This is an untitled work in progress that I hope to be a YA novel soon (I posted a small segment of it earlier). I just turned this section in for my December workshop at Antioch University. I'm so excited to go back to residency!! So, what you need to know is: Jasia’s boyfriend since seventh grade Mikah broke up with her during track season of her Junior, his Senior, year of high school. He is now in college at Forrester, a nearby University. Jasia spent the summer running, trying to forget Mikah. Jasia’s best friend Lydia is excited for Jasia to finally be single with her, however, Jasia doesn’t think she’ll ever be ready to date anyone at their school as Lydia has gone through most of the guys worth dating in their class and Jasia knows all too well why Lydia dumped each one. You are starting halfway through chapter one at the start of the girls’ cross country practice at the beginning of the new school year. Enjoy!

We all sat in the grass outside the school to stretch and wait for coach and the rest of the team. I picked at the grass while Lydia and Jeremy chatted about, I don’t know, whatever, summer or something.

            “Jameson!” Coach Quakes shouted at me as he walked over from the parking lot next to the school.

            My head snapped up, a clump of grass clasped in my right hand. A stupid “HUH?” look was probably plastered all over my face.

            “Quit messing with the grass, girl,” Coach said.

            I look in front of me. I had dirt all over my calves from sitting cross-legged while ripping out the area around me. I had neat little piles of plucked blades in front of me.

            Wow, I look like an idiot, I thought. I glanced over at Lydia, thinking she’d give me some indication of how crazy everyone probably thought I was right now, but she wasn’t looking at me. I followed her gaze up to Coach Q who was now standing over us with two beautiful, tan, muscular—but in a good way, not all puffed up like some guys who aren’t runners look—guys. They were both dressed in running shorts and cut-offs so you could see their fabulous arms and could tell the part the shirt covered was probably perfectly sculpted as well. Their bodies were equally tan and tall but not too tall—maybe about six foot—and both had amazing clear blue eyes. The place where they differed was their hair. One had curly bleach blonde hair and the other’s was very straight and light brown that he wore swooped across his forehead.

            Wow, I thought. No wonder Lydia was staring.

            “Team, this is Colin and Cooper Bailey. Their family just moved here from Washington, uh, the state. Colin is a sophomore member of the Forrester Cross Country team and Cooper is a senior transfer here at St. Ann’s,” Coach told us.

            Other members of the team were getting up off the ground to shake Colin’s and Cooper’s hands. I went to stand up as well, and dirt and grass rolled off my lap. Smooth. I followed Lydia over to shake their hands anyway and saw, when I extended my hand to the curly-q one, that my whole palm was dusty. Jesus, I thought, pull yourself together, Jaisa.

            “Colin,” Curly said.

            “Jaisa,” I mumbled. I barely looked up at him—just stared at my dirty hand in his firm, manly one. Nice handshake. Up close, I could tell he was the older one. He had the fuller build of a college athlete, whereas his brother was still a little wirey and had a bit more of a baby face—a very, very good looking baby face, don’t get me wrong. I really bet they’re wicked fast. I shook Cooper’s hand too.

            “Colin will be helping us on Tuesdays and Thursdays as part of his college coaching program. He plans to be an British literature teacher and Cross Country coach someday,” Coach said. “He may also be at meets as long as they do not conflict with his own meets and practices at Forrester.”

            Forrester, I thought, that’s where Mikah is right now. When Mikah and I were younger, in practice, we’d race each other. We were the fastest on the team. Mikah peaked early though and while I’ve won state freshman, sophomore and junior year in class C, and placed top 3 all-state the last two years, Mikah didn’t qualify his senior year. I even started to beat him in all of our runs. When we were in Junior High, sometimes, I know he let me beat him. Not last year. I smoked his ass. Suddenly don’t feel so bad about it either. Douchebag.  

            “Brit lit!” Lydia hissed into my ear, grabbing my arm and breaking me out of thought. “He reads! A boy that reads and runs. That interests me.”

            “Huh, so what you’re going to go for this college dude that is not at all your type physically because he is studying British Literature?” I asked as we started going through our dynamic stretching routine. High knees, butt kicks, karaoke.

            “Yeah, maybe. What do you think?”

            “Is that really how it works for you? You just decide, ‘huh, that looks like fun’ and go for it and they take you? I mean, no offense, you know I think you’re great, but every single guy ever? Are you sure you don’t have some kind of trick?” I asked. How am I going to get a new boyfriend? I thought. I don’t know how to flirt. I don’t know what it’s like to talk to a guy that isn’t Mikah or just a friend like Jeremy. And I don’t hardly even have any guy friends so it’s not like I even have practice talking to guys other than Mikah.

            “Hm…I guess. I won’t take offense to that. I don’t know. I’m charming and cute,” she said.

