Chapter 11 The Run
THE RUN
The way the world feels after a gym session is a species of euphoria I’ve never been able to explain to anyone, not even to myself, not even to Nia, not even to the therapist, and definitely not to Ash, who is the only person I’ve ever met that chases pain with as much hunger as I do.
There’s a stretch of time, maybe the forty-five seconds after you walk out of the locker room and before the cold air reasserts itself on your damp skin, when every muscle is saturated with warmth and your bones are humming like struck tuning forks.
In that window, everything feels possible, or at least less impossible than before.
The old Ballard gym is already packed, the regulars staking out their space on the racks, but we get the best bench, Ash’s weird, obsessive punctuality pays off, and we finish our lifts before the place goes fully feral.
We don’t talk, not really. We never do, not during the work.
But there’s a rhythm to it now, an ease, like we’re running a two-man relay where the baton is always sweat or sarcasm or the battered water bottle we both pretend not to notice is growing mold in the cap.
After the cool down, we layer up and take the sidewalk, shoes hitting the pavement in sync, every stride a rehearsal for something neither of us is ready to name.
The city is dead at this hour, just the night shift bus drivers and a few strung-out delivery guys huddled around convenience store coffee.
The sky’s got that Seattle static, low cloud cover reflecting the streetlights back at itself, making the whole block feel like the inside of a snow globe filled with garbage and hope.
I let Ash set the pace.
He’s not fast, but he’s relentless, the kind of runner who never stops, never even breaks stride to adjust his playlist or check his heart rate, just leans into the discomfort until it burns clean.
I follow, a half-step behind, because it’s easier to watch the way his calves cut the space or the way his hoodie rides up in the back, exposing a slice of lower spine that’s been a constant in my dreams for weeks.
We run in silence until we hit Capitol Hill.
The old coffee carts are shuttered, the street art wet and gleaming from the last hour’s drizzle.
Our breaths come out in visible clouds, merging in the air before drifting off into the void.
We pass the bakery, the smell of sugar and yeast flooding the block even though the doors won’t open for another hour.
There’s a cat perched on the window, watching us like it’s got our number. I think about making a joke, but I don’t.
The only sound is the slap of our sneakers and the city breathing around us.
It should be awkward, but it isn’t. Not until I veer off, mid-stride, toward the bookstore.
The storefront is barely unlocked, lights just flickering on, the owner flipping the “OPEN” sign in the glass.
I point with my chin, grunt, “Gimme a minute,” and Ash slows, stretching out his hamstrings against the street sign like he’s been waiting for me to peel off all along.
Inside, the shop smells like dust and printer ink, a coffin for dead trees and bad decisions.
It's one of those places that opens at six because the owner is an insomniac who'd rather shelve books than stare at his ceiling, I'd seen the hours painted on the glass a dozen times on morning runs.
He's an old guy, hair in a ponytail and headphones jammed in his ears, nodding to some private soundtrack.
He doesn't look up when I pass, just gives a vague thumbs-up and returns to alphabetizing the lit fic shelf.
I move straight to the counter, where there’s a bin marked CLEARANCE—ALL $2, a jumble of orphaned paperbacks and random magazines.
It takes less than a minute to find what I’m looking for, an old Penguin edition of “Labyrinths” by Borges, the cover warped, the spine cracked, but the pages all there.
Ash mentioned it once, weeks ago, in the middle of a deadlift set, said something about how Borges made him feel like his brain was “caught in a recursive error,” and I pretended not to care, but I filed it away, because that’s what I do.
I remember the things that matter, even when it would be easier to forget.
I pay cash, the old guy ringing it up without comment, then slip the book into the pocket of my hoodie.
Outside, Ash is crouched on the curb, stretching, but I can tell from the way he’s scanning the window that he’s watched the whole transaction.
I jog up, toss the book at him, low and fast, like a puck on the blue line. He catches it, a little fumble, but recovers and flips it over in his hands.
“You bought me a present?” he says, voice flat but not unkind.
I shrug, try to play it off. “Two bucks. Figured you could use it to level out your wobbly desk.”
He opens to the first page, scans the inscription, some stranger’s name, dated 1984, then closes it, holding it to his chest like he’s afraid it might vanish if he lets go.
His face does a thing, flickers through a bunch of emotions I don’t have the vocabulary for, then settles on something that looks a lot like gratitude. Or maybe disbelief.
“Thanks, D,” he says, and my name sounds weird in his mouth, too naked, like he’s peeled the paint off it.
I don’t know what to say. So I don’t.
I just start running again, and he follows, the two of us side by side, shoes slapping out a message in Morse code.
Neither of us says another word all the way down to Pike, where the city starts to wake up and the runners have to dodge delivery trucks and dog walkers and the first wave of hungover baristas.
By the time we make it to the waterfront, the sun is threatening to break through the cloud deck, and the air has that damp, metallic taste of an old penny.
Ash is still holding the book, the cover already softening in his grip, and I wonder if he’s going to read it, or just keep it as a talisman against whatever bullshit the world serves up next.
