Chapter 10 – Three weeks into Spartan Race Training
Chapter Ten
BOWEN
THREE WEEKS INTO SPARTAN RACE TRAINING
Magnolia was surprisingly good at obstacles. She got the spear throw fairly quickly, flew across the rings on her third try, and dang, if we didn’t feel synced when we were running. She listened—really listened—to every tip I gave and somehow turned it into muscle memory within seconds.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.
You don’t get into UVA med if you need your hand held.
But watching her crush stuff that most people needed a month to figure out?
Made her even harder to ignore. Somehow, I was managing though—holding steady at the top of that proverbial slope by the tips of my toes.
And then a derecho blew in.
Apparently, Magnolia wasn’t merely Griffin’s girlfriend anymore. She’d been promoted to full honorary Dupree status. Since her dad was on leave, and she was at home alone for the summer, Mom began inviting her to eat dinner with us. Even when Griffin was at work. Just like tonight.
When her car pulled in, I made a beeline for my room.
I puttered around for the next twenty minutes.
I put up my drafting table, folded clothes, and dusted my window sills.
But when I made the mistake of strumming the off-key guitar I hadn’t touched since I turned thirteen, Mom acted like it was the equivalent of a bell ringing, signaling that I needed her.
“Bowen.” She popped her head into my room. “You’re being rude. Maggie feels uncomfortable that you won’t come eat with us.”
“She said that?”
“No, but it’s obvious.”
I blew out my breath. “Coming. But don’t expect me to be social, okay?”
She gave me her pity eyes. “You don’t have to be a recluse just to make Griffin happy.” She tipped her head toward the hall. “Let’s go, bud.”
I trudged behind her, every step a foot closer to my doom.
When I walked in, Magnolia sat up straighter, fingers pausing mid-movement where they’d been tracing the rim of her glass.
I sat on the opposite side of the table.
We ate in awkward silence for a minute before Dad said, “Kids clean up tonight. Your mom and I are going to check cows after dinner.”
Sophie winked at Magnolia. “That’s code for ‘let’s go make out in the field.’”
“Make out?” Dad scoffed. “We’ve been married well over two decades. We’re way past making out.”
“Eeewww.” Sophie shivered.
I huffed out a laugh. “Hippity dippity time.”
Magnolia laughed and I momentarily forgot what we were talking about.
“How do you think you got here?” Mom asked Sophie. Then she looked at Dad. “These kids. We had the birds and the bees talk with them, right? Or is my menopausal brain making me forget things?”
“Yes. We did. With all four of them,” Dad said, like he was the one who’d been tortured. “Sophie swore she was traumatized for life.”
“I was,” Sophie snickered.
I raised my hand. “Me too. One minute, I’m this na?ve fifth grader excited about getting his first locker, and the next, Dad’s saying things like ‘when a man loves a woman…’ I couldn’t eat for three days.”
Magnolia hiccuped through a laugh.
I grinned, feeling like a champion.
“That’s how they started your ‘lesson?’” Sophie used air quotes.
“Mom gave me a play-by-play of my delivery. Play. By. Play.” She clapped.
“Every cutesy nickname she’d been using for body parts flew straight out the window.
Then she admitted that the banging I sometimes heard at night wasn’t from the rattle-y AC unit outside.
” She wrapped her hands around her throat and made a gagging sound.
“Wow.” Mom glared at Sophie. “Traitor.”
“You guys don’t know how good you had it,” Magnolia said.
“I never got the birds and the bees talk. I learned everything I know in the halls of a junior high in Frankfurt. Nothing like learning about your changing body when everything sounds like a threat. Das ei bewegt sich durch den eileiter!” she barked.
I chuckled.
Sophie guffawed. “What does it mean?”
Like she was explaining quantum physics to a toddler, Magnolia slowly said, “The egg travels through the fallopian tube.”
Mom dropped her forehead to Dad’s shoulder, wheezing with laughter.
Sophie wiped her eyes. “I think you’re the lucky one. Be grateful your parents didn’t make you suffer through the lecture.”
