Page 87 of Hold on Tight

Chapter 27

You could turn two weeks into a blur, Jake had discovered, if you were willing to keep moving. You could drown memory, you could drown pain, you could drown the sense of loss that woke you from the deepest sleep with the sensation of falling, as if you’d reached for her and she’d slipped from your grasp.

You could turn running and swimming and biking into a fight, a fight to hold on to purpose, a fight to hold on to sanity. And once they became a fight, you could cling to them doggedly, the way you could cling to the idea that your life would mean something if you could only avenge those tiny human figures falling like rain from the two towers.

Run.

Fight.

You want to text her? Call her? You want to know if she said yes, when the wedding date is, whether Sam will be the ring bearer?

You want to look at Facebook to see if she’s posted any photos of Sam she took, or crooked, ill-framed photos of Mira that Sam had taken?

Run, instead. Run. Fight the weakness.

His times had gotten better and better. They were at the low end, now, of what nonamputee triathletes could hope to achieve. And still rising, albeit slower and slower. Inching up.

He’d run with Pierce a few times, too. Pierce had been the only one who’d seen through the nonchalance of Jake’s answer about Mira at the beach.We’ve been spending a lot of time together.

Pierce had shot him a look of clean, wry disbelief. And later that afternoon, making a before-dinner beer run with his brother, basking for the first time in almost a year in the old ease, Pierce had said, “You guys have been spending a lot of time together, huh? Can’t blame you. She’s hot.”

“Step off.”

“With both my fucking legs, man,” Pierce said, and Jake knew the worst was past, the pity and the awkwardness over.

Because of that, Pierce had been the only one he’d told about breaking up with Mira, about Aaron’s proposal.

He’d told the whole story on a long run, his chest and throat aching, as they had most of the last two weeks—whether from exertion or emotion, he wasn’t sure.

And Pierce had said only, “You won’t convince me he’s the better man.” And sped ahead, forcing Jake to push himself harder to catch up.

That was a brother for you.

When Jake wasn’t running, he swam or biked. He biked the Burke-Gilman Trail from Fremont to Kenmore and back again. He took his bike on the ferry to Bainbridge and mapped out a trail for himself. Not a kindly trail that would lead him around the edges of the island, not a tour of the island’s vistas—the Seattle skyline and Rich Passage—but a harsh circuit of its ridges. A glacier had clawed six grooves in the island’s terrain, and you could ride up and down them in succession, catching your breath before you forced yourself over another one.

The harder it was, the more it drowned out the memories—the scent and feel of her hair, the sound of her laughter, the feeling that had no name, that in her presence he’d been safe and, miraculously, whole. Those moments, with her, he’d been happy, and he’d been able to believe, even if briefly, that he deserved that happiness.

And then one day he ran home and found Sam sitting on the front steps of his apartment building.

“What the hell are you doing here, Sam?” he said, before he could think better of it or watch his language.

“That offends some people,” Sam said tolerantly. “It doesn’t offend me because I think God probably has other things to worry about besides whether we say ‘hell’ and ‘damn’ and stuff.”

“Did your mother tell you that?” Jake asked, and he was surprised by how much it hurt to invoke her, even at a slight remove, even as “your mother” and not by name.

Sam nodded.

“Does your mother know where you are?”

Sam shook his head.

Jake pulled out his phone and texted Mira, “I’ve got Sam here.” No point in making her worry more than was necessary.

“Did you text her?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s going to be really, really mad. The new babysitter was watching me, but she fell asleep on the couch.”

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