We slow to a walk, our bodies steam-venting into the cold.
He glances over, eyes rimmed red from the wind, and says, “You ever wonder what it would be like to just…start over? Go somewhere else, be someone new?”
I think about it.
I think about Oakland, about my mom, about the time she took me to a carnival and let me eat five snow cones in a row, just to see if I’d puke.
I think about every time I’ve wished the universe would just wipe my hard drive and give me a clean install.
“Yeah,” I say. “But then I’d have to make all the same mistakes again, just with better weather.”
He laughs, the sound half-cough and half genuine, and for a second we just stand there, side by side, watching the ferries crawl across Elliott Bay.
He holds up the book. “You want to get a coffee and read some Borges to each other, or is that too gay for you?”
I grin, and I know my face is on fire, but I don’t care.
“Way too gay. Let’s do it.”
He claps me on the back, and it’s not a hard hit, not like the ice, not like the gym. It’s almost gentle.
We walk to the nearest place that’s open, two idiots in sweat-soaked hoodies, clutching a battered book and a secret we can’t quite look at yet.
But the city is awake, the world is still spinning, and for the first time in months, I don’t want to run away.
I want to see what happens next.
———
We split a pair of scones and a pot of coffee at a table too small for my legs, both of us shivering in our damp gym clothes, the book sitting between us like a third party neither of us can look at directly.
The place is mostly empty, just a couple of hungover college kids and a woman in a running jacket typing at a laptop like she’s launching missiles, but I still feel like everyone’s watching us, like the universe has assigned a camera crew to document every microexpression, every word.
Ash thumbs through the Borges, not really reading, just flipping the pages and scanning the marginalia like he’s looking for a code, a clue, anything to tell him how to be in this moment. When he catches me staring, he raises an eyebrow, mouth full of scone.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I say, and it comes out softer than I meant.
He sets the book down, drums his fingers on the cover, and looks out the window. “You think it’s gonna rain again?”
“It’s Seattle,” I say. “That’s not a prediction, it’s a diagnosis.”
He snorts, and for a second the air between us is less loaded, almost easy.
After we finish the coffee, we hit the street again, legs stiff but bodies loose, running down the hill toward Pike Place before the tourists can clog it up.
The city is still in that liminal hour, not quite day, not quite night, just the weird blue of early morning and the sound of delivery vans rattling over the bricks.
We run in the bike lane, ignoring the dirty looks from the few cyclists who actually obey the laws of physics this early.
Ash is silent, but his breathing is steady, even after the hill.
We cut through the alley behind the market, dodge a trio of smokers in hoodies, then drop onto the main drag where the vendors are just starting to set up.
There’s a guy unloading boxes of apples, hands raw and red from the cold, and another hosing down the slick concrete in front of the fish stall.
The air smells like wet newspaper and salt, and the only sound is the distant squall of gulls and the occasional crash of a crate hitting the ground.
We hit the waterfront, running along the curve of the bay.
The air here is sharp, biting, but we’re warmed from the effort and neither of us slows.
The fog is still clinging to the water, but above it the sky is lightening, just the barest sliver of pink cutting through the monotony.
We run until the sidewalk ends, then walk it off, steam peeling off our bodies like we’re about to disappear.
Ash is clutching the book, thumb pressed flat to the cover, and I wonder if he’s even aware of it or if it’s just a reflex, something to keep his hands from shaking.
My own hands are buzzing, adrenaline and something else, a nervous electricity that won’t burn off no matter how many miles I put between me and the rest of my life.
We lean against the railing, both of us staring out at the gray chop of Elliott Bay.
The ferries look like toys from here, impossible and small, and the city behind us is starting to flicker with light. I know I need to say something, that there’s a script I’m supposed to follow, but the words have always failed me.
In the end, I just blurt it out, the same way I once dove for a loose puck in front of a freight train defenseman, knowing I’d get broken for it but doing it anyway.
“Ash.”
He looks over, hair matted to his forehead, sweat tracing down his cheek. “Yeah?”
"I like you," I say. It's not smooth, it's not even on the right frequency, but it's the only honest thing left in me. "Not as a teammate. Not as a gym partner. I like you, Ash. More than I've liked anyone."
My voice cracks on the last word, and I want to die, but I don't take it back.
He’s just staring at me, mouth open, book held so tight his knuckles are white.
For a second I think he’s going to laugh, or bolt, or say something cutting enough to finish me off, but instead he just stands there, looking like someone hit him with a puck to the chest and he hasn’t started breathing again yet.
The silence stretches.
It fills the waterfront, swallows the gulls, eats the sound of the city waking up behind us. I stand there, hands shaking in my pockets, terrified, waiting for him to say something, anything.
Ash stares at me, mouth open, the book clutched in his hand so tight his knuckles have gone white.
He doesn't speak.
Neither do I.
The fog burns off. The sun cuts through. And I have never been more afraid in my life.