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“I’m, uh…” Brendan flinches, zipping up his shorts. “I’m kissing Erin.”

“Because you love her?”

Brendan looks horrified. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so awful.

He flinches again and swallows. “Sometimes people just kiss.”

Because this isn’t love. We aren’t even dating. Brendan doesn’t date. And because I have a boyfriend, sort of. Who is Brendan’s best friend.

Ah, yes. The thing I was trying not to remember.

“Mommy says that’s what people do when they love each other,” Matthew informs us.

Brendan turns toward him. “Yeah, uh, sometimes.”

“So you love Erin.”

“Uh…buddy, you should be in bed.”

“I heard a noise. You said the f-word.”

“Jesus Christ,” Brendan murmurs. “He must have the hearing of a bat.”

Glancing back at me with a look I can’t decipher, Brendan grabs Matthew’s hand and walks him inside and back to bed. And I escape to the safety of my room, locking the door behind me, praying to God that flimsy safety measure is enough to keep me from doing something insane.

37

Erin

Present

When my alarm goes off at 4 AM, I stumble through the room half-asleep and too tired to worry about the awkwardness of seeing Brendan after last night.

By the time I’m downstairs, however, I feel not just awkward but terrified. Being around Brendan and knowing he’s an option is like walking into a buffet after 20 years of deprivation. I’m not sure I’m capable of restraint, and I have to be.

Yes, Rob and I aren’t technically together. I suppose I could use this as an excuse to do whatever I want right now. But I can’t—not with Brendan. I can’t allow this thing to come between him and Rob, and while I trust Brendan, I don’t trust myself with Brendan. Allowing myself any piece of him is like jumping into the deepest chasm. I can’t begin to imagine how I’d ever climb back out. He only wants temporary, but I’d want everything, just like my mother did, and I’d go through my entire life waiting for it to happen.

There’s no sign of him downstairs, but the crew is already up and raring to go, creating in me that same mix of excitement and queasiness I felt during my own racing days, only now on Olivia's behalf.

I walk over to Will. “Did she sleep?”

He sighs. “A little. Not enough.”

“Is she going to be okay?”

His jaw is set, his face grim. “I wish I knew.”

An endurance run of this length comes with special dangers—renal shutdown, heat stroke, low blood sodium. Western States comes with even more. Much of it takes place in the wilderness, inaccessible except on foot. There’s wildlife and multiple chances to slip off a path and straight down the side of a mountain. There are rivers to ford, and weather you can’t depend on—there’s been snow some years, and in others the heat coming off the rocks has reached 114 degrees. For Will, who was fiercely protective of Olivia long before she became his wife, the anxiety must be excruciating, and for her sake he’s got to pretend it isn’t. Her anxiety would triple if she thought he was worried too.

We watch her walk down the stairs, clad only in running shorts and a singlet, though it can’t be 40 degrees outside. She’s shivering, but I suspect it’s more from nerves than cold.

She tries to cross the room, appearing to see only Will, just as he appears to see only her, but every member of the crew stops her to insist she’s going to win—which is nothing she wants to hear right now because she’s busy assuring herself she will lose. There’s no one alive who can psych herself out the way Olivia can, and by the time she's halfway to us, she looks like she's going to pass out.

"They should know by now just to leave her alone.” Will groans. "I've got to get her out of here. Can you manage these guys?"

I nod. We've done this before, Will and I, he the protector of Olivia's sometimes fragile psyche and me left to man the ship. He breaks through the crowd, draping a blanket over her and pulling her to his side.

“I don’t have it today, Will,” she whispers. “I feel weak.”