by Archer, Amy
Devin had been expecting to finish the marathon in about five hours, so I had time, but not forever. Checking the bus schedule, I decided there wasn’t enough time to go home.
And then I knew: the park. The same park where I’d gone with Taco the night I’d found him, the night Matt had dumped me, was only a few blocks away. I could spread out on one of the benches there and make my poster. Better yet, the marathon passed right by the park about halfway through. I knew the route by heart, so I knew just about when to expect him.
Finding a picnic table on the side away from the marathon, I spread out the materials I’d bought, then shoved a hand into my jacket pocket while I considered how to proceed. A piece of crumpled paper was in the bottom of the pocket, and I pulled it out. Probably the receipt, I thought, intending to throw it out.
But no. It was my list of rules for getting my life back on track. Just days earlier, when I’d looked at this list, I’d thought I was such a failure. Now, spreading it out on the table in front of me, I read the list one more time.
Sophie’s Rules for Getting Life Back on Track Before the Reunion
1. Join a group and make new friends.
2. Get healthy.
3. Start a new hobby.
4. Always be working toward a goal.
Before the reunion, I’d thought I’d failed on every one of these goals. But reading it again now with the new perspective I’d gained by seeing my old classmates and realizing they weren’t all as accomplished and settled as I’d expected them to be, I had a very different take.
I’d made new friends. Maybe not at the marathon training sessions like I’d planned, but in the past few months I’d reconnected with the Honeybees, and now we even had plans to get together for a pizza night the following weekend. Technically, they weren’t new friends, but resurrecting these old friendships from so many years ago sure did feel good.
I’d gotten healthy. Maybe I hadn’t lost the weight I’d been hoping to lose, but when I’d been rushing around trying to find Devin, I’d been practically running and I hadn’t even gotten out of breath. There was no doubt at all that training for the marathon had gotten me in better shape.
I’d started a new hobby. Sure, I couldn’t run right now, but in a few weeks, I’d get the cast taken off and I could keep running. A break didn’t mean the hobby was lost forever.
And I’d worked toward a goal. Just because I couldn’t actually run in the marathon didn’t mean that I hadn’t worked toward it. I’d gone to almost every training session. I’d worked hard. And as I’d promised myself this morning, one day I would still run a marathon. The goal wasn’t dead. I could still achieve it, and I was so much closer, even now, with a broken leg, than I’d been when I’d started.
I’d accomplished everything on the list that I’d set out to do. According to the rules I’d set out for myself back in September, I’d gotten my life back on track. Maybe it didn’t look exactly like I’d thought it would when I was writing this list, here in this very park, but I’d done it.
Except that now I knew that my life would still be in constant flux. It seemed crazy to me now that I’d ever thought I could make my life settled, ever be “on track” or not. Olivia was right, I thought: I was moving forward, even if the path didn’t look how I’d expected it to.
I sat down on the picnic table bench. For a moment, I just stared out at the people across the park. There were the runners running past. People standing on the sidelines, cheering. Between me and the race, there were a few children playing on the playground. Life was funny, I thought. I had no idea when Devin would decide whether he wanted to be with me, or what he’d end up deciding. Yet I felt more in control of my life than I had in a long time. I was nervous, but at least I was doing what I could to get him back.
And then, as I watched, one of the figures of the children on the playground came into focus. She looked just like…but no, that was impossible.
But it was. A tiny, careful figure aligned herself perfectly in the center of the slide, then pushed off. Angelina. And there was her mom on a nearby bench, watching her.
I strode over. “Hey, Angelina!” I said, waving to her mom, who didn’t notice me right away.
The little girl jumped up. “Ms. Burleigh!” she yelled, and came forward for a hug. Her mom looked up and saw me then, and we chatted for a few minutes about school while Angelina returned to the slide.
“Angelina was very upset about the museum trip,” Angelina’s mom whispered to me.
“I know,” I said. And then I got an idea. “Would it be all right if I asked if she wanted to help me with a little art project I’m working on?” I gestured toward the poster board and art supplies on the picnic table at the far end of the park.
“Sure!” she said.
“Angelina?” The girl, who had been concentrating on walking in a perfectly straight line along the concrete edge of the playground, looked up at me. “Do you want to help me decorate a sign for someone who’s running a very, very long way today?”
Angelina looked skeptical and a little nervous. “What if I mess it up?”
“You won’t,” I assured her. “And besides, remember what the museum lady said? Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Even if we make mistakes on this sign, it’ll be okay.”
Angelina followed me across the park. I wrote “You can do it, Devin!” in large, black letters, and then the two of us sat applying glitter and paint to the poster until it was sparkly and flowered and decorated to the max.
“Perfect,” I told her. “You’re the best helper I could’ve had.”
“That was fun.”
“You’re a good artist, Angelina,” I said. “I mean it. I still think it could be your work in that museum one day.”
“Thanks, Ms. Burleigh.”
She skipped back over to her mom, and I tested the glitter. Dry enough. Time to wait for Devin. I crossed the park and staked out a spot along the route. The runners were much more spread out now than they’d been at the start, but there was still a steady stream of people passing by. I’d have to keep a close eye out to be sure I didn’t miss him.
