“You’re such a goof,” I say to him through my laughter. He grins and his two dimples ignite tiny goose bumps on my arms. Moments later, a few girls approach us and corral Ryan with their flirty smiles. I wipe off the goose bumps and move forward in line.
“What are you going to get?” I ask Mari.
“I don’t know. I may get the vanilla.” She laughs.
We move again, and before I can reach for two cups, Ryan swoops in and hands one to each of us. We fill them, with Ryan cramming as many toppings as he can on and around his mountain of yogurt. I squirm a little as he insists on paying for ours, too.
We find an empty table outside around the side of the store and sit. We take a few bites in silence, then Ryan inspects my cup.
“So, I see you went with the vanilla.” My cheeks ignite. “Good choice. And rainbow sprinkles,” he observes.
“Yep. My favorite,” I say and take another bite, hoping to cool the fire under my skin.
Ryan shifts his eyes to Mari’s cup. “Gummi bears. Solid choice. Although, don’t you find the chill takes away their gumminess?”
I know she hasn’t heard him, so I motion to Ryan to switch seats with Mari, so we’re both on her left side. Ryan looks confused, and Mari points to her ear.
“Oh yeah, right. Sorry,” he says and trades places with her.
Now Ryan sits next to me, and my heart pounds as the fresh-from-the-dryer smell of his sweatshirt drifts into my space. I stare at my yogurt, strategically moving around each rainbow sprinkle as we all shift in our seats.
Mari finally breaks the silence. “Are you nervous about tomorrow, Emma?”
My head darts up, and I narrow my eyes at her.
“What’s tomorrow?” Ryan asks.
I blink several times at Mari, and she nods, understanding her mistake. I still haven’t told Ryan about my situation and what I’m working on. Now I have to tell him about the race, at least.
“I’m running a half-marathon tomorrow.”
His eyes double in size. “A half-marathon? Damn. I knew you were in cross country, Loukas, but I didn’t know you were like a real runner.”
I snort out a laugh. “I’m not. Trust me. I don’t even know if I can finish the thirteen miles.”
“You’ll do fine,” Mari chimes in, trying, I think, to end the conversation.
Ryan keeps it going. “So why are you running a half-marathon then?”
I can’t tell him why without telling him my whole tragic tale. And even though I feel like I owe him the truth, I don’t want to do it in a crowd of kids at The Big Chill. So I lie. “I guess for the challenge.”
“A challenge? Geez. Well, yeah, I guess that’s a challenge, all right.” He takes his last bite of yogurt. I’m only halfway done. “Maybe you should’ve started with a 5k,” he jokes.
“I guess, but—”
“What’s up, dude?” Two guys in basketball hoodies come from behind and slap Ryan on the back. A few more guys and girls follow, and Ryan stands. Mari and I fade into the background as they all talk. We finish our yogurts, and I catch a couple of the girls sneak a glance at Mari and exchange a knowing look with each other.
“Do you want to go?” I whisper at Mari.
“No. It’s okay,” she says, but I can sense she does.
“We’re headed over to Tracey’s house. Her parents are gone,” one of the tall boys says to Ryan. “You in?”
“Nah, I’m good here,” Ryan says and aims an elbow at us. “I’m hanging with Loukas and Mari tonight.”
They frown at us. I smile awkwardly, and Mari shrinks about five sizes.
I nudge Ryan’s leg. “It’s okay. You should go.” My mouth says the words, but my heart wants him to stay.
“No way. I’m hanging with you guys.” He turns to the guys. “I’ll catch the next one.”
“Okay, bro,” the blond non-basketball player says. “Later,” they echo one after the other. They do some sort of bro handshake and leave with the girls trailing behind.
“Really,” I insist. “You should go. I have to leave anyway. I have the race tomorrow.” I stand and Mari follows. I only said that so he’d not feel obligated to stay with us, but I should probably go anyway. I imagine staying up late will only make the thirteen miles more difficult.
“Where’s the race?” Ryan asks.
“In Huntington Beach. I don’t even know where that is. I have to get directions.”
