Page 30 of Walking Red Flag

Hours later, I was setting up the plastic so that the wood dust didn’t go all into the air ducts and into the finished back area when she came in.

She looked beautiful, albeit tired.

“How far did you get, Go?” I asked, unable to stop myself from asking.

She gave me a halfhearted smile and uttered, “All nineteen miles done.”

“Nice,” I declared. “Never got up to a marathon, mostly because the thought of running that far makes me want to cry, but I did a couple of halfs for the Navy when I was in. It sucked. Especially on a trail. I commend you for getting it done.”

She grimaced. “I don’t really do all that well on trails, to be truthful. I have a condition with one of my eyes that pretty much makes it impossible for me to see without both of my eyes open. My left eye has perfect vision. My right I’m nearly blind. But as long as they’re both open, I’m good. But the downfall is on my right side I have absolutely zero depth perception. So running on a trail is damn near impossible without wearing a contact. And the contact makes me feel disoriented because my brain has had so long to adjust that it doesn’t know what to do with twenty-twenty vision out of the one eye.”

“Amblyopia?” I asked. “My sister had that.”

“Yes.” She smiled. “That. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone that has it besides me. That’s…” she paused. “I was going to say exciting, but anyone that has it suffers. And I would never be happy to have someone suffer.”

“She actually doesn’t necessarily have it anymore. From the age of three to seven, she had to wear an eye patch over her good eye. She was able to get it corrected,” I admitted.

“Oh,” she sighed. “That’s what I was supposed to do, to be honest. But we caught it pretty dang late, and there was no way that I would’ve worn an eye patch in middle school.”

I snorted. “Kids are brutal.”

“You have no idea,” she muttered. “You’re putting up a lot of plastic.”

“Just trying to keep the dust to a minimum and save you from having to clean out your ducting system when I’m done,” I said, watching her.

She nodded, her face a little sad.

And I wondered if she knew how bad of a friend she had.

Between her friend and her ex, she could use a break.

Which had to be why I was blurting out what I did next.

“You want to go for a ride?” I asked, sensing her need for a distraction and running with it.

“Oh,” she paused. “Where?”

I grinned. “Somewhere that you probably don’t want to go…but it’s a nice, long ride. And I figure that it’ll give you time to clear your brain of whatever it is that you’re thinking.”

“I don’t know,” she bit her lip. “The thought of getting onto another bike…”

“I swear to God, I don’t drive like that prick,” I said. “I’ll stop if you want me to stop.”

She worried her lip with her teeth, then nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Honey is the tastiest of all insect vomits we have tried so far.

—Milena’s secret thoughts

MILENA

An hour earlier

The moment I turned my phone off of silent, it started ringing.

I stared at it like it was about to attack me when I saw the name on the screen.

I didn’t want to answer, but I did anyway.

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