A moment later, I heard a tiny voice beside me. “Ms. Burleigh, do you need help holding the sign?” Angelina asked.
I smiled. “That would be really nice,” I said. She stood beside me and held up one side of the poster while I held the other, her tiny frame almost eclipsed by the poster. “We’re looking for a tall guy with light brown hair that’ll be bouncing all over the place,” I told her, my heart melting as I pictured Devin appearing around the corner.
And a few minutes later, there he was. My heart almost stopped when I saw him. He looked more beautiful than ever, even though he was sweaty, red-faced, and looked exhausted. “There he is!” I squealed, and Angelina searched the crowd where I was pointing.
Devin looked like his energy was flagging. His shoulders were starting to slump forward, and he was going slower than I knew he was capable of.
“Devin!” I yelled. “Go Devin!”
“Go Devin!” echoed Angelina.
He looked around, saw me, and grinned. He waved, and I waved back with glee. Was he happy to see me? He seemed to straighten up, and it almost looked like he was running a little faster.
And then he was past. I kept watching until he was out of view, thrilled when he glanced back one last time, and that was it.
I found a recycling bin for my poster, but at the last moment I couldn’t bring myself to toss it. Instead, I rolled it up and took it with me. Saying goodbye to Angelina and her mom, I left the park.
I knew where I was going next.
At the pet store, I found an employee to ask for help. “I’m looking for a dog toy,” I said. “Do you have something that will keep a dog occupied and happy while I’m out of the house so that he won’t get into things? Like a dog puzzle—do those exist?” Taco had all kinds of balls and toys, but not ones he liked to use on his own, when Devin and I weren’t there to throw them.
> “This way.” The young, shaggy-haired employee led me down an aisle full of dog toys boasting “Indestructible!” and “Smells like liver!”
I selected a toy that I could put treats inside and make Taco work to get them out. According to the employee, it would take him twenty or thirty minutes of work to get all the treats out.
“Perfect,” I said, and made the purchase.
Then I headed to a sandwich shop next door and, famished, finally had my first meal of the day.
By then, it was almost time for Devin to be finishing the marathon. I couldn’t believe he’d been running all this time. While I’d been on the BART, he’d been running. While I’d been in the craft store, while I’d been in the park making the sign with Angelina, while I’d been traveling over here, while I’d been selecting the toy, while I’d been eating—he’d been running.
And while I took the bus back out into the city, toward the marathon’s finish line, Devin was still running.
Unless, I realized, he had quit. Not all the runners made it. Would he be one of those? Surely not.
There was a thick crowd at the finish line, though many already gone home—the winners had crossed hours ago, and Devin’s expected finish time was still well slower than average, though he was fast compared to most people we passed on our training runs.
Would he be there? Would he want to see me if he were? It could be days, maybe even weeks, before he gave me his answer about getting back together with me, and especially about moving in with me, but I wanted to be there the moment he finished the race—if he did.
I waited around for a few minutes, and then, just five minutes after his expected finish time, there he was. He looked bedraggled, a mess, but he was going to make it.
“Go Devin!” I screamed, and pushed forward. Right before he crossed the finish line, he looked up and saw me. Our eyes met as his feet crossed over the line. He gave a weak smile, and I pushed forward to meet him as he entered the crowd.
“Devin, you did it!” I cried as I wrapped him up in a hug, the best I could do on crutches, at least. “I’m so proud of you.”
He felt shaky in my arms. “I feel like I’m hallucinating,” he said, blinking a few times.
“Let’s get you to bed,” I said.
“Wait, Sophie,” he said. “First. I need to tell you something.”
I shifted nervously on my crutches, feeling my heart flutter. Surely he hadn’t made a decision yet?
“Yes,” he said.
I looked at him, unsure of what he was saying. “Yes…” I repeated. I didn’t want to misinterpret this.
“Yes, I want to be with you.” He looked at me, and his eyes seemed to focus in, his gaze clearer now, more certain. “I want to move in with you. I’m so exhausted I can hardly think, but I know this for sure: I love you. I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I won’t push you into something you’re uncomfortable with ever again. I never want to hurt you. And I never want to be without you.”
I felt my eyes welling up with tears. “Devin…are you sure? Maybe we should talk about this some other time. Once you’ve rested.”
“No.” He looked at me again with that clear, piercing gaze. “This is my final answer. I had a lot of time to think while I was out there, and everything kept coming back to you. I still feel awful about what happened. I never would’ve taken you skydiving if I’d known I’d break your leg.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“But I’m going to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again. I’m going to protect you.”
I smiled at him. I could tell he was having a hard time getting the words out through his exhaustion, but he continued. “Sophie, I almost couldn’t do it without you. I needed you there with me while I was running. I almost quit.”
“You did?”
He nodded. “And then I saw you. There in the park, with that sign for me.” Now it was his turn to have his eyes well up. “Knowing that you were thinking about me and pulling for me was the only thing that kept me going.”
