Chapter 35

 Death. Like Death. 

“Whoa, Lexie. You look great. Did you get a new outfit or something?”

Megan walked up to me in the gym later that week with a wide grin, her hair swinging in a braid. I glanced down to my outfit with a sheepish smile.

“Mira made me go shopping.” I gestured to Mira, who puffed away on the elliptical and waved. “We bought me some new workout clothes. Are they too tight?”

The new shirt felt like it hugged my shoulders and chest, but Megan shook her head.

“No way. It slenderizes you.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, Dana had to bail on me today, so I just finished my workout early. I’m thinking about going for a run. Want to join?”

I reared back. “A run?”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to run with you?”

“Of course.”

I bit my bottom lip. “Well … uh, I don’t really … my run is more of a …”

“I’ve seen you run.” She motioned to a treadmill. “If you can run on the treadmill, you can definitely run outside. There’s a little park in back with a loop that is exactly a mile.”

My throat had gone dry, so I had to clear it before I could form a semi-coherent response. “I’ve never run a mile before.”

“It’s a beautiful day to start.”

Her optimistic attitude would have been infectious if we were talking about drinking Starbucks vanilla bean Frappuccinos. But running?

Really?

“I could try,” I said, clarifying with a quick, “but my run is more of a wog. Less gazelle and more hippo.”

She shrugged. “I’m not running for time. Sometimes it’s just nice to be outside exercising with someone.”

Surely horns would grow out of her head any minute now.

“Enjoyment?” I scoffed, snorting. But her expression didn’t change, so my amusement quickly crashed. “Oh,” I whispered. “You’re serious. You really do enjoy running.”

“I do! Now c’mon. Let’s just try it.”

I hesitated, glancing to Mira, who had zoned into an episode of The Golden Girls while sweat poured down her face.

“Okay,” I drawled. “But this could get ugly.”

Megan led me to a small park behind the gym with a winding path that disappeared into naked, snow-covered trees. At least I wouldn’t get massive pit stains from the heat.

Megan stood on one leg while stretching the other, pressing her foot into her butt while holding the ankle. I imagined myself trying, but would likely fall flat on my face.

“So what’s the secret?” I asked, mimicking her actions as she stretched her arm across her body.

“The secret to what?”

“Enjoying running?”

She laughed. “Practice. You’ll hate it at first, but just keep going. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. Pretty soon, it’s kind of a Zen thing.”

Megan definitely had a few more hippie tendencies than I, but she also had a lot more muscle and a smaller pant size, so I decided to believe her.

“I’ll let you set the pace,” she said, starting to walk. “The path loops around to make a mile.”

I started slow. Running under my own power, and not with the guidance of the speed control on the treadmill, was so different that at first I felt disoriented. The bottom of my shoes scratched the cement as I shuffled along.

“This is a good pace to start,” Megan said after a minute or two. “A lot of people start too fast and wear out, but you should be able to maintain for a mile.”

I said nothing. My heart was already beating hard against my ribs, and blood rushed through my arms and legs. Pretty soon, the gym disappeared and nothing but a winter landscape of brittle tree branches and piles of snow surrounded us.

“Wow,” I said in between pants. “It’s … so pretty … out here.”

Megan touched a nearby twig as she passed, not even showing signs of heavy breathing or fatigue. The goofy smile on her face meant she really was enjoying our little jaunt. I drew in another lungful of air, trying not to gasp. Some mysteries in life would never make sense.

“Being outside is one of the best parts of running. It introduces you to things you may have never seen before.”

The fresh air was nice. Perhaps my lair wasn’t really the “safe place” I’d thought. Compared to this sunshine and the wintry beauty of the trees, the basement seemed more like a dungeon. Running wasn’t the worst thing so early in the morning.

“How you feeling?” Megan asked a few minutes later.

“Fine,” I said, panting. “Fine.”

My lungs felt like they were on fire, so I dropped the speed down just a notch. Megan followed suit without a word. I had to blink several times, fighting a sudden watering in my eyes. My stomach hurt from breathing so hard.

“How much … longer?”

“Halfway.”

My eyes bugged out of my head. “What? That’s it? Aren’t we … halfway to … China?”

She slapped me on the shoulder. “You got this, Lex. Just keep going. It’s all in your head, really. Think of how good it’s going to feel to finish a mile!”

The euphoria of running that she chased didn’t exist in my world, so I pictured a hamburger hovering just in front of me. Onward I trudged—because what I was doing could hardly be called a run—feeling a sudden kinship with the pioneers of the Oregon Trail. Their life must have sucked.

“Quarter of a mile left. Look! You can see the back of the gym,” Megan called, pointing through the tree branches ahead. The sidewalk had looped around again, leading us back. The beauty of nature didn’t even appeal to me anymore. All I could focus on was the desire to slow down. But if I slowed at all, I’d stop completely.

I wouldn’t do that because … well … I actually did want to see if I could do it. I’d never run a mile. Not even in gym class, where I’d pretend to sprain an ankle or just walk. I’d run three quarters of a mile on the treadmill but that had been easier because I’d been watching Jeopardy at the time.

“So close!” Megan called. I panted and snorted and puffed and huffed until I wondered if I’d pass out. A stitch drilled into my side just as I came up to the final stretch.

“Argh! My side.”

“Breathe through it,” Megan said. “Just take in extra-deep breaths.”

I wanted to punch her and tell her to take her own deep breaths—I wouldn’t have been this miserable if she hadn’t popped up that morning—but that would have cost extra energy, so I settled on imagining a hamburger again. Perspiration dropped down my cheeks.

How did anyone enjoy this torture?

“Ten more steps! Ten more!”

Megan danced ahead of me. Once my feet crossed our starting point she threw her hands in the air and hopped from side to side.

“You did it! You ran a mile!”

I doubled over. A slight wheeze accompanied every breath. Megan slapped me on the shoulder again.

“You did it, Lexie! I knew you could.”

My scalp tingled and heart pounded as I drew in breath after breath, grateful when the burning in my chest began to subside.

“Isn’t it the greatest feeling?” she asked. “I love it!”

“Death. Like … like death.”

She had the audacity to clap and giggle. The desire to punch her had started to fade, but only slightly.

“Why was that so much harder than the treadmill?” I asked, straightening once I had regained my breath. “I … that sucked.”

“Because you have to pace yourself, and you don’t have anything distracting you. Running is a mental game as much as a physical one.”

I glanced back at the trail. “I did it though,” I said, finding the first semblance of a smile. She grinned back.

“Yeah, you did.”

I, Lexie Greene, had just run a mile for the first time in my life. I fell backwards into a snow bank, arms spread wide, and laughed.