Twenty-two

The night before a race is often a sleepless one. At least, it’s always been that way for me. And most of the girls I ran with in high school also got stressed the night before a competition. Our coach would tell us that it doesn’t matter if you don’t sleep well the night before a race—as long as you get a good night’s sleep two nights before a race. This helped relax us, and it changed our focus, so on the night before our races we all slept like babies. He’d tricked our restless minds, and it worked.

I wish I could do that now—find a way to take my mind off everything, or at least to divert my thoughts somewhere, anywhere. I’ve been tossing and turning all night, not with thoughts of the race but of everything else. I wish the race itself were enough to distract me. I welcome it now more than ever—a chance to get out on the trails, to put my body up to a task so challenging that during those hours I’ll be able to focus on nothing else.

But eventually the race will be over, and whatever happens during the race won’t change what I have to face after I cross the finish line. Because then, for me, the real race will just be beginning.

I look over at my alarm clock. Still a half an hour to go. At this point, sleeping will only make me groggy, so I sit up and turn it off.

The sun hasn’t risen above the hills yet, and in the darkness of my cottage, I stand and stretch. I eat an energy bar and drink some water. I have two hours before the race starts.

I sit down, continuing with a few gentle stretches, letting my body warm up. I think of Stacey. How much I want to win this for her. I’m still so grateful to her for taking me in. For giving me a job. For never asking the questions I’ve been so afraid of. No one ever has, until last night. Until Roman.

And again I’m realizing that he and I are not so different after all. Maybe this is what I’m afraid of—that I’ve been drawn to him because we are both cut from the same murderous cloth. Our reasons may be different, but in the end, am I any better than he is?

Roman’s reaction last night was odd. When I told him I killed my father, he nodded sadly. He touched my face, briefly, and he said, Such secrets can seem impossible to bear, can’t they, Katherine? That was all he said. And I told him nothing more. If nothing else, Roman understands the nature of secrets. How they can’t be revealed too soon. And sometimes not at all.

I wanted to cancel my scheduled jog with Alex, but I knew it was too important to get in that last run. I was silent the entire time, wondering whether I could tell him what Roman now knows. Whether he would understand. He asked me what was wrong, but I ended up telling him I was nervous about the race. I couldn’t take the risk that he will hate me for what I’ve done.

I stand up and jog in place for a few moments, then put on a layer of sweats over my running shorts and top. It’s almost time to go.

The last time I competed was in high school, my junior year. It was June, during the state championships for cross country. I had yet to win a race, but I knew I could win this one. I knew I was ready. The week before, I’d won a training race against the seniors, though it was totally by accident. I had misheard Coach Penn, and I thought we were running a 10K instead of a 15K. So I set off at a 10K pace, and the girls shouted at me as I passed them. What are you doing? Slow down! But I didn’t understand—in fact, I was surprised at how slow they were going. Soon I had left them far behind. We were on a trail, doing five-kilometer laps, and as I came up on the end of lap two, I saw coach Penn there with his trusty wristwatch. I picked up my pace, ready for my big finish—but when I crossed the mark I heard him yell out, Great job, Katie! Only one more to go!

I thought I’d heard him wrong, but when I stopped and looked back at him, he stared back as if to say, Well, what are you waiting for? So I started running again, too embarrassed to confess that I had made a mistake. So I had to do one more lap at this breakneck pace. Those were the longest three miles of my life. My arms grew heavy, and my lungs heaved for oxygen, but I refused to stop. I began slowing down, and I could sense the pack catching up with me. I pictured the grins on their faces, their smug expressions. I knew they were waiting for me to crash. She started out too fast, they would say. We knew she’d never make it.

I couldn’t let them have the satisfaction. So I hobbled on. And when I neared the end of that final lap, I saw Coach Penn and knew I was going to win. With a hundred yards to go, knowing I could do it gave me the energy to pick up the pace. I finished strong, setting a personal best.

The coach was impressed. If this were a race, you’d have set a course record, he said.

As I cooled down, pacing through a patch of grass, I watched the rest of the team come in. They no longer looked at me dismissively, as they’d done all year. I had earned their respect. And I felt something I had never felt before. I felt important.

I won the state title that year, and I started getting emails and calls from recruiters. I could hardly believe it: College—freedom—was within my grasp.

Until the morning that my dad, coming home drunk at seven o’clock after being out all night, drove over my left foot.