I hugged his sweaty body again, pulling him close, and he hugged me back, almost fiercely. “Let’s never be apart again,” he whispered.
“Never,” I agreed, my heart swelling. I took him by the hand, and he pointed the direction of his car.
“And,” he said as he stumbled along, “I’m going to enroll in a dog training course.”
I laughed. “That sounds like a really good idea,” I said.
Then I drove him home and tucked him into bed.
EPILOGUE
Three months later
It was a Saturday evening late in the summer, and I was at home preparing for the new school year, which was to start that Monday. A whole new group of tiny little faces, eager to learn how to read, to play with blocks, to learn math, to get messy during art projects. I missed my kids from the previous year, Brandon and Jeff and most of all, Angelina, but I knew they were on the paths they were meant to be on, heading into first grade and beyond, and I was excited for whatever the future would bring with my new group of students.
Devin and Taco were at their very last doggy training session, a term that always made me laugh because it reminded me of the training sessions Devin and I used to do together for the marathon, the training where we had met—a training, in fact, that would start up again soon, with the two of us in it. Devin had told me how proud he was of Taco’s progress in the class, and I’d seen with my own eyes that he was much more obedient than he’d been in the past. Any minute now they’d walk in with the dog’s “diploma,” and I couldn’t wait to see them both.
I stood at the sink, washing dishes and doing squats to try to strengthen my leg. Dr. Frazier had said it was healing perfectly, but I’d lost a lot of muscle during my time in the cast. Ironic, I thought to myself. I’d spent all those months worried about wanting to lose weight, but now that I finally managed to lose a few pounds by losing muscle weight, all I wanted to do was gain it back.
I didn’t worry about my weight so much these days. Devin liked how I looked, and I was coming to view my own reflection much more kindly as well. I cared more that I was strong, and that I would be fast again. That I was healthy. Besides, who had time for weight loss when Caroline’s homemade pizza was so good?
After the reunion, the Honeybees had stuck with our plan of getting together for pizza night, and it had turned into a weekly event that I looked forward to the entire rest of the week. I knew that, like everything in life, the ritual probably wouldn’t last forever, but I hoped that this time, my friendship with these wonderful, strong women would.
I smiled thinking about the night before. Hannah had regaled us with tales of her latest conquest while Caroline stretched balls of dough into picture-perfect pizzas, then sat to play her guitar while they baked. Olivia had given me a tarot reading, even though she only half-believed it herself, promising good things to come, and Rachel had sat at the table, sketching us all.
“This is the best pizza I’ve ever had,” I’d told Caroline, even though I said the same thing every single week.
“I’m glad you like it. I have big plans,” she’d replied with a mysterious smile. What had she meant by that? I hadn’t had a chance to ask at the time.
I heard keys in the door then, interrupting my reverie, and turned around, grinning, to greet my boys.
“He got his diploma!” Devin announced proudly, holding up a certificate that read “Paco-Taco” as he and Taco came through the living room toward me.
“That’s great! Congratulations!” I said to them both, drying my hands to give them a hug and a pat. That’s when I noticed that Taco was carrying something in his mouth as he trotted toward me, a small basket of some sort.
“What’s that?” I asked, moving in for a closer look. Taco stopped in front of me and set the pillow-lined basket down at my feet, and I leaned down to peer into it—and then gasped as the diamond inside caught the light.
Shocked, I looked up at Devin, who was kneeling in front of
me. “Sophie Burleigh, I love you,” he said. “We may be different, but we balance each other out in a way I never thought I’d find. You ground me when I need it most, and you remind me of what’s really important. Will you be my running partner for life?”
I stared, open-mouthed, between Devin and the ring, and then, with shaky hands, picked it up from the basket. It was beautiful, with three stones of increasing size laid in an arc on the band, the perfect combination of following the rules and being unpredictable.
“Yes,” I said, my eyes filling with tears. He stood, took the ring from me, and slipped it onto my finger. Then he bent his head down to kiss me, and we held each other tight for several moments.
“How did you get Taco to do that?” I asked.
“You mean Paco?” he asked, cracking a smile that I couldn’t help but return. He was still so beautiful to me, all these months later. Then, more seriously, he looked me in the eye. “I can plan ahead for things when they’re important,” he said, then changed tone again. “Okay, we have to go!”
“Go?” I repeated in surprise. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
I grabbed my purse and followed him out of the apartment, patting Taco on the head. “We’ll be back soon,” I promised the dog.
A few minutes later, we pulled up and parked in front of Les Etoiles, and I looked at Devin in confusion. “I know you have some bad memories associated with this place,” he said. “But your friend works here, and it’s a great restaurant. Let’s make some new memories. Some good ones.” He squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back and followed him inside.
He led me to a back room, and as we walked in, my friends and family popped out. “Surprise!” they all yelled in unison. I jumped and stared at Devin in disbelief, my heart swelling.
He winked. “I told you I know how to plan.”
All of the Honeybees were there, as well as my sister, January, her fiancé, Ben, and my parents.