Page 60 of Keeping London (Flawed Heart)

I’m so tired of dreaming of the scared boy, the pain, the loss, the fear of losing Sarah. I’m so sick of thinking about all of it. I want to move on to a place where I can be happy. London has shown me that true happiness is possible, and I want it—with her.

It’s maddening that my brain won’t cooperate. I just want to forget it all, except for her.

Is that too much to ask?

I quickly throw on my running gear and exit my room. I pound on the door next to mine until a tired Cooper answers.

“The fuck, dude?” he huffs out.

“You ready?”

His eyes drop to my feet before they make their way up to my face, as if his tired mind is trying to figure out what’s going on. Some clarity lights his eyes. “Why are you up already? We weren’t planning on going running for, like, another hour.”

He looks back into his dark room, and I know he’s looking at his alarm clock.

“Like an hour and a half actually,” he grunts.

“Well, I couldn’t sleep. You coming, or you want me to go without you?”

“I’m coming.” He runs his hands through his longer hair, which is so thick that it almost stands up straight on its own. “Let me get dressed real quick,” he says before letting the plywood door swing shut in my face.

A minute later, we’re running through the dark base, the only light coming from the dim streetlights. Cooper doesn’t say anything when I follow our ten-mile route even though today was supposed to be a six-mile run.

My feet pound against the ground, and I push my body until it screams in pain with each breath, but I don’t stop. Running is the best stress reliever I have access to in this country, and I’m going to take advantage of it.

We don’t talk the entire time, not that we could anyway.

When we reach the end of the run, Cooper bends at his waist and lets out a groan as his hands rest on his knees. His chest rises and falls as he tries to catch his breath. I put my hands behind my head, trying to stretch my lungs so that they can take in air more efficiently.

Finally, Cooper says, “Did you time us?”

I shake my head.

“Damn. I bet we beat our time, too.”

“Probably,” I agree.

“Bad night?” he questions.

“Something like that,” I answer as we start walking toward our rooms.

After I shower, I power up my laptop, hoping to find London online, but I know that it’s midnight, Michigan time, and a weekday, so she’s probably sleeping.

Sure enough, she’s not online at the moment. We’ve been able to Skype a few times since I’ve been here, and that’s my favorite. It almost feels like we’re not almost seven thousand miles away from each other.

I have a new email from her.

To: Loïc Berkeley

From: London Wright

Subject: Question 31

Hey, babe. It was so fun Skyping with you yesterday. We need to work out times when we can do that more often. It’s the best. I know you said that your schedule changes a lot and you don’t know when you’ll be around the computer, but still…we should try to set up some chat dates—at least when you know you’ll be around.

Well, to answer question 30, if I had to live without one sense…I’d agree with you that it’d have to be smell. I couldn’t live without seeing, hearing, or touching you. And I really love tasting my food. Although not being able to taste would be a hell of a diet plan—not that I follow a diet plan now, but you know what I mean. So, it’d be smell. Though there would definitely be some scents that I would miss incredibly, number one being the smell of your cologne or body wash or whatever it is that makes you smell so delicious. I’d also miss the smell of spring and the flowers and the smell of food…particularly freshly baked bread or cookies. The smell of those is almost as good as the taste.

Nothing new is really going on here since my last email. I’m still exhausted from my New Year’s trip to LA with Georgia and Paige. I think I’ve told you already, but I really hope this is the last New Year’s that we’ll spend apart. I don’t want to ever start another New Year without you by my side. In fact, all the stuff that we’re missing as a couple—our birthdays, Christmas, Valentine’s…all the holidays—I hope we never have to celebrate those apart again.

---