Page 17

Chapter 17

GAbrIEL

I t was still dark when a large group of runners talked and stretched outside the high school track where we’d agreed to meet. The group was diverse in every way imaginable. Runners of varying builds, ethnicities, and ages chatted, yawned, and stretched.

The cool thing about these large group runs is that you will always find someone who runs close to your pace. No one ended up alone. However, I was only interested in one running buddy. I started to feel a sense of dread as I scanned above the heads of the crowd and still hadn’t found my favorite bike mechanic.

April had completed all the prescribed workouts this week, but her confidence was brittle. Building it back up felt like nursing a baby bird. It was going to take time and balance. Her workouts needed to be strong enough to build her strength without being so harsh that they shattered her self-esteem.

All week, I waited for a phone call from her telling me she was done and couldn’t do it. She’d kept the faith, but could she hold until race day ?

Then, I strode past the bathrooms and found her stretching by the bleachers. I stopped. April stood on one leg, an ankle in her lap. She held onto the chain-link fence to get a deep hamstring stretch. And, ?Dios me ayude! her ass in those running shorts.

I forced my eyes away. The last thing she needed was for me to make things messy between us.

I’m her coach.

With that mantra, I approached. She released the stretch and used the fence to prop her foot up, stretching her calf. As she did, she looked up at the sky, her eyes locked on a robust full moon.

“It looks closer this morning.”

April’s head whipped around. Her gaze met my chest before she tilted her chin to look at me. Her smile was slight—still guarded. That was okay. I would win her over. I just needed time. “I was just thinking that.”

A sharp banging noise assaulted the air. For a moment, my nerves froze, like I was back in Coach Rick’s ice bath. A primal instinct told me to duck and hide: he’s mad again.

It took me a moment to realize April had asked me a question. “ Gabe ?” she said in a way that told me it wasn’t her first time trying to get my attention. “Are you okay?” Her eyebrows were scrunched with concern.

I forced a smile. “Fine.”

I turned to find Clay smirking on the bleachers, a metal water bottle (the mallet he’d used to bang on the bleachers) in hand.

“Sorry,” he said. “Forgot you don’t like loud noises.”

?Pinche pendejo!

“Listen up,” Clay addressed the group now. “We’ve got a lot of runners today, which is great for visibility, but it also makes it harder to notice someone lagging. So, we’re going to do the buddy system. Pick someone close to your pace and stick with them the entire run.”

I raised my eyebrows at April, but she gave me an exasperated look. “We cannot be buddies.”

“And why’s that?”

“Did you not just hear Clay say to pick someone close in pace? I’m not fast, Gabe.”

“How dare you bad mouth one of my athletes. I have access to your training data, and I wrote your plan. I know how fast you are supposed to take this run.”

April crossed her arms over her chest. “Here’s the thing: eighteen miles is a long distance to be pushed to the max. So, if this is going to turn into some blare-Rocky-music-and-push-me-to-the-limit training, I’m gonna have to pass.”

I put my hands in the air. “No Rocky music, deal?”

She eyed me warily but made no further protests as we joined the others in jogging toward the street.

Ten miles with my running buddy told me she could hold her own in a run. I kept up conversation as a way to make sure I wasn’t pushing too hard. If she could talk without getting winded, she was good.

Chatting with her felt natural as if we’d known each other for ages. We laughed about dumb athletic trends and talked about music tastes and favorite movies. I didn’t second-guess myself with her—didn’t feel as though I needed to use a filter.

We’d just started a conversation about Chuck’s snoring when I saw something scurry across the street not too far ahead of us. In the dark, it was hard to determine what kind of animal it was. I put out an arm to stop April. She must have seen the animal too because she didn’t question me.

We stayed frozen, watching the shadowy figure lope around. Then, the animal scampered under the orange glow of a streetlight, and a white stripe became visible.

April released a breath. “It’s just a skunk,” she said, obviously relieved. The animal disappeared into the bushes, and we started jogging again.

“Just a skunk?” I repeated. Because, to me, that was one of the worst things you could encounter on a morning run. “What were you expecting, a mountain lion down Magnolia?” Magnolia being the endless street we were running down. In suburbs that rested just outside of Houston’s circumference, there wasn’t much of a threat from wildlife.

“No.” She gave a breathless laugh. “But it looked like a black cat for a second.”

My brows furrowed as I tried to follow why a cat would be worse than a skunk. Then I thought of how she’d thrown the salt over her shoulder at the party, and it clicked into place.

“You’re superstitious.”

Our heavy breathing filled the space. When it became apparent that April wouldn’t comment on my observation, I continued. “It’s okay. Lots of people are.”

“Not like I am.” She looked over at me. “I’m legitimately terrified of bad luck, and I hate that about me. I’m too logical for that shit, but I can’t stop. I feel like an atheist who constantly prays. I tell myself I don’t believe, but I do.”

“Have you always felt this way?”

“No. My mom was the superstitious one. My dad and I always poked fun at her for it.”

“What changed?”

