Page 107 of Summertime Friends

My name is loud enough to sound like it’s playing through my headphones.

“Watch it!” In my sudden stopping on the pavement, I’m almost accidentally hit by a runner with a stroller coming in the other direction. Quickly, I jump out of their way onto the grass.

“States.” I spin on my heels to catch an out-of-breath Liam keeling over.

An out-of-breath, shirtless, Adonis of a man. I swear he isn’t even sweating, he’s glistening. How is that even possible? Or fair! I come back from a run looking as if I ran through a storm in the rainforest, and my braided ponytail frizzes tripling the size.

My tongue darts out of my mouth, licking my lips. My effort in not gawking at him is a failure. I can’t help myself. I’ve never been able to help myself, so why do I think I’dbe able to now?

“Liam.” Of course, my voice doesn’t come off with confusion. It’s breathy and oozes the dirty thoughts I’m having about him.

“You-you’ve gotten fast,” Liam says, finally catching his breath.

“Or you have terrible stamina.” I glower at him.

“We both know I have quite the stamina.” He smirks.

I roll my eyes at Liam. “How did you find me?”

“Chloe.” It’s said with a wheeze. Liam stands up straight. “Can I join you?”

“Are you sure you can?” I ask back. “I’m sort of fast now.” I mock him. He laughs at me and nods.

“I can keep up,” he says.

We start running again. I don’t turn my music back on, letting my retro headphones hang on my neck.

We run silently for a mile and then another mile, keeping pace with each other. Liam follows my gestures regarding where and when to turn.

“I qualified for Boston next year,” Liam tells me.

“Ahh. So someone else has also gotten faster.”

He laughs. “I always was. It was the baby giraffe I was running with who slowed me down.”

“Is that what I looked like?” I can’t help but smile, a small one that will unfortunately not go unnoticed by Liam.

“A beautiful one, but yes. When we'd run together, it was like your dancing, uncoordinated.”

“Am I a grown giraffe now, then?”

“Sure, States.” He glances at me at a stop light. I can't quite read the look on his face. There's a hint of anticipation and. . . it's the way he used to look at me. Those days in Lisbon and Paris, the ones that were the bridge to everything we became. The color is sharp, and I fear if I stare for too long, he'll hurt me again. “You’ve kept up with running.”

“Sort of enjoyed it.”

We’re bouncing on the balls of our feet, shifting from one foot to the next. There are others around us—runners, walkers, bikers,and even a few rollerbladers. This is one of the reasons I enjoyed running, you aren’t alone. Not that I actually feel alone, but there’s a community of people surrounding you always. People smiling or waving as you pass each other, silently encouraging you to keep going one more mile, or up the sporadic Chicago hill.

But that’s not why I’ve come to enjoy it—or why I kept running.

After Liam, well, I missed him. I missed that part of myself I was with him. Trying to navigate how to keep a tie to her—and him, I kept running.

When my feet hit the pavement and my breath is labored, I feel that connection to both people. So I kept running, and I learned to love it. I transferred my emotions into it—sort of like it’s a conduit of power, and that power is called love.

“Told you. It’s hard not to fall in love with it,” Liam trails on.

That word, love, lingers between the two of us.

“Yeah. . . um, sure.” I wallow.

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