“It’s like thirty minutes away. What time does it start?”
“Seven.”
“Yikes.” He collects our empty yogurt cups. “Well, yeah, you probably should go to bed early.”
I agree and grab my keys and phone from the table.
“Well, I’m at least going to walk you to your car.” He stretches out an arm. “Ladies, after you.”
We walk back to the car and Ryan’s hint of cologne mixes with his dryer fresh smell to create a perfect cloud of boy that hovers all around me. A rush of warmth travels through my veins until the sight of an out-of-state license plate next to my car halts its flow. Pictures of Ohio and my mom, dad, and brother flash in my mind. And my race tomorrow. I don’t have the space to let in a boy. And my fragmented heart certainly can’t afford another splinter.
I shiver and quickly get in the car.
When I get home, Grandma is already asleep, but there is a light on for me. She also left a note out on the counter wishing me good luck tomorrow, and she and Susan even printed out directions to the race for me. I haven’t told Grandma about Mom’s goal. I told her running helps me deal with everything, and as a result, she’s letting me out of therapy.
I tiptoe to my room to get my clothes ready for tomorrow morning. I set an alarm for 5:00 a.m. Ugh. Another early morning. I second-guess this goal, wondering again if it’s simply a stupid idea that doesn’t matter anyway. But I see Mom’s picture next to the race medal on my dresser, and I know it’s the right thing to do. I turn out the lights and crawl into bed.
After a while, the ping of my phone wakes me. I fumble in the darkness and see a blurry 1:05 a.m. I don’t have a good grip on the phone, and it drops to the floor before I can read who the message is from. My head falls back on the pillow, and I consider ignoring it. But Ryan still lingers in my heart like bits of confetti after a party, and I secretly hope it’s a message from him even though my brain says it would be weird for him to be texting me at this hour and that I should stop thinking about him.
Tired of the volleying between my head and my heart, I lean over the side of the bed and pick up the phone. I prop myself on an elbow and squint to read the screen.
My heart drops with a thud and not a swoon. It’s a news alert. There’s been another terror attack. I tap the alert, and it opens to an article headline that indicates it happened in Brussels. My finger jumps to click off the screen, and I put the phone face down on the nightstand. I roll over and curl up on my side.
I tell myself I don’t care and demand sleep, but my brain switchboard is the Las Vegas strip. I wonder how many died and were injured. And where exactly was it and how did they do it this time? And I wonder who all the lost faces belong to. Are they adults or kids? Is there anyone who lost her family in this attack?
I can’t stand it anymore, so I throw off the covers and sneak into the living room. I locate the remote and press the power button, lowering the volume immediately. I flip to channel 1064, and the Breaking News banner at the bottom of the screen starts feeding me answers. Eleven injured and five confirmed dead. A trio of pictures shows an outdoor market and the large white windowless van that drove through it. A new alert flashes, telling me it’s a Saturday morning festival in Brussels. I sit on my knees a foot from the TV.
I study the images rotating at even intervals on the screen. Tables are upturned and broken, some scattered in pieces. The ripped white tops of E-Z UPs flutter in the breeze, and the rainbow splinters of fruit and shredded art resemble the smeary up-close mess of the Monets we studied in art class last year.
Another picture sends that nasally wail into Grandma’s living room as European police cars rush to the scene. Still more images show a montage of bodies—bloodied, bandaged, and blanketed.
The blond female news anchor introduces a young woman who survived the carnage. She describes the chaos and the terror she saw in the eyes of people fleeing the scene. She recalls comforting an older man who couldn’t find his wife. She doesn’t know where the van came from, but all of a sudden, she heard the roaring of an engine and tables and goods shooting off into the air one row away from where she was. The news anchor tells the woman she appreciates her visit during this difficult time.
“Wait!” I say to the news anchor. I need to know more about the moment when it happened. I need to know who escaped and who didn’t and why.
It’s 1:30 a.m. now, and my alarm is going to blast me awake in a few hours. I can’t go to bed without answers, though. So I continue watching until I see their faces and feel their final breaths and know exactly how it happened. I sit in the living room in front of the TV until I’ve traveled to Brussels and can feel the late morning sun and hear the chaos of sirens and cries that sound like an orchestra tuning.
