Ash mentioned it once, weeks ago, in the middle of a deadlift set, said something about how Borges made him feel like his brain was “caught in a recursive error,” and I pretended not to care, but I filed it away, because that’s what I do.
I remember the things that matter, even when it would be easier to forget.
I pay cash, the old guy ringing it up without comment, then slip the book into the pocket of my hoodie.
Outside, Ash is crouched on the curb, stretching, but I can tell from the way he’s scanning the window that he’s watched the whole transaction.
I jog up, toss the book at him, low and fast, like a puck on the blue line. He catches it, a little fumble, but recovers and flips it over in his hands.
“You bought me a present?” he says, voice flat but not unkind.
I shrug, try to play it off. “Two bucks. Figured you could use it to level out your wobbly desk.”
He opens to the first page, scans the inscription, some stranger’s name, dated 1984, then closes it, holding it to his chest like he’s afraid it might vanish if he lets go.
His face does a thing, flickers through a bunch of emotions I don’t have the vocabulary for, then settles on something that looks a lot like gratitude. Or maybe disbelief.
“Thanks, D,” he says, and my name sounds weird in his mouth, too naked, like he’s peeled the paint off it.
I don’t know what to say. So I don’t.
I just start running again, and he follows, the two of us side by side, shoes slapping out a message in Morse code.
Neither of us says another word all the way down to Pike, where the city starts to wake up and the runners have to dodge delivery trucks and dog walkers and the first wave of hungover baristas.
By the time we make it to the waterfront, the sun is threatening to break through the cloud deck, and the air has that damp, metallic taste of an old penny.
Ash is still holding the book, the cover already softening in his grip, and I wonder if he’s going to read it, or just keep it as a talisman against whatever bullshit the world serves up next.
We slow to a walk, our bodies steam-venting into the cold.
He glances over, eyes rimmed red from the wind, and says, “You ever wonder what it would be like to just…start over? Go somewhere else, be someone new?”
I think about it.
I think about Oakland, about my mom, about the time she took me to a carnival and let me eat five snow cones in a row, just to see if I’d puke.
I think about every time I’ve wished the universe would just wipe my hard drive and give me a clean install.
“Yeah,” I say. “But then I’d have to make all the same mistakes again, just with better weather.”
He laughs, the sound half-cough and half genuine, and for a second we just stand there, side by side, watching the ferries crawl across Elliott Bay.
He holds up the book. “You want to get a coffee and read some Borges to each other, or is that too gay for you?”
I grin, and I know my face is on fire, but I don’t care.
“Way too gay. Let’s do it.”
He claps me on the back, and it’s not a hard hit, not like the ice, not like the gym. It’s almost gentle.
We walk to the nearest place that’s open, two idiots in sweat-soaked hoodies, clutching a battered book and a secret we can’t quite look at yet.
But the city is awake, the world is still spinning, and for the first time in months, I don’t want to run away.
I want to see what happens next.
———