I’d been on the sidewalk, waiting for the bus, when he called me over to the car. He said he had to ask me something, but I never found out what it was. I was standing next to the driver’s-side window when suddenly the car pitched backward, rolling over my foot. He’d put it into reverse instead of park, and he was still so drunk that he stepped on the gas without even realizing it.

The pain was excruciating, but he was no help. He couldn’t even drive me to the hospital, so I had to call a cab and wait. I sat on the curb, shaking and sick with pain, for twenty minutes before crawling into the backseat of the taxi.

And so my senior year was over before it began. I wouldn’t run again for months, and the recruiters moved on. My dad never apologized. Up to the day I ended his life, I’m not sure he remembered doing it. I’d always been too afraid of his anger to remind him, even to ask.

Even if he had remembered, he wouldn’t have admitted to doing it. He never thought he did anything wrong. I was the reason he was miserable in life. And before me, it was my mother. Years before, Mom and I used to have each other, but after she died, I was alone, his anger and bitterness directed squarely at me.

He didn’t hit me often in those last years—I learned how to stay away. But that didn’t make it much easier—what I wanted most was something I could never get from him. My mother had been the only one who made me feel loved.

I still miss her. And I know that one of the reasons I was so happy to have met Stacey was that she was about my mother’s age, early thirties, when she died. Not that Stacey could have taken my mom’s place, but whenever I was with her I had that same feeling of being looked after, being taken care of.

When I win this race, it will be for both of them. I try to picture them together, somewhere, watching me run. Cheering me on.

I pick up Stacey’s cap and put it on. It fits me perfectly.

~

There are almost two hundred runners near the starting line, shedding their warm-up suits, stripping down to tank tops and shorts, hopping from foot to foot as they try to stay warm. I look up to see where the race is headed, but the trail is hidden in clouds. The fog drips down the hills like dry ice.

I stretch my legs and look around. I recognize a few faces from town, and I can tell they recognize me. I don’t see either Roman or Alex. A man in a Cloudline T-shirt and a Race Official badge stands on a platform and blows the whistle around his neck. Everyone quiets down.

“Hey, folks, listen up! We got the latest weather report from the top of the mountain, and it’s ugly.”

The crowd erupts in cheers.

“Be advised that you will encounter freezing rain, heavy fog, and, at four-thousand feet, snow. Hypothermia is a real danger, as are broken limbs and frozen fingers. The race will go on, but I am urging anyone who is not one-hundred percent sure of themselves to take this year off. Please.”

The crowd is quiet as his words sink in, and I can see people taking a gut check.

“There is no shame in that,” he continues. “I’ve run this race a dozen times, and even I would consider taking a pass this year. It’s that nasty.”

I watch the runners look at one another, as if waiting for someone else to make the first move. Then an older guy in a green tank top turns and walks away. And it’s as if he has given permission to a dozen others, who also begin walking back to their cars. I look down at my new trail runners, and I shudder at the thought of ruining them on the climb. Or of falling, breaking something, getting frostbite. But there is no way I’m skipping this race.

I touch the “S” on my cap. I know I am meant to be here, to be running now. Especially when I look ahead and see Erica, wearing her number 1, heading through the crowd toward the front. I know Stacey wouldn’t let a little snow stop her.

Then I see Roman walking toward me. He seems the same as always, undaunted by what I told him last night. He looks at my running cap. “It looks as though you’re running for Stacey.”

I nod.

“Good luck, Katherine,” he says.

“Good luck to you, too.” I watch him follow Erica to the front.

I hear someone call my name, and I look behind me to see Alex jogging over. He’s wearing the number 11. I’m wearing number 117, so I am stuck in the back.

“What are you doing all the way back here?” I ask.

“I like to hang back in the pack. Maybe it’s an underdog thing.” He grins. “You mind if we start together?”

“Fine with me,” I say. “Though it won’t be long before I leave you in the dust.”

He laughs. “Actually, I hope you do.”

“Any last-minute pearls of wisdom?”

“Pace yourself,” he says. “The race doesn’t begin until you reach the boulders.”

“The boulders?”

“You’ll know them when you see them,” Alex says. “From there to the finish line, anything can happen.”

The man on the podium is now holding up an air horn. “Folks, we are thirty seconds from the start.”

“Go get ’em,” Alex says.

“See you at the top,” I say.

My stomach is all nerves, my legs and arms numb from the cold. I’m ready to go. I look up the mountain and see trees extending into fog, then thick dark clouds, then nothing. It’s probably better that I can’t see the top of the mountain; it feels closer this way.

The horn blares. I’m shuffling as runners push toward the line, then I’m walking, then jogging, then running.