44. EMERSON
44
EMERSON
Now
Mile five: loop around the park and head back , my inner voice repeats. I may or may not have gotten lost a few times while running. I even had to Uber home once.
“Emerson!” I hear my name called faintly.
The park is busy this morning, so I don’t think much of it. I keep running.
“Emerson!”
I hear my name again, louder this time. I keep going, but I look around. No one I recognize is in my surroundings. They must mean a different Emerson.
“Emerson!”
I halt.
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’d be 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.
There’s a mile left to my apartment.
“So—” Liam says. “We need to talk.”
“About what? Not sure there is anything left for us to talk about.”
We haven’t spoken since Friday. After I didn’t hear from him over the weekend, I assumed he viewed our encounter as a mistake and was retracting the words that Chloe overheard.
“There is.”
The light turns. We receive the little white man to cross. We take off running, moving to the outside of the pack that is crossing the street.
“And you choose right now during my morning run as the time to talk.”
“No.”
I give him a confused look.
“I wanted to spend time with you,” he says.
“Do we need to talk or hang out?” I ask bewilderedly.
“Both?” he answers with a question.
“Okay?” I respond in the same tone.
“Why did you keep up with running?” Liam asks again.
I don’t think now is the appropriate time to blurt out because ‘I missed you’.
“Someone once told me I was good at running, figured I could at least get good at the actual sport,” I say instead.
“I never meant it like that.” Running beside him, I don’t need to turn my head to know what expression he’s wearing. It’s remorseful. Liam promised me once he wouldn’t hurt me. His words did, and three years later, we both haven’t forgotten them.
“Then why say it?” I don’t look at him, not because I don’t want to; I can’t. The closer we get to my apartment, the more people there are on the street. Weaving around them takes my full attention, and right now, it barely has half.
“We all say stupid things in the moment when we are hurt.”
“I’m well aware of that.” Earth to Liam, the whole reason we aren’t together?
“I’m sorry for saying that about you. There isn’t a second that goes by that I don’t wish I could take back everything I said. Being hurt wasn’t an excuse to exploit your insecurities and use them against you. I’m sorry, Emerson. Please forgive me.”
Is there an expiration date on apologies, especially on ones that you’ve waited to hear for years? I don’t think so.
“I appreciate your apology.” I turn my head over my shoulder in his direction and smile. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“Not entirely. Natalie and I are no longer.” He grins like the Cheshire Cat.
“And?”
“It’s you and me now, States. I want to be yours.”
My heart stops, but my legs speed up.
Running in front of him, Liam trails after me.
I look back at him and say, “How about this time if I run, you catch me? ”
We made it to the block where my apartment is. I slow my run down. Liam was still behind me the last time I checked. I figured I may have dodged or lost him in the sea of Chicagoans.
There is a tug on my wrist, spinning me into a hard, defined chest.
“I will,” Liam says. “I’m not letting you go this time.”
Then he leans down, seizing my parted mouth.