Page 47 of Somebody To Love

I didn’t know what I had done wrong, but she looked pretty miffed. “What’s up? Am I in trouble?” I said locking my car door.

She placed her hand on her hips and glared at me. “You were supposed to be here like fifteen minutes ago. Come on,” she said grabbing me and dragging me towards the field.

“What? Huh? Where are we going?”

“We have our event in like one minute or we forfeit.”

“Event? What?! No! No one told me about an event. I can’t do an event. I’m terribly out of shape, Meredith. I don’t even walk to the mailbox.”

She powered on, dragging me behind her. I didn’t stand a chance. Apparently kids were really strong.

I looked around trying to figure out what was going on. There was a crowd of at least 50 adults and at least 100 kids running around back and forth. It seemed to be ordered chaos. Everyone was clearly having a great time and some families even had on matching t-shirts. When we passed the refreshment table, I impulsively reached for a cup of some sort of mysterious sports drink and downed it like a tired marathon runner. I figured it couldn’t hurt.

When we cleared the refreshment table, I noticed about fifty feet in front of us were a group of adults paired up with kids, standing idly on the field next to a starting line.

Spectators stood on the side, chatting excitedly. I found Dana and Carter there.

“Hey, you finally made it. You better hurry up or you’ll forfeit,” Carter said as if I knew what was going on.

“Forfeit? What is everyone talking about?”

Dana shot me a guilty look. “Sorry, once Meredith realized you were coming she insisted on doing this event with you.”

“Mom and Carter are kind of slow,” she said matter-of-factly.

“I’m SLOWER.” But she was done listening and just continued to drag me to the starting line.

“Good luck,” Dana and Carter called out. I ignored the mockery clear in their tones. They knew I hadn’t been much of an athlete since like freshman year of college. And even then, I hadn’t exactly been a fierce competitor. I tried to get in a competitive mood by bouncing up and down and stretching. I continued my feeble attempt to look athletic by swinging my arms back and forth as if I was getting warmed up. I was just happy that I had worn yoga pants and a t-shirt with sneakers. I had originally debated wearing flip-flops with very short shorts. Glancing towards the spectators again, I wondered where the twins were and then I saw them. They were hitting each other with paper cups at the refreshment table. I held back a smile.

Meredith started stretching so I awkwardly copied her. As I pretended to know what I was doing, I casted a glance at the other parents at the starting line. They were all shapes and sizes and I felt terrible to admit this, but I secretly was happy that I wasn’t the only participant who looked awkward and kind of out of shape.

“So what are we doing?”

“Wheelbarrow racing.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t done that since I was like eight. “Sooo... how does that work? Am I holding your legs or are you holding mine?”

She shook her head and gave me a look of disbelief. “You seriously want me to answer that question?”

“We hold their legs while they make their way to the finish line by walking on their hands,” a voice said from behind me. God, could this day get any worse? Where had he come from?

I ignored him. What the hell was Ty doing there? The announcer’s voice blasted through the air before I had the chance to say anything. That was sort of a relief.

“Ok, parents, friends, and students. We’re ready to start.”

We got into position and I tried to ignore Ty who was clearly Danny’s partner.

“On your mark, get set, go!”

We got off to a difficult start and I almost tripped over Meredith, but I was determined to beat Ty. I didn’t care about everyone else around us. I just wanted to do better than Ty.

We raced clumsily to the finish line and I glanced behind me, smiling widely when I realized he was far behind us. And then just like that, we crossed the finish line. We had lost... miserably, but at least we had beat Ty and Danny. Meredith and I high-fived and I couldn’t help but laugh. I was feeling amazingly better.

“Congratulations,” Ty said as Meredith and Danny excitedly talked to each other. “So how’ve you been?” I ignored him and walked away. He followed me. “Listen, can we just talk?”

“I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“Really? An apology would be nice.”