Page 3 of Walking Red Flag

The six and a half miles we were doing that day went by slow as molasses. Not because I was running slow, but because my mind was whirling, and I didn’t like what I was figuring out about my friend.

By the time we wound up back at Hazel’s apartment, I was fighting off a headache.

“See you tomorrow?” I asked.

“Oh, I can’t tomorrow.” She looked away sheepishly. “Something came up.”

I didn’t bother to call her on her obvious lie.

Instead, I said, “That’s okay. Are we still on for the long run Saturday?”

“Absolutely.” She hesitated. “Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Okay,” I said. “What is it?”

I was nervous about what I was about to hear come out of her mouth.

If she said something about giving Asher another chance, I was going to scream.

“I wanted to let you know that I invited Rayann and her friend, Jacinda, to run the race,” she said. “I’m not sure they’ll go, but just wanted to let you know.”

“Oh,” I said, a little taken aback. “We’re still running it together, though, right?”

I wouldn’t have signed up for a trail race if we hadn’t been running it together.

I had issues with trails. I had depth perception problems, and the last freakin’ thing I liked doing was running where there were roots and rocks and shadows.

But she’d begged me to run the trail marathon with her, so I’d thought…for her, I’d do anything.

She’d run a marathon for me, of course.

“Yes, yes!” she promised. “Are you still planning on borrowing your brother’s RV?”

I shook my head. “No, Shasha pointed out that getting an RV that far would be hell. So he booked me a huge cabin in the woods with great views of the mountains.”

“Awesome.” She smiled. “I’ll talk to you in a couple of days.”

Meaning, she had no plans to call me in the next few days.

Something she used to do religiously.

We’d been best friends since I’d moved down here years ago.

She was the first person I met in the running group, and I couldn’t believe how fast she’d become such an important part of my life.

Now I felt like she was pulling away, and I wasn’t sure how my heart felt about that yet.

She wasn’t gone, per se, but it felt like she was gearing herself up to exit.

I didn’t like it, and I certainly didn’t like how she’d talked non-stop about how her boyfriend treated her when she was around her new friends.

After saying goodbye, I headed around the block to Asher’s place, unsurprised to find him gone.

What did surprise me was to see my purse and shit sitting out on his doorstep with a note pinned to it saying “please do not steal this.”

This fuckin’ bitch.

What the fuck?

---