Magnolia’s laughter died. “It didn’t even occur to them. That’s right when the diagnosis came.”
Everyone went quiet.
“Oh.” Sophie squeezed Magnolia’s hand. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Magnolia sighed. “Such is life, I guess.” But there was a sadness in her eyes that appeared whenever she talked about her mom.
Sophie cleared her throat loudly. When I looked at her, she tipped her head toward Magnolia.
Say something, she mouthed. She’s your race partner.
But anything I said might be used against me as evidence in court—and Griffin was judge, jury, and executioner.
So I clamped my mouth shut. Under the table, Sophie kicked me in the shin, jaw clenched, eyes blazing fiercer than her red hair.
I glowered and rubbed my leg.
“So, Maggie,” Sophie said, taking out her frustration on a defenseless piece of lettuce. “Tell us one of your favorite things about your time at UVA.” It came out stiff and formal, like a news interview. “No, your very favorite thing.”
Magnolia sat there, thinking for a moment.
“Bodo’s Bagels?” I asked, hoping my meager sacrifice would calm Mount Sophie before she went full lava mode.
Magnolia’s forehead furrowed. “I mean, yes, everybody loves Bodo’s, but it wasn’t my favorite thing.”
“The football games?” Dad asked.
Magnolia’s cheeks flared. “Um, I only ever went to one and it wasn’t…a good time.”
It was a punch to the sternum, but she was being generous, not throwing me under the bus. I would’ve deserved it. If it had been Sophie, I’d have been roadkill. She would’ve run me over, then thrown it in reverse just to hear the crunch.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Mom said. “Those are Bowen’s favorite.”
I shrugged. “They’d be more fun if we ever won. And if the stadium didn’t look like a frat house exploded by halftime.”
Magnolia laughed and pointed her fork at me. “Beer cans and Solo cups everywhere.”
“So, not the football games and not Bodo’s,” Sophie said as she speared a piece of broccoli. “What then? Your roommates? The classes? The Lawn.” She rolled her eyes. “Bowen never stops talking about The Lawn.”
“What can I say?” My brows raised. “It’s a fantastic place for people watching.”
“Okay.” Magnolia’s eyes lit up. “I’ll tell you my favorite thing, but it’s not really UVA related because…well, it probably could’ve happened anywhere.” She waved that away. “Or maybe not. It was something that happened to me.”
Her sudden shyness made my stomach lurch.
She exhaled. “I had like…a secret…friend?”
“Friend?” Sophie’s brows bounced. “Does Griff know?”
Magnolia squirmed a bit. “Maybe? But Griff and I agreed never to say anything that might make the other jealous. Like if we went on a date or someone flirted with us.” Her nose scrunched. “Ain’t nobody got time to stalk each other on social media when we’re supposed to be studying.”
“You’re the only one who stuck to that rule,” Dad said. “I don’t think Griff did much studying from the looks of his GPA.” He pounded the table. “C’s get degrees, Dad,” he said in a mock-Griffin voice.
Everyone laughed but Dad.
Mom rubbed his back. “He made it. He graduated.”
“By the skin of his teeth,” Dad said.
Sophie tapped the table. “Let’s get back on track. As you were saying.” She gestured at Magnolia to take the floor.
Magnolia shoved a couple of pieces of rice around her plate. “It wasn’t romantic.” She tilted her head, and her hair fell, hiding half her face. “At least, I don’t think it was. It was more like this anonymous fan who was always encouraging me.”
My fingers curled around the edge of my seat.
She rolled her shoulders back. “I don’t know if it was a girl or a guy but they drew pictures. Of me. And left them in places where I’d be sure to find them.”
Dad looked like he’d just witnessed a murder. Mom was faking a smile, but it was clear she wanted to recoil.
Sophie snorted. “Sounds like a stalker.”
Magnolia giggled. “That’s what Abilene said. But it was just that—watercolor-type drawings of me. On a cold winter’s day in front of a fireplace, laughing when my umbrella flipped inside out during a rainstorm, standing in front of the Rotunda on graduation day.”
