevery minute of every day. Not them. If I needed medication to be okay, then I could accept it.

Shane flipped the fried eggs with a spatula in his left hand, separated them, and slid them onto three plates. Pressing down on the hash browns to make them sizzle against the pan, my brother was a great cook. He knew how to get the right amount of crispiness on the potatoes. Those went on the plates next. Last was the bacon, a thick slab, which we all preferred well cooked.

Jefferson raided my refrigerator for ketchup and hot sauce as well as the cream for our coffee.

Then the three of us took our plates back to the living room. With the first sip of coffee, I nodded at them. A run, a cup of coffee, my antidepressant meds—that was the recipe for every good day I’d ever had. At least until I started spending time with Ally.

No one said a word. The only sound was teeth working through the thick bacon and crunching through slices of sourdough toast. About halfway through the meal, I’d caved and let Shane open the blinds about halfway so a horizontal strip of light brightened up the room.

I scooped a final bite of eggs onto the remaining corner of toast and popped it into my mouth, realizing when I looked up that both Shane and Jefferson were staring at me.

“What?” I asked through the mouthful.

Jefferson tipped his head at Shane, giving him the go-ahead to speak. Then he picked up his coffee mug and leaned back in the leather chair, settling in for something that looked like I might hate it.

“You gonna be okay?” Shane asked.

I forced a half smile onto my face and nodded, maybe with too much enthusiasm to be believable. “Sure. Of course. When am I not okay?”

Yeah, I’d overdone it. Both of them squinted at me and grimaced like I was hard to look at.

“Right now,” Jefferson said, pointing at me. It felt antagonistic. I was tempted to thank them both for cooking and running and then ask them to leave.

“Listen, it was nice of you to come, but?—”

“I should have said something to them earlier,” Shane blurted out, standing up and pacing around the room. He shoved a hand in his hair. I couldn’t figure out why he was so agitated when I was the one who’d been ambushed.

“Explain.” I still wanted to kick them out, but I’d at least listen to whatever he had to say. Shane was an insightful guy. It was bound to be interesting.

“Mom and Dad.”

“Still not following.”

“I knew how they were with you, but I was too wrapped up in my own self-loathing at the time to be much help to anyone else. And frankly, I didn’t know everything.”

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