            “That’s not an answer, seriously, Lydia, how am I supposed to meet a guy? Help a girl out! What do I do?!”

            “So, you’re finally considering it? You’re ready to move on?”

            “Dear, God,” I said, throwing my arms up in the air, “I guess so.” We’d started running by now and Lydia and I were a few paces behind the new kid, Jeremy and Coach Q. “I mean what other choice do I have? Become a nun?”

            “Eeek! I’m so happy! We can, like, go out together, finally! And talk about boys and you won’t have the same boring things to say about your boring ex!” Lydia threw her arms around me giggling and almost sending me toppling into the street.

            “Ladies, that doesn’t look like the running form of a state champion.” Sexy college-boy Colin came running up beside us.

            “Right, sorry,” I said.

            “Jasia’s the real cross country runner here. I’m just her entertainment to get by,” Lydia told him, smiling at him slightly and tilting her chin down just enough so that she had to look at him through her eyelashes.

            “Well, if you aren’t serious about it, don’t distract those who are,” he said, giving me an up and down look as he said “those who are.” He turned and ran back to criticize someone else, I assume.

            Pff! What the heck? I thought. “That was kind of snooty,” I said to Lydia.

            “Huh. Yeah. Let’s just run I guess. No touching. What do you wanna do this weekend?” Lydia said.

After practice I decided to go out again after the rest of the team cooled down. Coach wasn’t really pleased but whatever. Left, right, left, right, remember your foot strike, breathe, breathe.

As my feet flew (yes, flew, the harder I think, the more I feel like I’m soaring and the farther I can take my mind away from the actual pounding of my heart in my chest and feet on the pavement), I found myself thinking about my parents’ divorce. Probably because I had to be at work in an hour. Let it be known that my parents’ divorce is one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. However, now that school is back on, I’m not overjoyed to be in class seven for hours a day, practice for two and then working at the welcome desk at the gym on Sunday and Monday nights from seven to eleven so that I can continue to pay for my cell phone bill, car insurance and pitch in for the internet. Which, reminded me, I couldn’t forget to take care of those on Friday when I get paid.

            I was in the rich part of town now. Lots of good, rolling hills.

It’s not that we’re not really poor, obviously, but the government does pay for my brother’s and my school lunches. I could survive without a car, without internet at home and a cell phone, but I’d rather work in the summer and a few hours during the school year to keep a social life.

I took a turn to head outside of town, down a gravel road. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll have any knees left when I’m an adult from all this running. Gravel is supposed to be better cushion. Might as well try it, because we all know I’m not going to quit running for lack of knees.

            The thing is that my parents fought all the freaking time. I love them both, have always loved them both but holy crap it was awful living with the two of them. We had a pretty normal family. I mean we did things together. Things were fine. I wouldn’t say my parents were head-over-heels in love, but they seemed, I don’t know, content.

Then my mom realized she was a lesbian when she met this woman, Charlotte at work three years ago. Mom was a schoolteacher. Charlotte was one of the kid’s mom. Mom says you fall in love with a person, not a gender. That’s cool. I get that. But she tried to stay married to Dad for a while for my brother Bryce and me. Not cool. A. Don’t lie to me and B. Don’t make Dad stay in a relationship where he isn’t loved when you have someone else to love. He deserves love too.

            I don’t get why couples say they’re trying to work things out “for the kids.” You know what’s better for the kids? To not have to see the parents they love fighting all the time. I can tell Mom and Charlotte are in love for real. They work together and fit together like two sides of a zipper. Like I said, it’s not that my parents were unhappy, I just don’t think either of them knew what real love was.

            I cut back into town and start along Main Street toward Apex, the gym where I work.

            Mom and Charlotte live in Charlotte’s house with Charlotte’s kids. Bryce and I live with Dad in an apartment by school. We had to move out of our house because Dad had so many loans to pay off because he went back to school right before they got divorced. He’s going receive his doctorate from Forrester at the same time I graduate high school.

I better get on track with my running so I can get some kind of scholarship or else I going to be bumming around East Benjamin High—what everyone calls the community college in Landview.

            I headed into Apex, showered, changed and sat down at the desk right at seven. Mom had dropped off a packed supper for me when she came after work to go to cycling class.

            I better get a scholarship to run. I can’t work at this desk forever. A couple of D2 coaches had talked to me during cross-country season. Then when I pulled that crap in track after Mikah dumped me. I haven’t heard from them since. Dumbass. Both him for dumping me and me for just being a dumbass. Rick Schnider and some football players in Mikah’s class made fun of me one day for my mom being a lesbian. Right in front of Mikah. He didn’t do anything. He just stood there. Why didn’t I see that he was a total douchebag right then?