My heart was beating so fast I was worried they could hear.
“So this person never told you who they were, and they never asked you out?” Sophie asked like she was investigating a crime.
“Pretty much.” Magnolia smiled.
“Okay. That’s actually…” Sophie’s gaze flicked to me, eyes narrowing slightly. “Really sweet.”
I glanced away.
“It was. The drawings were…” Magnolia chewed her lip.
“Really beautiful and inspiring. The first one came on one of my hardest days of undergrad. I’d just failed an Organic Chemistry II exam.
” She sat up taller, eyes excited. “So I leave Clemons Library, walk out to my car all defeated, and find a drawing tucked in my windshield wiper—of me as a doctor, with a patient who is laughing through their tears. It was the kick in the pants that I needed. I said, ‘Not today, Satan,’ and got myself back on track.”
Mom pressed her fingers to her lips, expression softening. “Oh my goodness, I love that so much.”
“Bowen draws,” Sophie said casually, like an afterthought. “He’s really good, actually.”
I shook my head ever so slightly, jaw set, eyes hard.
Sophie only smirked.
“Really?” Magnolia asked like it was the revelation of the century. “Why am I just learning this?”
“Of course, I draw,” I said with a pfft. “I’m an architecture major. I have to sketch floor plans all the time—and I’m just average.”
“He’s not average,” Dad said like it was incomprehensible that his offspring would be average at anything.
“I am,” I said through gritted teeth.
“He’s just being modest,” Mom said to Magnolia. “I’ll show you.” She hopped up and darted out of the room.
“Busted.” Sophie clicked her tongue triumphantly.
Crap.
Sophie had a sixth sense for BS. She could spot it from a mile away and always called it out with a smile that said gotcha. Just like she was doing right now.
Magnolia gave her a confused sideways glance.
I shot up out of my seat and took off after Mom.
“Mo-om?” My voice cracked. “Mom!”
Where had she gone? I ran down the hall to my parents’ room. But she wasn’t there. I ran the other way, toward my room. Empty.
“You’ll see what I mean,” Mom bragged. Which meant she was back in the dining room. I sprinted down the hall and rounded the corner just in time to see Mom laying a stack of my drawings in front of Magnolia.
“Mom!” I stopped at the table, chest heaving. “You can’t just go around showing my art to whoever you want.”
She scowled. “Of course, I can. That’s what moms do.”
It was too late anyway. Magnolia was sorting through the evidence, eyes glued to the pages, not saying a word.
“Oh, I love that one,” Sophie pointed to one I’d done of her and me at dusk in one of our favorite fields, watching fireflies dance above the tall grass.
She glanced up at me. “Remember that night? We took the horses out for a ride, and we just happened to see a million lightning bugs gathered in one field.”
I grunted, heart racing, studying Magnolia’s expression. I could see the wheels turning. Spinning actually. Her eyes were taking in every detail as she nibbled her bottom lip to death.
“Those aren’t very good,” I said. “They were just practice.”
But if Magnolia heard, she didn’t let on. Just flipped to the next picture—
And stopped dead.
It was one of my mom, standing in a meadow of wildflowers, her fingers brushing over the tips of the petals, wearing one of her sundresses, eyes closed, smiling as the sun warmed her lightly freckled face.
It was the same style as the pictures I’d done of Magnolia.
I was so screwed.
“I have the final version of that one hanging in my room,” Mom said. “He made it for me for Mother’s Day his freshman year of college.”
Magnolia’s thumb brushed over the bottom corner of the paper reverently. “These are…really beautiful.” Finally, she lifted her gaze. I widened my eyes, begging. She glanced back down, studying the picture again.
Sophie shook her head. Somebody has some explaining to do, she mouthed. But then she zipped her lips and threw away the key. Thankfully. Sophie could keep a secret better than anyone I knew.
The question was, could Magnolia? No…
Would Magnolia?