“I think it started when my sixth-grade middle school teacher made fun of the way I ran in front of the entire class.”
His face clouded over.“What?”
Owen’s reaction added some heft to a memory I’d written off.
“Yeah.” I nodded, staring across the empty room as the pieces of what had happened swam back into focus. “We were doing some dumb indoor sprinting thing, and right after I had my turn, Mr. Albertson told the class that I looked like a drunk penguin when I ran. And everyone laughed at me.”
“Ateachersaid that?” Owen asked with shock in his voice. “Why?”
I huffed out a laugh. “I was a lot back then. Sort of a ringleader. Loud and silly. Probably annoying. Maybe he wanted to—I don’t know—take me down a peg? Shut me up? Let me tell you, it worked. Every time he made a crack about me, like calling me ‘Little Miss Cement Sneakers,’ I wilted. Some of the boys would imitate me in this really obnoxious way. Eventually, I stopped trying.”
“That fucker crushed your spirit.”
It was an angle I’d never considered.
“I started manufacturing a lot of headaches and stomachaches so I could sit out gym class,” I continued. “When I got a little older, I added cramps. And when I was forced to participate, I tried to change the way I ran.”
“Isthatwhy you do that little skipping thing when I tell you to run toward the net? I thought you were just being cute.”
He thought it wascute?
“I guess that’s my work-around?” I let out a shuddery sigh as all the old self-conscious feelings flooded through me.
“Well, it stops now,” Owen said as he pulled his phone out of his shorts. He fiddled with it, and a few seconds later, obnoxious EDM music filled the club. He reached out and grabbed my hand. “C’mon. Let’s run.”
“What?” I sputtered as he pulled me along. I leaned back and resisted, tripping behind him.
“We’re running together,” he yelled over the music. “Exposure therapy.”
“But...”
His hand was gripped around mine, warm and tight. My choices were either to let him drag me along like an unruly puppy on a leash or to kick my pace into overdrive to keep up.
I dropped the nine-dollar pink-and-yellow Amazon paddle I’d bought, which Owen had told me was an insult to the game, and tried to avoid tripping over my own feet.
I felt myself reverting to my usual baby steps, but Owen’s tempo was unforgiving. He was flat-out sprinting, so fast that his hat wobbled around on his head. He reached up to fling it off mid-stride, and when he looked back at me over his shoulder, my heart triple-timed.
Up until this moment, I’d never seen himreallylaugh. A few grins, sure, but the way his face transformed into a crinkly, eye-squinting guffaw was so joyful that it was impossible not to laugh with him, despite the way my calves were already shrieking. We probably looked as silly as it felt, dashing around the place like two dorks running from the rain.
The noise must’ve woken Marti up from her bed in the office, because suddenly she was right there jogging beside us, her barky commentary adding to the insanity of the scene.
The music was loud enough that I could almost feel it in my chest, and I found myself adjusting my pace to the beat with Owen.
“Open up that stride,” he coached over the music. “Try to match mine.”
As if it was actually possible given the height difference.
There were too many competing sensations to focus on any one, so the fact that we wereholding handswas buried beneath my need to just keep up. We both could’ve let go—the closeness was a little overpowering considering we barely knew each other—but for some reason, the sensation of Owen’s hand gripping mine was perfect in the moment.
“There she is.” Owen chuckled as I started to pull ahead.
Marti cheered me on as well, spinning and barking right next to my feet.
It actually felt shockinglygoodto let go and run without worrying what I looked like. My mom had always told me that our similar builds—ectomorph on the shorter side—meant that I’d be a good marathoner, which had turned into a family joke.Brooke, running?
We completed a lap and a half around the entire place, laughing and tripping along, and I finally had to squeeze Owen’shand and slow down to signal I couldn’t take much more. The moment he let go, it felt like my tank dropped to empty. I might’ve been built to run, but I certainly wasn’t conditioned for it. I bent over at the waist and braced my hands on my knees, panting.
“Was that okay?” Owen asked. He pulled out his phone and turned off the music.