Finally, around three I stumble back to bed, my mind still wandering around in all the rubble, looking for all the answers.
Chapter 11
I guess there isn’t always traffic in Southern California, and I’m happy to discover this fact today. After being awake most of the night, I overslept, but I still arrive in time to pick up my race packet before the start. Mom always got hers the day before, but I couldn’t drive all the way here yesterday. So I rush to a portable table and get my race bib, the neon yellow T-shirt, and bag of advertisements with thirty minutes to spare.
Once I’ve organized myself at the car, I walk back to the start area. I’m not really sure what to do. Off to the side, some people lean and angle their bodies in different stretching positions. Others jog up and back along the race route. Yet there are also a ton of people drinking coffee and talking as if it’s a Sunday morning at Starbucks. What they have in common, though, is that they all have someone—a companion, a group, someone to be with. My isolation only increases my insecurity, so I sit on a curb and check my music and retie my shoes.
The sitting intensifies the heaviness of my eyelids and the vividness of last night’s news remnants still rustling in my brain. I jump to my feet and try to remember the different stretching drills from cross-country practice. I pull my leg back behind me and wonder if my mom ever felt this awkward before a race. We all went to the first few races, but once she began racing regularly, we stopped. It didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. I wish I’d paid more attention to those race days. I wish...
I let go of my leg and jam my earbuds and some thumping music into my ears. I need to clear all these thoughts from my mind. None of that will help me make it through thirteen miles. I pace a bit and look at my watch again and again until I see people’s hands cover their hearts. I pause my music and listen to the national anthem. Race time has arrived.
Moments later, an airhorn signals the start. I’ve forgotten to turn on the GPS on my watch, though, so I have to fuss with it for the first bit of the race. It finally starts, and I settle into the flow. There’s such a clog of people for the first half mile or so as we wind our way through the beach boardwalk. I feel like I’m back in middle school PE running the obstacle course. I’m dodging people and weaving all around some who are already walking.
The clump of runners thins when we reach the road that parallels the ocean. One reason I chose this race was that it was flat with the entire course running along the shoreline. It’s a beautiful, sunny morning, and I’m feeling so good now that I snap a few photos of the ocean as I run so I can text Callie later. I giggle at the caption I’ll use: “Surf’s up, dude!”
At Mile 4, I check my pace, and I’m a full minute faster than I usually am. I haven’t even had to stop for water yet. Visions fill my head of me bounding across the finish line earlier than expected. I can’t wait to tell Coach how well I did. I’m literally cruising out here.
The tide begins to shift, though, at about Mile 5.5. A car in a nearby parking lot backfires, and my mind immediately unearths the bodies from last night. I contrast them with the healthy fresh-faced runners all around me. It’s the same sun shining down on us as it was shining down on that morning festival in Brussels. Why have we been spared? Who makes these decisions?
The heaviness seeps out of my head and travels down my body. The pinball pain shoots into my legs, and I feel the first signs of their weight. My body temperature is rising fast. One great thing about running by the beach is the beautiful scenery, but an equally awful thing is the fact that there is no shade from trees. The morning sun beats down on me, and my body is heating like a barbeque. I peek at my watch. I’m almost at the turnaround. There will be water there and a chance to walk. I’m slowing down, but I keep running.
I arrive just in time, according to the cries of my muscles and my enflamed cheeks. I don’t notice that the cup I’ve taken is Gatorade and not water until I pour it over my head. I quickly find a cup of water and dump that over me to wash off the lemon-lime Gatorade, and I grab another cup for actual drinking. They’re handing out energy gels, and even though I’ve never used them, I take one. I need all the help I can get to run another six and a half miles. The coffee flavor sounds good because I need like a gallon of coffee to have the energy to finish this race. I rip off the top and squeeze it into my mouth. It comes right back out as I spit it into my hand. This is not the time for coffee, especially a gooey toothpaste version of it. I flick it into the empty cup, but now I have a sticky hand. I wipe it on my shirt and use my cup of water to wash off the rest. I can’t go back for more water, so I start running, just as thirsty as I was when I got to this water station.
