“Where are you?” he asks in a rush. “Are you okay?”
“Umm…I’m sorry, I fell back asleep.”
“Are you sick?”
“No…”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Then why aren’t you here? Everybody else is.”
That makes me feel ashamed. “Look, I’m sorry. I woke up and wasn’t feeling up to the run.”
“You should’ve called me.”
I yawn into my hand. “You’re right. I will next time.”
“There won’t be a next time if you don’t take training seriously, Annie.”
“What?”
“You don’t show up for my training sessions, I won’t train you. It’s simple as that.”
“Why not? I mean, I’m paying for it.”
A long silence. “Annie, you’re running on my team, under my name. Every single person I’ve trained who’s made it to the day of a race has finished. I’ve helped over two hundred people finish a race. If a client doesn’t take me seriously, I don’t train them. I want to keep my one hundred percent race-day success rate.”
“I get it—”
“Now do you want to tell me what’s wrong? If something’s wrong with the training, we can adjust. If you aren’t feeling good, we can adjust. But you have to talk to me, okay?”
I pull a deep breath and clutch a pillow to my chest. “I’m scared about my stomach. It hurt so bad last week. I got so sick after doing those god-awful speed bursts with you. I threw up like eight times.”
Another pause. “We’ll change up your diet then. Maybe try some toast and English muffins instead of cereal and oatmeal. Maybe we’ll stop giving you Gatorade. The sugar might be making you sick.”
“No! I love my lemon Gatorade. I’ll give up the speed bursts.”
He laughs. “Not a chance. Now, what are you doing tomorrow? You’ve got seven miles to make up.”
•••
Why can’t they just leave it be?
“Do we really have to do this?” I ask.
“It’s time,” Connor says quietly, looking at one of Kyle’s track trophies. How can Connor say that so matter-of-factly?
I swallow as I scan the room. I’m kind of pissed at Kyle’s parents for wanting to box up his things. But then I remember how I boxed up the teddy bears and wind chimes he gave me, and I can’t imagine walking past this room every day either, so I kind of get how they feel. Probably the same way I do whenever I drive past the fire station.
Kyle’s younger brother, Connor, who will be a junior at Hundred Oaks this fall, texted me a few days ago and invited me to come check out Kyle’s room, to decide if I want to keep anything.
“I’ll be out in the living room if you need me,” Connor says. The door clicks shut.
I haven’t been in Kyle’s room since September, since before he broke up with me. His alarm clock blinks a red 12:00 over and over. I pick up a worn Titans sweatshirt from the floor and bring it to my nose. His scent is gone. It smells like nothing. I fold the sweatshirt neatly and set it on his unmade bed.
I wipe dust off the framed picture of us from junior prom. I set it on top of the sweatshirt, starting a pile. I pat his stuffed bear’s head. Kyle had Chuck since he was a baby, and now the bear lives on the bookshelf.
For a while, I’d call Kyle’s cell phone just to hear his voicemail message. But then his parents shut it off. I look frantically around the room to see if there’s anything I should take in case his parents don’t recognize its value. If I had been his parents, I would’ve kept that cell phone plan forever.
I find a red Nike headband he wore for track and slip it into my back pocket. If I make it to the marathon, maybe I’ll wear it during the race. Eighties style.
I sit down on his bed and run my fingertips over his pillow. When I lift it to see if it still has Kyle Smell, I discover a small black velvet box. With shaking fingers I open it to find a gold ring with a small diamond. I gasp. The night at the drive-in when Kyle proposed, he didn’t hold a ring out to me. He only said, “Marry me.”
The door creaks open and I look up to find Mrs. Crocker, decked out in her apron, the one spotted with a cherry print. Honestly, I’ve never seen her at home without an apron on—she’s always cooking something—but it doesn’t fit like it used to. It hangs around her loosely.
“Annie, we’re ordering pizza. Do you want to join us for din—” She makes a noise when she sees what I’m holding. She brings her fingers to her mouth. “I’d wondered where he put it. That ring belonged to my grandmother.”