Page 87 of Your Pace or Mine
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Not at you, though. Fuck. I, Jamie. I don’t know what I can do or say to make this better, but will you at least let me help you finish this race?” he asked. “You deserve it, you’ve worked so hard for this.”
The thing about Darius being right was that it mostly just pissed Jamie off. He might’ve shattered his heart into tiny pieces, but he also knew Jamie. He knew how hard he’d worked and that it would kill him to give up now.
“Or not, you don’t have to finish, Jamie. There’s no shame in a DNF.”
Hearing that lit a fire in Jamie. There may be no shame in it, but he wasn’t going to stop now. With as much nonchalance as he could manage, he wiped his tears and picked his trainers up off the ground, re-lacing them and allowing Darius to pull him up off the kerb.
“You’re right about one thing, Hewitt. I do deserve to finish this,” he said. “You’ve got eight miles to work out a better apology than that, maybe one that doesn’t involve throwing money at your problems.”
Darius winced. He’d clearly known the donation was a bit much.
Jamie turned and started a slow jog forward, Darius matching his pace in silence at first.
“Do you remember the first time we ran together?” Darius asked eventually.
Jamie snorted. “Yeah, you were a fucking prick, should’ve figured it out then.”
“Ok, I probably deserved that.”
Jamie arched a brow. “Probably?”
“Definitely,” Darius replied, ducking his head. “You annoyed the shit out of me, though.”
“This is a great apology, Darius. Really selling it,” Jamie snarked. They passed the 18-mile marker, though, and Darius was still with him.
Everything still hurt, and the voices in his head were relentless, but these streets were familiar. Running with Darius was familiar, even the arguing was familiar. They passed under a massive arch of red balloons as strangers cheered from the sidelines, and Jamie realised that wherever things landed with Darius today, he was going to achieve one thing. Jamie had signed up for this race, and Jamie was going to bloody well finish it.
Darius’s voice broke through his inner hype monologue. “You were so unapologetically yourself. Like you didn’t give a fuck what I or anyone else thought. And I was jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“I’ve spent my whole life bending myself into different shapes to meet everyone’s expectations, and it’s like somewhere along the way I forgot how to be anything other than what they wanted, or what I thought they wanted.”
That was, surprisingly, relatable, actually.
“It took me until recently to realise you probably understand that feeling pretty well.”
Jamie nodded. “Yeah.”
“I wasn’t fair to you, Jamie. None of it was fake to me, not even at the start, but I was so scared of losing what I had of you that I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I blamed you for not telling me everything, but I was hardly an open book myself. You told me right at the start that you were good at knowing what people wanted from you. I just... all of that, everything the press is saying...”
“God, I’ve stopped reading it. Please don’t tell me.”
Darius laughed softly. “Same, it got a bit, well, I couldn’t handle it. But what I’m trying to say is this reflects poorly on them, not you, you know that, right?”
Jamie high-fived some kids watching the race and was handed some sweets in return as he sorted through his thoughts. “It was my choice, Darius. I knew exactly what I was doing.”
Darius furrowed his perfectly groomed brows. “Oh, so you were the one in a position of power demanding sexual favours from a young performer?”
“I’d hardly say demanding.” Jamie scoffed. “I’m not a victim of anything, Darius. I know that’s a more palatable narrative, but…”
“It’s not just a more palatable narrative,” Darius replied. “Look, I’m not saying you’re a victim if you don’t see it that way. Just maybe you’re also not the villain you seem to think you are?”
“Tell that to Stephen Murphy’s fiancée,” Jamie muttered under his breath. “Or literally anyone that reads the Daily Mail.”
Darius was watching him. Jamie’s heart rate went wild, from the run, maybe, or from what he knew he needed to say. His legs kept moving forward on their own accord, like he was floating above his body as it pushed through the course.
