Chapter Four. Reid
CHAPTER FOUR
REID
NOW
TEN DAYS UNTIL LEGACY BANQUET
@haikuforyou
Betrayal is a
thorn that lives under skin, an
awareness that grows.
I HAVE A PARTICULARLY brutal training session the evening my phone explodes. Sweat is slick against the backs of my knees as I do the last set of hamstring curls my trainer, Jason, is subjecting me to. He’s beefy and bald and demonic.
And my only hope.
It’s taking everything in me to finish this set. To pretend like my knee doesn’t hate this.
It doesn’t help that my phone is buzzing incessantly on the ground beside the workout bench. I flick a gaze toward it, worried it’s Delaney. Hoping like hell it’s not.
On the next curl, my knee is hurting so much, a grunt almost slips out. I glance at Jason in the gym mirror and notice just how closely he’s watching me. His face is serious. Like he knows something’s up.
I clench my jaw and ignore the pain. Running is a mental sport, and I wouldn’t be where I am if I wasn’t able to push past the limits of my own mind. Despite my buzzing phone’s best effort to distract me.
Jason adds more resistance to the final three like a proper dick, and I have to block out everything except for the quivering in my leg as I complete them.
“And that’s it for the day,” he says when I’m close to puking.
I let my head hang over the bench for a second, breathing hard, my knee screaming. When I finally sit up to towel off the sweat, he smacks me between my shoulder blades.
“Nice job, Reid. You’re gaining your strength and flexibility back. You keep this up, I think you can start jogging in a week or two.”
I whip to face him. “Really?”
He grins as he jots down a few notes. “Really.”
It’s the first time since tripping and tearing my MCL on that course last month that I feel even an iota of hope. I was so sure I was going to dominate that race. Instead, it ruined the start of my season.
For weeks I’ve been forced to watch everyone else on the team compete and improve their stats while I’ve done nothing but go to doctor’s appointments, bracing for more bad news.
At least I didn’t need surgery and I’ve managed to keep my dad in the dark about how bad it is.
He knows I fell, that I’m rehabbing, but I don’t need him worrying about my future.
Or my scholarship.
Now that I’m finally off the crutches, I have to push myself harder than my trainers are willing to or else I’ll never catch up.
“Are you going to tell Coach Carr that?” I ask.
Jason keeps scribbling, his eyebrow quirking up in amusement. “I know you’re eager to get back out there, but you have to take injuries like this one step at a time.”
I force myself to ask the question. “But I will get back out there, right? I’ll run like I did?”
“We both know that bullshitting is not what we do here,” he says, gesturing between us. “You got a long way to go.”
“I can’t lose any more time, Jason. Regionals are next month.”
His eyes are hard when they look up from his tablet. “You’re not losing time, you’re healing. You risk making things a helluva lot worse if you push through something like this, Rousseau. I can’t guarantee you’ll be ready for regionals just yet.”
I grind my teeth. He doesn’t get it. Sitting out isn’t an option when everyone expects you to be great. Needs you to be great.
Jason hands me a compression wrap. “Take this, ice it tonight. Keep wearing the brace and do an Epsom salt soak if you have any soreness.”
A soak. I immediately think of the hot springs back home.
My favorite place on the entire planet. Sometimes I can get through the whole day without thinking about Woodhurst. Other days, I crave everything about it down to the pine cones.
But those thoughts inevitably lead me to Clara.
And I try to avoid ever thinking about Clara.
I collect my water bottle and phone, still buzzing every few seconds.
“Someone’s got a girlfriend,” Jason taunts.
I shoot him a glare, and he chuckles. But as soon as I finally check my phone, the screen goes black. Dead. Of course.
“Reid, man, don’t stress. Injuries have a way of teaching us something we need to learn. And someday, this is all going to be a blip.”
It’s hard to imagine anything that’s happened in the past few months will feel like a “blip,” but I want to believe him.
“Thanks,” I say.
It’s dark and drizzling as I walk back to my dorm. Injuries have a way of teaching us something we need to learn.
If that’s true, I wonder what that could mean for me.
Sweat is tacky against my skin by the time I get to my room—this strange, beige space that even after two months still doesn’t feel like mine. I plug my phone in so it can charge while I shower.
I gather my stuff and make my way down the hall, past a few open doors leading to groups laughing, watching movies, sneaking booze.
Connor’s door is open, too, and when we make eye contact, my teammate yells at me to join them.
But I can tell it’s half-hearted. Everyone gets quiet when I’m around now.
I shake my head and hold up my shower caddy as my answer.
He calls out for me anyway. “You bringing that blond around again any time soon?”
A few of the guys holler and elbow one another. I just roll my eyes and keep walking. I’m never bringing Delaney around these cretins again. Or at all. The familiar guilt I’ve been carrying since that night weighs heavier at the reminder.
By the time I get out of the shower, I’m limping, my leg locking. Fuck, if anyone sees … I close my eyes and pull in deep breaths, riding it out. I manage to make it to my room unnoticed, dress quickly, and ice my knee with the compression wrap Jason gave me.
Collapsing onto my bed, I shove a shaky hand through my wet hair. My running clothes are still in a heap on the floor, discarded and pathetic. Just like me.
My phone buzzes to life against my nightstand. The constant pressure that sits heavy on my chest these days quadruples when I see Clara’s face on my screen.
I blink. That can’t be right. We don’t so much as follow each other on social media anymore, let alone text each other. I wrench my phone to look at it closer.
Oh, it’s the group chat. RUN FORREST RUN. We haven’t used this in months. Not that I ever used it much back in high school, since Kenji abused the space with his incessant stream of consciousness and random shirtless selfies.
Ignoring all the texts, I scroll right to the photo of her. My heart hammers in my chest as I stare at it.
