Grace
Running through the woods feels like it should be a me thing, not a we thing, but here we are. I’m a little self-conscious right now because I’m not exactly an Olympic athlete. However, nothing boosts your confidence quite like someone who can’t keep up with you and keeps stumbling over tree roots.
“I thought you said jogging!” he shouts from somewhere behind me in his gym shorts and hoodie.
“Don’t be such a bitch!” I shout back.
I hate running as much as anyone, but this kind of pain is addictive because it’s strictly physical, and I can make it stop whenever I want, like when you see idiots on the internet dunking themselves in ice baths.
“How are you so fast? Your legs are half as long as mine!”
“I’m a liberal American woman, Henry! I’m fueled by rage!”
I’m in a fluffy quarter zip and my Costco sweats. It’s supposed to get warm again later, into the fifties, but it’s that biting kind of morning cold right now that I love because the faster I go, the more the air hurts against my face. Dead leaves crunch and crunch under my sneakers.
“If anyone sees us, they’re gonna think I’m chasing you!”
“Maybe you’ll run faster if you talk less!”
I don’t look back at him because that would be a bad strategy while running through the woods. That’s another reason I like this so much: straight ahead, keep going, no looking back.
“Root!” I shout as I hop over a real ankle-breaker.
“Shit!” Henry says, then thanks me.
I wasn’t drunk last night, but I was sleepy and vulnerable, which is basically what being drunk is in your late thirties.
Consequently, this morning felt like waking up hungover.
Henry was the first coherent thing that came to my mind.
At first I regretted asking him to run and scream with me.
Again, this is a me thing. But then I was excited.
I like Henry. He’s nice—funny, too, beneath all that sadness—and this thing where I watch movies and shows with him every once in a while feels like a fun side quest—something to distract me from the Great and Terrible Sadness.
I don’t like him like him, though. Yes, I thought about him this morning right when I woke up.
And yes, I also thought about him last night as I was falling asleep after we hung up.
I’m chalking all that up, though, to accidentally watching A Charlie Brown Christmas in bed with him.
Well, I was in bed. I think he was on his couch.
So, I was half in bed with him, at least virtually, which was like playing a trick on my brain.
It doesn’t matter. Even if I did like him like that, he’s moving to California.
“Ouch!” he yells.
“What?”
“I think I pulled something!”
“I told you to stretch!”
I duck under a tree branch, which means Henry has to really duck. Then the trail opens up ahead. This is the part where I don’t just run, I sprint. “Almost there, Henry!”