“After she died, I kept seeing signs of luck everywhere, making me think of her. At first, it had been like finding little Easter eggs of Mom. I’d see a broken mirror, and I could picture her reaction. It was a way to stay connected, to make it feel like she was still here. And then, somewhere along the way, I internalized it. Now I’m always watching out for signs—warnings.” She looked at me briefly and then stared ahead again. “Which is why I’m a little worried about this race. I feel like the universe is trying to tell me that it’s not going to happen.”

I felt the urge to spew some coach wisdom, then clamped it down with a, “Hmm.”

Unfortunately, she could sense it. “What?”

“I just—” I pondered how to put my thoughts into words without sounding dismissive of her concerns. “If you believe in something as magical as luck, why not choose to believe the universe is on your side?”

Her gaze snapped up, and I worried I’d said something to make her angry by the intense way she scrutinized my face, but she very calmly answered, “I would love to believe that someone in the great beyond is looking out for me, but I’ve had a hard time since my mom passed.”

I thought about my own mom: her strength, her warmth. “If something happened to my mom, I’d have a hard time seeing the positive too.”

“You know how my mom died, right?”

I remembered someone in the triathlon community mentioning it, though it had happened several years before. “A car wreck?”

“Did you know she’d just rung the bell for her last chemotherapy treatment?”

“I—No.” I found myself at a loss for words. To have watched her mom fight for her life and win, only to lose her to something else. “I’m so sorry.”

“For months, I thought breast cancer was going to take my mom. Then she rang that bell, and I thought, ‘We made it. Mom is going to live.’” April paused, and the air felt thick in the silence. “ Her hair hadn’t even grown back to chin-length when we lost her to a texting driver. So, I have difficulty believing that the universe is on my side.”

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“It’s okay. I just want you to understand. I’ve been fighting this pessimism since I was seventeen. And if I seem weird about superstitions, it’s because I am.”

I stared ahead, my mind racing as I looked for a way past the hurt, to find a solution to her problem. Completing an Ironman on its own was a huge mental battle. Trying to finish when you thought God himself didn’t want you to—near impossible. “I don’t think it’s weird,” I answered honestly. “But it’s good to know.” And then, because she seemed withdrawn, I added, “I’ll make a note in your file: no pointing out black cats on rides.”

She laughed. “Be sure to do that.”

We completed the rest of mile eleven in silence, but then April revived the conversation with her own question. “How did you get into massage?”

“My mom worked at a massage clinic—not as a therapist but as part of the cleaning crew. I used to hang out there after school. I’d do my homework at the front desk. Then, one summer, I worked scheduling appointments. I liked the idea of people coming in with aches and pains and leaving feeling new. So after high school, I got certified in it. It’s perfect for me. I enjoy helping people, but I’d never have the patience or attention span for medical school.”

“How long have you been doing it?”

“A little more than ten years,” I said, feeling ancient.

“And do you still enjoy it? ”

“I do. If I had to pick between coaching and massage therapy, I’d pick coaching, but that might be because I’m relatively new to coaching. I like the fresh challenge.”

“It’s cool. You get to help people in different ways.”

“Yeah.”

We fell back into silence as I worked up the nerve to speak again. “At the risk of offending you, can I ask a question?”

She nodded, little drops of sweat releasing with the movement and rolling down her hairline.

“The Ironman stuff—You’re not that into it. Are you?”

“That obvious, huh?”

I lifted a shoulder.

“I don’t hate running and swimming, but I don’t get the same rush as when I cycle. And even when I am riding my bike, it doesn’t come close to the way I feel when I’m fixing one.” She sighed. “As far as an Ironman, I think the 140.6 miles is admirable. Completing one makes you a badass, but I only want to finish for my mom.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that. Actually, I can’t think of a better reason to suffer for sixteen hours.”

“Sixteen?” She pretended to look hurt. “I was thinking I could finish in under fifteen.”

I pretended to look pensive. “We might be able to swing that if you’ll let me push you a bit.”

“Absolutely not. You do enough pushing.” Her smile waned a little. “My turn. Why did you decide to take me on as a client?” April’s lips pursed. “And don’t say it’s good for your portfolio. I’m not falling for that, Gabe.”

“I don’t know.” I thought back to that race. The misery was obvious, but she still wanted to keep going. “I just . . . I could tell this race was important to you. I wanted to help.”

For a long while, she looked ahead as we jogged, as if letting the words soak in. “You already helped me. I’ll never forget how you stopped your race that day, and now that I know it cost you A-Team . . .”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It is, though.”

The crash flashed behind my eyes, how still she’d lain on the asphalt. “I couldn’t just leave you there.”

“Upwards of two thousand people racing that day. I still can’t believe you were the one to find me. That you’d had problems that morning that caused a late start—that you’d even been behind me.”

“It is crazy,” I said, but it felt larger than coincidence, jogging side-by-side on a quiet road, pink hues promising a sunrise on the horizon. I felt like I could almost see the world through April’s eyes, that everything was on purpose, that someone was up there pulling the strings. Only, I did think fate was on our side. Maybe we were brought together to help each other.

But first, I needed a strategy to help April overcome her mental block. The idea of a plan was hatching. I just needed a little help from a friend.