Saturday morning, Carter is up and moving a little after seven. I don’t mind the early hour, even on a Saturday, because while I’m not exactly a morning person I’ve never had trouble shifting my schedule around someone else.
Thanks, Mom.
Yeah, that’s sarcasm.
Deep, dark hollows that weren’t there yesterday shadow Carter’s eyes, and he’s moving slowly, with a decided limp that’s far more obvious than last night. Since he’s wearing shorts I can see the gnarled, twisted scars along the backs of both legs.
I’m not sure how to handle the nightmare topic, so I take the chickenshit’s way out and decide not to mention it unless he does.
“Today’s going to be a slow amble.” Carter practically grunts the words, every syllable pained and grating. He’s sitting on the end of his bed, bent over tying his sneakers.
“No worries. I probably need to build my stamina to keep up with you.”
He lifts his head and I spot the hint of a smile there, although I don’t understand what’s so funny.
“I’ll probably run your ass into the ground once I’m feeling better.”
I’m no macho asshole. “Honestly? You probably will.”
His smile widens into something not quite so difficult to look at. When he shoves himself up and off his bed, he makes another pained grunt and I fight the urge to rush over and help him.
If he wanted help I’m sure he’d ask for it.
He braces himself against the counter holding the sink we share and does some stretches. In my space, I do the same, not wanting to hurt myself in case we do pick up the pace. I’ve already embarrassed myself enough in front of the man. I’d like to at least hold my own in some way.
When he finishes that he cracks his neck. His T-shirt clings to him, and I feel…inadequate next to him. Here’s a guy who lives with pain, who’s survived horrors I can’t even imagine, and he’s pushing himself to do more. And hestilllooks like he’s in way better shape than I am.
What am I doing? Whining about my mommy issues.
Yeah.
I decide then and there I’m going to hold Carter as my example, someone I’ll aspire to emulate.
“Ready?” he asks.
“No cane?”
“Not today. We’ll take it easy.”
Taking it easy means taking the elevator down instead of the stairs. He sets off at a pretty fast pace and I have to quicken mine to keep up. It doesn’t matter that his rolling, loping limp makes him bob back and forth. I’m quickly breathing heavy in just a couple of minutes.
“Thisis a slow amble?” I manage.
He laughs, not sounding the slightest bit out of breath. “No. This is our warm-up.”
A few minutes later, his limp has eased a little and, sure enough, he picks up the pace. It’s a slow jog that I finally settle into, matching him, eventually finding the right combination of stride and breathing where I feel like I’m not going to keel over.
We keep this up across campus, heading south toward the Sun Dome. There are others out this morning, running, walking, biking, but not a lot of traffic. It’s warm and humid—Florida, duh—but not oppressively so.
Yet.
I can already see that, this year, my benchmark for being “in shape” is going to climb if I truly want to keep up with Carter. Last year I got most of my exercise walking back and forth from my dorm to my classes. I didn’t want to mess with a bicycle.
Once we hit the Sun Dome, we lap the parking lot before Carter finally slows to a walk, pausing in a shaded, grassy median to do more stretching.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod, too winded to talk right now, but I take the time to stretch. If this is him on a bad day, when it comes to keeping up with him on a good day…
