Chapter Twenty-Seven

Amanda’s alarm went off way too early on Sunday morning. For half a second, as she went to silence the fake-cheerful music, all she wanted was to go back to sleep and forget all about this stupid plan.

What had she been thinking? Why was she even pretending she had a chance? Let alone doing it this way.

She’d called Noah three times last night, but his phone had been off the whole time. She knew that was his pre-race routine. Go to bed early, get plenty of sleep, and stay focused on what he had to do.

She should just call him some other time if she wanted to talk to him so badly. She should do literally anything other than this.

But she forced herself out of bed. Noah was getting on a plane, and she might never see him again. The least she could do was be a sleep-deprived, under-caffeinated zombie so she could see him now.

Maybe it would be for the last time.

But it’d be better than knowing the last time was when she slammed the door in his face.

She got dressed in the darkness, stumbling over her own two feet. Leggings, sports bra, tank top, long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt she could ditch if she had to. Her running shoes that barely got any attention.

And then, the final piece of her outfit. Also known as the official sign she’d lost her mind.

A race bib for the New York Half Marathon, with “NYC Half” and the number 3974 printed on the front. Thank God for Facebook, cesspit that it usually was. Alix had registered and been training for months, until she strained her IT band and couldn’t make the race. When she’d posted, hoping someone would take her spot and cover the entry cost, Amanda had jumped on it—avoiding Alix’s questions about why the hell she wanted it when she’d never trained for a race in her life.

Transferring a bib wasn’t technically allowed…but Amanda hoped this was one of those morally gray areas Noah would forgive. And Amanda wasn’t going to actually run the thing and risk getting injured. She just needed to get into the racing corral to see Noah before it started. Afterward would be too chaotic. A million people would be around—including Luke.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see Luke ever.

She just wanted a chance to talk to Noah without his brother around.

Not like showing up before a half marathon counted as privacy. But it was the best she could think of on so little sleep and with so much adrenaline and heartache and longing coursing through her all week.

“Here goes nothing,” she muttered to herself as she downed not nearly enough coffee, a piece of toast, and shoved a few of those sports gel thingies into her pocket that Noah had left at her place.

I’m not going to kill myself, she reminded herself as she quietly slipped out without waking her roommates and locked the door behind her. She wasn’t racing. She just needed to see him. She had no idea what it would be like there. But how hard could it be to find him, take two seconds to say they needed to talk, and then get her ass to a diner for more coffee and a plate full of eggs?

Impossible, it turned out.

She should have known. If she were anything like Noah, she’d have thought this through. Come to the logical and entirely correct decision that showing up at the New York City Half Marathon corral before the race began was not a good idea. No wonder he didn’t want her. No wonder he didn’t think she was worth breaking his plans for and changing his life.

The place was mobbed. She looked everywhere for him, trying to catch a glimpse of anyone she recognized from his group. All she saw were tons of people clad head to toe in neon, doing warm-up stretches and bouncing on their toes to stay ready.

She pushed through the crowd as best she could, but she got nowhere. Fuck. Where was he?

If only she could call him. But of course he didn’t have his phone on now. She could try Luke, but that wouldn’t help. The whole point of this harebrained scheme was to avoid using Luke as an intermediary. This was their lives, their relationship, and they needed to tackle it on their own.

She blew on her cold hands and tried to keep moving. If she couldn’t find him here, she wasn’t sure what to do next. Wait for him at the finish line?

But then he’d be tired, and Luke would probably be there, and she’d be stuck with the same problems all over again.

No. She balled her fists and tightened her resolve. This had to work. She had to find him.

I can’t control what he does, she reminded herself. But that didn’t mean she had to go home. She could decide, right here, right now, surrounded by thousands of eager, jittery runners twitching as they waited for the gun to go off, that she wasn’t going to be the kind of person who slunk away. Who gave up and left when the first roadblock appeared. She could stick with things. She could stick with Noah.

There were so many parts of her life she hadn’t had a say over. She couldn’t bring her father home or make her mother stop living in the past. She couldn’t prevent some guy from ghosting her or deciding she wasn’t what he wanted.