Since I didn’t have any homework yet, I spent the night dorking around on Facebook and the internet. Mikah moved into the dorms a week ago. There are already 37 drunk pictures on his profile that girls have tagged him in. In 33 of those, he is touching a girl or multiple girls in some way. Not inappropriately, but still. Arm around some, a girl sitting on his lap. I should get rid of Facebook. This is going to kill me.

Chapter 2

            “Uh, hey, mind if I sit with you?” a voice, a dude voice, asked me in the second day of Advanced Placement Physics.

            “Huh?” was my glorious response. I had been scribbling a dark mess that may have started out being some kind of flower with a pen in my notebook.

            “Can I sit with you? Cooper. I’m the new kid from cross country? I met you yesterday?”

            “Yeah, yeah, sorry. Of course, sit down, sure. I know you. I’m sorry, I just, you know, was busy scribbling,” I murmured sitting up straighter and moving my chair over so he could share my lab table. Lame ass I thought to myself. How rude can I get? “I’m Jaisa,” I said, extending my hand and smiling.

            “I know,” he responded. “I met you yesterday. Remember?”

            Lame ass to dumbass, way to go, Jaisa, I thought. He now thinks your rude and a dipshit.  “I know,” I said. “I just thought, you know, being new there’s probably a ton of names you learned yesterday and maybe you wouldn’t remember mine. I didn’t want it to be awkward for you if you forgot.”

            “Thanks. But it’s cool. I remembered it.” He laid out his planner, open to this week; a pen; a pencil; a notebook, open to a fresh page headed with the date, and his physics book.

            I had a chewed-on black pen that’s missing its cap in my hand and a thick spiral notebook I use for every class open to a page mostly covered in scribbles. I’m not sure how the scribbling started. I didn’t even notice I’d been doing it, but looking back through my notebook and the syllabuses I’d been given yesterday apparently it started yesterday. That’ll need to stop.

            “So, do you like physics?” he asked.

            “Huh? Physics? Oh, yeah, it’s OK, I guess. It’s easy enough.”

            “Great! So I picked a good seat!” He smiled at me.

            I smiled back. “Yeah, you did. Actually, I kind of love physics. And not just because it’s easy.”

            “I do too. I love just plugging in the formulas. It’s so clean and simple. I also like, you know, shooting things and flinging things and making things fly.”

            “Exactly. I love how there’s one right answer. No crap about opinions and interpretations. The force of gravity is the force of gravity. I mean yeah, there’s all the string theory and those kinds of hypotheses, but really this is just a chance for me to do more math with the added fun of shooting rockets and building cars.”

            Mr. Miller came in then and started lecturing. Mr. Miller is kind of amazeballs. He’s super old with hair like he stuck his tongue in a toaster and cowboy boots and he always tells dirty science jokes or mutters a “that’s what she said.” Most people hate him because he’s really smart, too smart really, so he’s kind of hard to follow sometimes. He doesn’t always know how to dumb some things down.

            “Attach yourselves to whatever succubus you may be sitting with because that’s the sucker you’ll be stuck with for the rest of the semester. Hopefully, you didn’t choose an idiot,” he told the class.

            “Well, looks like you’re stuck with me, Succubus,” Cooper whispered to me.

            “Whhhaaat?” I hissed back. “Who said I’m the succubus?”

            “You have to be. You’re the girl.”

            “Huh?”

            “A succubus is a female demon that takes advantage of men while they’re sleeping.”

            I gave Cooper a what-the-fuck look.

            “Colin is an English major. He reads a lot and likes to share cool words,” he explained.

            “Wow. Fantastic, a succubus,” I said, nodding. “I guess there are worse things to be. Like an idiot. If I’m the succubus in this pair, you must be the idiot.”

            “Haha! I’m glad you can take a joke. I didn’t mean to call you a succubus. As it came out, I was really worried you’d freak out on me or think I was a dick,” he said laughing.

            “Oh, hold on. Let’s be clear here, I never said I didn’t think you were a dick. I just said I’m glad I’m not the idiot in our partnership,” I replied, laughing.

            “Haha, OK. I probably deserve that.”

            “I’ll suspend judgment on your assholeness for now,” I said, narrowing my eyes and looking at him with mock seriousness.

            “I suppose that’s all I can ask,” he said, still laughing.

                                                            ###

            At practice that tonight, Cooper stretched and ran with Lydia and me. He’s fast.

            “You guys should just take off and leave me. Good, God. I’m not a distance runner,” Lydia said about have way through our five miler.

            “You want to kick it up a notch?” I asked Cooper.

            “We can slow down,” he said. “It’s OK, Lydia, we won’t leave you.”

            “No, no, just go. It’s cool,” she replied.

