Page 31 of Walking Red Flag

“Hello?” I answered cautiously.

“I’m so sorry,” Hazel replied. “I completely forgot we were supposed to run today.”

My shoulders slumped just a little bit farther, and some of the anger I’d been holding loosened from my shoulder.

But not all. Definitely not all.

The last thing I wanted to do was hold a grudge against my best friend, but I was beginning to wonder if she was someone that maybe didn’t need me as much as I needed her.

While I’d been running, I thought about all the effort that I had to put into my friendships.

Why was I always the one that had to reach out? Why did I always have to make the plans? Why did I have to go and sign up for the marathon, pay Hazel’s portion of the ticket, and then book the vacation rental?

“It’s okay,” I lied.

“It’s not okay,” she disagreed with me. “I saw you running past us today and I just…” she paused, searching for the right words. “I guess that I’m just so caught up with work and the new friends I’m making that I’m putting you on the back burner. And that’s not very nice of me.”

She sounded so genuine in that moment, but I didn’t let my guard down.

“It’s okay,” I continued to lie.

She sighed. “It’s really not. I know it’s not. You know it’s not. Can we meet up for the next long run in a week?”

I noticed she didn’t try to meet any earlier.

“I can’t Saturday,” I said, puffing up my chest.

All this time, I’d given her my Saturdays because it was easier for her to run then. However, for me, it was much, much harder.

In fact, Saturdays were one of my busiest days because it was hard to find help that wanted to work on the weekends.

“Oh,” she said. “What about Friday then?”

I blinked, surprised that she’d offer to change the day for me.

“I can do that,” I said. “Early morning?”

“Yes,” she continued. “Early morning.”

After a few more awkward moments of back and forth, she hung up, and I was left standing in my hallway, dripping with sweat, and wondering whether I should’ve just said “not next week.”

I was an overthinker.

Like, seriously, I could overthink anything.

The waitress setting the glass down too hard? Yeah, she did that because she doesn’t like me, and what if she spit in it because she didn’t like the way I looked at her?

Asher hadn’t called or tried to make contact in a few days. What if he was scheming, finding a way to make my life a literal hell? What if he was in the process of a plan that would make me lose my business?

Take my new carpenter, for instance. Today, he asked for a key, and I just gave it to him. What if he stole my car out of my driveway? What if he didn’t really need the key at all? What if he just wanted access to my key ring and wanted into my place so that he could get into Maven’s bakery and steal…

I hurried into the shower on the rest of that thought, quickly washing off the dirt and sweat from my run.

The moment that I was out, I dressed in leggings and a white t-shirt, shoved my feet into shoes, and then hurried to the car.

I was halfway there before another thought occurred to me.

Cutter was an honest guy.

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