But Noah wasn’t “some guy.” He wasn’t like anyone she’d ever met. She’d been afraid of saying too much and leaving herself vulnerable to rejection. But protecting herself had only made things worse. She didn’t want to live like that, safe and shielded…and just as heartbroken anyway.

Maybe he wouldn’t love her back. Maybe this was hopeless. She was still determined to try.

And then she saw him.

He was just ahead, surrounded by the group. She saw him run his hands through his hair, over the curls that refused to stay down. She’d recognize those hands anywhere, that hair, the tilt of his shoulders. The way he stood. The way it felt like she knew every part of him. How he fit with every part of her.

She called his name, but everything was so loud and he was so intent on his coaching that he didn’t hear. She tried to push through the crowd, but there were too many people. There was too much going on, and the next thing she knew the starting gun sounded and everyone surged around her. They were running, everyone was running, and Noah was running away.

She panicked, seeing her moment slip away forever.

I can do this.

Fists clenched. Shoulders back. She ran after him.

She pushed ahead as best she could, trying to break out of the mass of people and get to him. He was a million times faster than she’d ever be, and his trainees had been working toward this for months. But she knew one of the things he practiced in pacing the race was to make sure they didn’t go out too hard at the beginning. The faster she sprinted, the closer she was to catching up.

“Noah!” she gasped, trying to keep her legs moving and her arms doing that thing they were supposed to that he’d showed her on the run around the reservoir. Trying to keep her heart in her chest as it pounded and pounded, protesting what she was making her body do right now. Her legs were already aching. Her lungs had knives in them. But still she called out his name, as loud as she could: “Noah!”

Finally, he turned in surprise, looking frantically at his trainees with a crease in his brow as though afraid something was wrong. She tried again, and that was when he saw her.

For a moment, he almost faltered. She was afraid he was going to trip and fall. She was afraid this was the biggest mistake of her life. Not, it turned out, that she’d let him go, but that she was coming after him. That she was stupid enough to think she had a chance.

Then she saw something else in his face. Something she couldn’t describe…only that it made her run even faster to him.

The crowd had spread out some from the initial crush at the beginning. His group was holding steady, getting into the rhythm of things. There was space beside him, and she pulled up as best as she could, trying desperately to keep up. It was like those things people said about superhuman feats of strength, like when a parent lifted a car because their toddler was in danger. It didn’t make sense. It should have been physically impossible for her to match him stride for stride.

But she did it. For now, at least, she had no other choice but to stay in it and run.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he gasped, although she could tell his intake of breath was out of surprise, not because it was particularly hard for him. It was sort of awesome and sort of infuriating to realize what he was capable of. To see that this was no big deal—not much more than a walk in the park for him. It was part of his routine, his schedule. She was the one out of her element. Out of her depth.

She had to explain herself before her heart exploded.

“I think I’m dying,” she said, which wasn’t exactly how she’d planned this reunion.

“You have to stop,” he said urgently. “Stop running. Whatever it is, I’ll find you after. It’s fine. It’s not worth hurting yourself for.”

But she shook her head and kept going. Now that she’d found him, she couldn’t bear the thought of letting him go, of missing out on any moment she could spend by his side. Especially if this, now, was going to be the last time.

“It’s not fine,” she said. “None of this is fine. Or maybe you’re fine, I don’t know. But I’m not. I have to tell you, Noah. I had to come and tell you.”

“Jesus, Amanda.” He glanced at the road ahead of him, at his watch to check the time, then back at her. “Tell me what?”

She took a breath. Or as much of a breath as she could fit into her body. It wasn’t enough, but it would have to do.

“I’m falling in love with you,” she blurted, since she didn’t have time to waste words. “I know I didn’t say it before. I know I didn’t say enough. But I have to tell you now, Noah, before you go. I need to tell you I love you.”

She wasn’t sure what she expected him to say in response. Wasn’t the whole point of this stunt that she couldn’t predict what he might do, but that couldn’t stop her from following her heart? But whatever it was, she hadn’t anticipated an invigorating pep talk about closing in on the first mile, feeling how loose and warm her legs were, and getting ready to kick it into gear.