Dark, tumbling hair. Emerald-green eyes. Those lips. Slightly parted like she’s about to say something snarky.
I grip my phone tight as I take in the other details. She and Mitchell are at her house. Together.
What the hell? She never lets anyone in her house. I barely went over there. And Mitchell hasn’t talked about her once since I left. Not that I’ve asked, but you’d think my own stepbrother would mention in our daily texts that he’s been hanging out with the girl who shattered me.
I zoom in. Their knees are touching. Mitch’s head rests on her shoulder as he leans back to take the picture.
It could be platonic.
Or they could be hooking up.
I almost throw my phone across the room at the thought.
No one ignites the competitive spark in me like he does.
It may not be by blood, but we’re still brothers.
I take a deep breath. No, they wouldn’t do that to me …
Though I’ve had a feeling Mitchell has been holding something back from me for a while now.
I shouldn’t, but it happens without thinking, really. I pull up the photos from last year. I scroll through them in a loop of self-pity.
Tons of photos from the season. One of me and Mitchell after the Woodhurst Invitational that I won. I’m in my red singlet, laughing because Mitchell is pretending to bite the medal around my neck as if checking if it’s real gold.
And inevitably, I scroll to the one I’ve looked at …
too often. The one picture I have of me and Clara after our first hike together.
The sky is a heavy gray behind us, and she’s wearing my jacket because the temperature dropped suddenly once we got to the peak.
She rolled her eyes when I put it on her shoulders, but she didn’t take it off, either.
“I bet you hate pictures,” she said, as she pulled out her phone.
I shrugged. “Not if you’re in them.”
She’d gone pink. Which she did a lot around me. I fucking loved that. I remember she let her hair down from its ponytail then, and it tumbled between us as we got close to fit in the screen.
Just before she took the photo, I said, “You smell like a meadow.”
She burst out laughing and called me corny.
That’s when she snapped it. Her—pink and pretty and laughing; me—grinning like I know how lucky I am to have my arm around her. Like I have no clue the clock is already ticking.
It’s the shittiest thing about a breakup. The only other person who actually understands it from the inside out is the one you can’t ever see again.
“Psh, shut it down,” I say, dragging a hand across my face.
I close the photo and scroll to the top of the chat to read through it quickly—trying to understand how this bomb landed on my phone at the end of an already shit day. And there it is.
Legacy Weekend.
That’s next week already? The email invite my dad sent me flashes through my mind: LEGACY WEEKEND: WITH SPECIAL GUEST OF HONOR!
I tried to turn it down. So what that it’s a town tradition?
So what that I already agreed and told Principal West I’d be there?
He’s an asshole anyway. After the way the Legacy committee treated Clara, I’m not proud to be part of this program.
I still don’t know if she ever got the answers she deserved.
Like if they ever found out who did it. Or why. It was all so unfair.
But my dad insisted I accept the guest of honor offer.
A stipulation of keeping my Legacy scholarship is coming back for the weekend anyway, and I need it if I want to stay in school.
With my knee and grades the way they are, I could lose my athletic scholarship any day.
Changing course isn’t what I do. It isn’t what anyone expects me to do.
People are counting on me. Even if I’m still not really sure for what. I finally gave in.
But what would they do if they all found out that I’m full of shit?
I’ve managed to keep my own trainer in the dark about the extent of my pain. If he doesn’t tell Coach I’m fit to return soon, I’ll lose any chance at the kind of season—the kind of future—they all want for me.
The kind of future I’m supposed to want, too.
My phone buzzes again. This time it’s from Mitchell to me directly. Are you alive?
I respond immediately, Why are you with Clara?
Even typing her name is hard. But I have to know.
Mitch: He lives! Because we’re friends.
I clench my jaw and respond,… and?
I brace for his admission that they’re hooking up.
Mitch and I don’t lie to each other. It’s why he’s the only one who knows the extent of my injury.
We couldn’t be more different, but in this we’re exactly the same.
Honest to a fault. The kind of guys who feel like picking “truth” in truth or dare is cheating.
Though, I’m obviously getting better at lying to everyone else. Maybe he is, too.
Mitch:… aaaaaaand friends hang out together? It’s chill.
It’s chill? What the hell does that mean? I go back to the picture he sent. She hardly ever posts anything on her social media anymore, because despite not following her I can’t help but check. Sometimes she includes videos of the forest or views from her hikes but never photos of her face.
How is it possible she’s gotten even more beautiful?
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to ride this pain out, too. This time it doesn’t work.
Mitch: You two can figure your shit out when you come home. You ARE coming right?
I want to say no.
If a photo of her wrecks me this much, how would I survive seeing her for real?
Mitchell texts again, If you don’t your dad’s gonna riot. He keeps asking me if something’s going on with you.
I lean my head back against the headboard. Shit.
Ever since Mom left when I was little, Dad’s been panicked about my life. My future. That something else might fuck me up even worse.
When I showed a talent for running, he poured himself into it and became my coach.
Then my team’s coach. He’s done everything to ensure I have a path forward.
The more he knows about my life here, the worse it’ll be.
He might try to take out another loan. After his heart thing last year and with Mitchell going to college next year, I can’t let him do that. I have to prove to him that I’m fine.
It’s only three days, I tell myself. I can avoid Clara for three days.
Yep, I type, I’ll be there.
As soon as I hit SEND, a foreign feeling surges through me. It’s something like anxiety, only not bad. Excitement? That’s … weird. I move over to the most recent texts in RUN FORREST RUN, and my frown deepens as I catch up.
Kenji: Who do we think the guest of honor is this year?
DL: It’s not me. I have a guess it MIGHT be the OLYMPIC HOPEFUL????
Oh god, who started that rumor?
I take a deep breath and send the lyric that’s been stuck in my head ever since Delaney played me the album when she visited: It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.