Page 41 of See You at the Finish Line

“I’m tired of talking about him.”

Adam Ashford.

It’s been a long few weeks of pretending I don’t care. I called Leah when I got home from my first day to rant and rave and recite the speeches I had prepared. I was going to yell at him, tell him all the things I had ever thought. I would 100 percent lose the job, but that was okay because I wasn’t staying in Vancouver a single second longer.

She listened while I threw my life away because a boy didn’t remember me. But then I calmed down and began to act like the twenty-eight-year-old I am, deciding maybe the cold shoulder would be a better option.

I could completely ignore him and in that way, my anger would be appeased. And then it came to me. He doesn’t remember me, so I don’t care. Well, IpretendI don’t care. Like, “Oh, people forget people all the time. It’s not like you were important to me anyway, so it’s totally fine. An understandable and reasonablething.”

Fake it till you make it, right? If I can pretend I don’t care, maybe, eventually, I won’t.

Watching his confusion that first morning, sensing the wariness in him, and then treating him like everyone else was the cherry on top I wasn’t expecting. He hates it. Which makes me think that maybe he didn’t actually forget me and is just such an asshole that he wants me to think he did.

Or seeing me jogged his terrible memory and he’s now remembering the connection we had. Or maybe the runner’s high was so intense that I made it all up in my head. But that kiss. What he said after. I couldn’t have made it up.

It doesn’t matter, though, because my plan is working. It’s getting easier to actually not care about him. To move on.

Lying to myself is getting easier too.

It’s exhausting to pretend I don’t care if he’s there—to treat him like a colleague, unbothered and pleasant rather than stomach-full-of-butterflies nervous whenever he walks into a room.

And now he emails me. Technically, he emailed the staff, but now I have his email address in my inbox.

An email about a 5k. Did he not hear me tell Julien that I don’t run anymore? I mentally kick myself. Adam did not plan an entire staff charity race to spite me because I said I don’t run anymore. God, I need to stop thinking I’m the centre of that man’s universe. He didn’t even remember my name.

“You still there?” Leah asks. I’ve been quiet for too long and so is the other end of the phone.

“Did you get Levi tosettle down?” I ask quietly.

“Don’t change the subject. And yes, he’s down now.”

“I’m still here.” I sigh, knowing she’s not going to let this go.

“Don’t be difficult.”

“Now who sounds like Mom?”

“Stop avoiding, Paige.”

I hate it when she’s right. “What’s there to avoid? I have to run a 5k with the staff.”

“You haven’t been running, though.” Her concern bleeds through in every word.

“I’m aware.”

“Don’t be snippy,” she snips.

I sigh again.

“Don’t sigh.”

Instead, I inhale, thinking how much I love my sister and do not want to punch her. “Go boss Levi around.”

“I already did, that’s why he’s full and asleep.”

“Because you told him to?”

“Yes,” she says plainly.

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