Then she remembered. He was of course talking to the running group, who were probably wondering why this random woman had shown up here again and was dying right before their eyes.

But over the sounds of sneakers hitting the concrete and the steady rush of her own breathing, she heard cries of, “Hey, Amanda!” and, “Run with us, Noah can coach anyone!” And, she could have sworn, more than one comment about how Noah hadn’t been himself all week without her around.

She looked at him. Was that true?

“I want to talk to you, Amanda,” he said. “But I’m a little busy right now.”

“I know,” she said quickly. “And I didn’t want to interrupt. I just had to—”

“Talk to her!” someone cried behind them. Followed by something that sounded like, “This is the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen.”

Great. Amanda hadn’t been counting on an audience for this. But at least no one had told her to go to hell or stop sticking her nose where she wasn’t supposed to. Or that Noah had been so much happier without her.

“If you want to talk right now, we can talk,” Noah said. “But I have to keep up the pace for everyone.”

She steeled herself and her resolve. Could she do this? But even as she asked herself, she knew it wasn’t a question. The answer had to be yes. When it came to Noah, she needed to show that she was all in.

“I want to be with you, Noah. Not just for now or when it’s convenient. For always. I want to be with you.” She stopped to give herself a few breaths. And to hear the words ringing between them. To hear that she’d said them. She meant them, and she’d say them again and again. I want to be with you.

There were no qualifiers to the sentence. No deflecting. She wasn’t pretending, or hiding, or imagining herself with anyone else. It was out there now, the truth of her heart. She couldn’t take it back.

And she knew she didn’t want to.

“I don’t want to stop you from doing anything,” she went on as best she could. “I’m not telling you to move, or not move, or what to do. I want to be someone in your life who makes things possible, not someone you have to work around. So I don’t want you to take this as some kind of pressure. I don’t want this to be a source of stress. I’m not coming between you and Luke, and I would never ask that of you. I know you have your reasons for moving, and all the reasons a relationship is a bad idea. All I wanted to do is come here and tell you that there’s something for you in New York. There’s something for you with me. Even if we do long distance. Even if we plan to try to be in the same place sometime later. Even if it doesn’t work. I still think we’re worth trying for. I know that you’re worth it to me.”

Another series of breaths, a sharp pain stabbing in her side. But she kept going.

“This sounds ridiculous,” she sputtered. “And I’m not going to be able to walk for a week. But I wanted to be honest. Maybe for the first time in our whole relationship. Not relationship. Whatever this is has been. I just wanted you to know that I’m serious about you. As serious as the heart attack I’m about to have. I think you might not have known that. I might not have known it, either. I didn’t say it when I should have, but now you know.”

And then there was no more talking because she couldn’t get another word out of her body, she was gasping so hard. And because she couldn’t keep up with him, he was running away, and there was no chance to see his face, to know what he was thinking. If he was happy or angry or confused or didn’t even care.

All she could do was watch him keep running away from her, setting the pace he’d committed to for the group he led. She had to trust that no matter what happened, she’d done what she could. She’d done what she wanted and said what she meant.

She hadn’t protected her heart or closed herself off to love.

She’d taken a risk.

No matter what happened, she had to give herself credit for that.

Assuming she survived, of course. She pulled over to the edge of the road, bent over and wincing in pain, trying to remember everything Noah had said about how to breathe.

Some things seemed like they should be so simple. Inhale, exhale. She’d done it all her life.

Only maybe what she’d been doing all her life wasn’t so straightforward.

Maybe, just because she’d gotten into the habit, it didn’t mean there weren’t some things she wanted to change.

She looked up at the sea of runners passing her by. Some of them made it look easy. But she realized, the more she looked, that a lot of them were struggling. She could see the effort on their faces.

Yet no matter how hard it was, they pushed on.

She started walking, massaging the stitch in her side. She was still on the route. She looked around, but no one was staring at her or wondering what she was doing here when she obviously didn’t belong. She wasn’t even the only one walking.

She looked down at her sneakers. At her hands. She tried to look squarely at herself.

She knew what she wanted now. She knew what she was striving for.

And she started to run.