At the seven-mile mark, my legs stop. I beg and plead but neither they nor I can imagine running six more miles. It’s a desert out here, and I can practically feel my flesh burning. I didn’t even think about wearing sunscreen or a hat. 7:00 sounds so early. How can it be this hot already? My short-sleeved shirt might as well be a fleece sweatshirt. I shove the sleeves up as far as they will go, but they keep slipping down off my shoulders. I really need some water. I coax my legs back into running, but I nearly trip on a crack in the road because my feet hardly move off the ground in this shuffle-jogging I’m doing. I alternate walking and shuffling, with the walking lasting a bit longer each time. Start again at the next light pole. But when I pass the light pole, my legs continue walking. They are done. The ache in my feet and the pain in my knees shout this at me loud and clear. I look at my watch. If I walk the five and a half miles back to the finish line, it doesn’t really count. I will not have run a half-marathon, and this will be a waste of time. But my legs don’t care, and the heat stroke and dehydration seal the deal. I’m walking.
I hang my head in defeat. A blast of cowbell comes from my left. I’ve been hearing it intermittently on the course. It’s an older man out here cheering everyone on. I remember following Mom on the course a couple of times, holding a sign to encourage her. Now I glance in the direction of the cowbell guy, hoping that maybe his cheers can encourage me to run. I see him and a few people near him holding signs for their family members. One sign makes me step aside to stop all together. I rub my eyes because I think the heat might be making me hallucinate. A sign reads, “Go Emma!” and right above it is Ryan’s beaming face.
I carefully cross through the runners to where he is. “Wha... what?” I have no energy for any more words.
“I came to cheer you on!” His bright blue eyes sparkle. He checks his watch. “You’re doing great. How’s it going?”
I bend over and shake my head for a moment then straighten. “I’m not sure I can run anymore.”
“Of course you can. You got this,” he encourages me and hands a bottle of water to me. “Here, hydrate. You’ll feel better.”
�
�Thank you,” I gasp and snatch it from his hand. I alternately drink and pour it over me.
“I’ve got more in the car. There’s another spectator point in a couple miles.” He points down the road.
I finish the water and hand him the bottle. I feel a little refreshed and like I might be able to run again. I take another peek at his sign, “Go Emma!” I can go. I can do this.
“C’mon, you can do this. You got it.” He gives me a squeeze on my shoulders.
I nod. “Yeah... okay... yeah.”
I say thanks and return to the stream of runners. I start with a slow jog, and my legs are moving. He’s right. I can do this. Go Emma. Some of the pain has dissipated, and I’ve shed a layer of discomfort. Refreshed from the water, I pick up my pace a little. I increase the volume of my music and let the rhythmic beat and the vision of Ryan’s poster carry me forward.
It’s still blazing hot and my body still aches, but I’m able to run most of the remaining miles thanks to the additional water from Ryan and his cheering. Mile 13 hits, and the finish line beckons. I’m going to make it. I’m going to finish my first half-marathon!
My elation grows when the race volunteer drapes the medal around my neck, and it doubles when I see Ryan waving along the side of the finishers’ lane. He hands me a bottle of water and follows me as I wander through and collect my post-race banana, muffin, and chocolate milk. When I’m through, he leads me to a shady spot on some grass near a tree. I can’t even sit down. I hand my stuff to Ryan and bend at the waist, pouring some of the water over my head.
“You did it!” Ryan exclaims.
“Yeah.” Even though the post-race adrenaline pulses through me, I can barely raise my hand for a high-five.
“Do you need to stretch out or something?” he asks.
I probably do, but I have no energy. And I’m starving. It’s about 9:30, and all I’ve eaten today is the donut I grabbed from the kitchen as I raced out of the house. “Probably, but...” I can’t even finish my thought. I drop to the ground and start shoving food into my mouth.
The Brilliance of Fireflies Page 9