“Because you’re the worst person I know.” She’s blinking rapidly, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think she was fighting back tears. But in a flash, she’s back to glaring as she pulls herself into a sitting position and starts to rise. When she puts weight on her left ankle, she slumps back to the ground, and although she doesn’t make a noise, it’s clear something’s wrong.
“Shit. Are you hurt?”
“No.”
She tilts her head forward, not looking at me as I crouch and eyeball her ankle. “Sprained, probably.” I glance around. “The finish line isn’t far. Can you make it?”
“Yes.” She keeps her eyes fixed on the ground. “Just go finish the stupid race.”
“Are you going to finish the stupid race?”
She tries to stand again and this time can’t hold back the little cry when she puts weight on that same ankle. “Yeah, I’ll finish. Don’t worry about me.” She finally looks up, her face tight with pain. “Just fucking go, Wyatt.”
We’re the only two on the road now, although I suspect a wave of 5K walkers is still to come, ready to trample us on the way to the finish line.
“No way.” I stand and hold out my hand to her. “If I beat you when you can’t even walk, you’ll hold it over my head forever.”
She rolls her eyes. “Forever? Like we even talk that often.”
“We talk all the time!” I bellow. “I run into you like clockwork every December!”
“Then stop following me!” she shouts from the pavement.
“Stop following me! Fuck!” I kneel, and before she can protest—hell, before I can protest—I slide an arm under her knees and another around her back, hoisting her up.
“What are you doing?” But even as she’s objecting, her arms wrap around my neck. She’s just as sweaty as she was before, but it’s clammy now that we’ve stopped moving because it’s fucking cold out and her ankle’s hurt and it’s all her fault for stopping and I should just leave her.
Instead, I hold her closer and start to trot forward. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Kidnapping me.”
“I swear to God,” I growl into her ear, “everything with you is a fight.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but her body goes even more rigid in my arms. “I don’t know any other way to be with you.”
“Of course you don’t. I don’t either.”
She pushes against my chest. “Seriously, put me down. I’m too heavy for you.”
“You’re not.” I may not be a runner, but I’m strong. “The finish line is in sight, and we’re crossing it at the same time so you can’t accuse me of cheating, even though you’re the one who stopped in the street. Now shut up and get carried.”
As I slowly jog us down the street, her stiff limbs start to relax, and she curls into my chest.
“You should know that I’ve been compiling evidence against you for years,” she says against my shirt. “If I go missing, your backyard is the first place the police will dig.”
Even though I have no excess breath in my lungs, I bark out a laugh. I forgot how funny she is.
I made myself forget how funny she is.
“Almost there,” I tell her, although my running pace is really more of a walk now. I jostle her when I adjust my grip, and she whimpers.
“Sorry.” I stroke my thumb along the side of her leg in a soothing gesture that I immediately wish I could take back.
“You didn’t do it on purpose,” she murmurs. “It just—” There’s a pause, and she says in a tiny voice, “It really hurts.”
This gets me to pick up the pace, and I’m gasping by the time we cross the finish line. The crowd parts when I veer off the course and set her down on the first open stretch of crunchy brown grass I can find. As exhausted as I am, I take care to lower her gently before collapsing onto my back on the ground next to her, my chest billowing up and down.
“Y’know,” she says as I’m fighting for my life, “I technically won.”
