I woke up with an attitude and a sore back, drenched in sweat. Sometime during the night, my generator shut off, leaving me passed out in a tin can that got hotter with the rising sun. The air is thick, and I groan with the effort it takes to roll off my makeshift bed and crawl to slide the side door open.
The sun is bright, and the air doesn’t feel much better out here. But I sit on the edge, dangling my feet out to hover just above the gravel of the drive and try to scrub the sleep from my eyes.
I slept like crap. Restless. Hyper-aware of where I was parked. Pretty sure his voice echoed in my mind the entire night, loud enough for me to hear it every time I turned.
“Meyer. Look at me.”
Meyer. Henevercalled me Meyer.
I’m the kind of pathetic that could sit here and analyze every nanosecond of our interaction forhours. But I did that last night, and if I continue on now, I will lose my mind. I came here to see if I could handle it. So, yeah, I didn’t expect the test to be quite this challenging. Don’t know if I would have come had I known he would be here, but it is what it is.
The sky is blue. The birds are singing. I’m alive.
It’s okay.
I take a steadying breath, pop in my earbuds to drown out my thoughts, and start my normal morning routine. I brush my teeth, using a bottle of water to rinse, and then the rest to splash my sweaty face. I climb inside the van to change, then sit back in the open door to lace up my running shoes. With my phone and playlist on full blast, I take off.
This is the only running I’m allowed to do anymore.
And I do it every day.
It was a few months after I left that I fell into a difficult love-hate relationship with it.
Those first few months were the hardest months. Freshly sober. I felt like my guts were hanging out for everyone to see. I felt like everyone could just look at me and see that something wasn’t right. That I was broken. I wanted to chase that numbness alcohol had given me. I wanted to find just a moment of solace. Five minutes of peace from the constant barrage of thoughts. Memories. Fears. Shame. Regret. I wanted a break from a body that missed the feeling of being held together by someone equally as broken as I was. I wanted a moment of peace.
I was watching people through the window of a pub in a small town that I was passing through. Watching them talk and laugh andlive.I thought about how easy it would be to just go in there. Order a drink. I could find some stranger to laugh with and pretend for a little while.
That was one of those moments when my skin crawled. I wanted out of my mind. I didn’t want to have to choose. I didn’t want there to be a wrong choice. But there was.
So, I ran.
I ran away from the pub and kept on running. I ran through tears. I ran through aches. I ran until the tight grasp on my mind loosened just a little. The feeling of my feet moving grounded me in a way that I never would have guessed.
I’ve been running every morning since.
By the time I get back to the van, my shirt is soaked, my knees are weak, and I feel so much better than I did before I left. Something about running in the wild instead of on city streets just hits different.
I fall to the grass, trying to catch my breath. I want a shower and ice-cold water, stat.
I’ve avoided even looking at the cabins since I woke up this morning. Like avoiding a text or email you just aren’t mentally prepared for yet. You know it’s there. You know it's not going anywhere.
I turn my head in the grass and am met with a scene straight out of some mountain man movie. I look back up at the bright sky, squinting hard like I can pretend my eyes didn’t just see what they saw.
I’m weak, though. Real friggin’ weak.
Slowly, my head rolls back in the direction of the cabin, and I damn near swallow my tongue.
Bowen on a motorcycle nearly broke my seventeen-year-old mind.
Bowen swinging an axe at some wood? Wearing nothing but low-slung ripped jeans and untied boots? His shirt is tucked into the back pocket of said jeans. He’s sweating. He’s showing off every muscle with every swing. And there are tattoos now. Lots of tattoos.
Dear God.
His jaw is tight. His form is rigid. Almost methodical. Focused. Like, if he doesn’t keep chopping away, the world isn’t going to make it.
I huff a laugh, my head still airy and gooey from the run.
Fuck. Bowen Briggs all grown up is a gay man’s worst nightmare.