            Then I saw it. The way he looked at her. Oh, no, I thought. Cooper has a crush on Lydia. How does she do that? They’ve barely even talked! Maybe that’s the key. She just has some kind of power in her looks so that she doesn’t even have to talk to guys.

            Or maybe not talking is the key. Maybe once you start talking and they think you have a personality, they don’t like you. God, I hope guys aren’t that shallow.

            The next day in Physics I figured I’d just ask him.

            “So. Lydia?” I said, smiling at him while we waited for Mr. Miller to start class.

            “Huh?” he said, blushing.

            “She’s my best friend. If you want in, I’m your best way. You like her don’t you?”

            “That’s forward!” He laughed. “She’s a very good looking girl. I probably don’t have a chance.”

            “Well, for starters I can tell you she doesn’t mix running with dating. However, so far, that seems to be your only setback.”

            “My only setback?” He raised his eyebrows at me.

            “She’s kind of, um, particular. Working for you, I guess is that you are probably the only guy left in this school she may consider. She’s dated everyone worth dating in our class and she doesn’t date down—not that she’s sleazy! She’s really not. She’s just, like I said, particular.” I didn’t mention how she already has her eyes set on his brother.

            “Huh. Ok. Well, then yes, you probably are my girl then. I need your hookup.”

            “Cool,” I said, smiling. How nice, I thought. I have a new project! A very difficult project, but hell, it’s something else for me to put energy into in addition to running.

            Lydia did not make this easy for me. Colin was at our practices on Thursday and Friday and she insisted on running with him.

            “Um, excuse me, Colin, do you think I could chat you up on running in college?” she asked on Thursday.

            “Hey, Colin, could I get your advice on majoring in British Literature?” was Friday’s theme.

            Evidently she does talk to them, so that’s not where her mojo is. I guess if it does work out for them, though, they do have a ton in common.

            On Friday night we made no-bake cookies at her house.

            “I don’t get it. I mean, I’m like throwing myself at him! I talked to him about running and books and he loved my ideas on Chaucer. He loves 19^th century cheesy romances.  I wore my shortest shorts yesterday and I ran in just a bra today. It didn’t even faze him. Ah! What am I doing wrong?” she complained, slopping peanut butter into the saucepan.

            “Don’t look at me. You’re the expert,” I said, licking a spatula.

Chapter 3

            I put my plan into action on Saturday after our morning run. Since Cooper had run with Lydia and me (when Lydia wasn’t busy chasing Colin) every day this week, I thought it was time we hung out outside of running.

            “Hey, you guys want to head over to Mona’s Café for lunch?” I asked them as we cooled down.

            “I’m actually going to drive up to Forrester to watch Colin run. You guys want go? It’d be great to have someone to ride with. And I promise we can stop and get something to eat after the race. Colin’ll probably have to eat with his team, but maybe not,” Cooper said.

            “Colin? Sure! Yeah, let’s, go Jaisa,” Lydia said, hitting me on the shoulder a few times. “Just let us shower real quick!”

             “Uh, well, actually, the meet starts at ten and it’s almost nine now. I was just going to change and head out,” Cooper said.

            “Oh, I can’t do that! Look at me. I sweat today,” Lydia cried, gesturing to down her body. She had a line of sweat at her bra line, under her boobs and a few spots on her back.

No, I thought. That is not sweating. I was drenched. My tank, shorts and socks could probably be wrung out.

            “You look fine. Don’t be a baby. Let’s go,” I said.

            “Yeah, you look really, um, perfect,” Cooper said, looking at his shoes. They were Nikes, brand new—not a scuff on them—orange and blue. I haven’t gotten a new pair of anything except for running shoes since my parents got divorced. Lord knows you can’t go more than 300 miles in a pair and expect to stay healthy enough to complete a season. I was currently sporting flip-flops that my feet were so worn into that it was almost like the sandal had an arch support.

            “Not shower?” Lydia said.

            “Let’s just go.” I grabbed her arm, drug her into the locker room and started undressing. My clothes slapped to the floor one piece at a time. I bet sweat splattered all around my feet the clothes were so wet. God, I’m disgusting.

            “Jaisa, I have to shower.” Lydia, still dressed, watched me strip with her arms crossed.

            “You heard him, we don’t have time.” I jammed my legs into a clean pair of undies and yanked on a bra. I slipped my feet back into my flip-flops and marched over to the hand drier, turned it up toward my face and started drying my hair.

            “But, Jaisa, I want to date him. He can’t see me like this day in and day out, always in running clothes and gross.”

            “Then don’t go,” I yelled at her over the sound of the dryer.

            She stuck out her bottom lip. Really? I thought. Really, you’re seriously going to make a pouty face.

            “I don’t know what to tell you. You have five minutes. Change clothes, put on makeup and it’s time to peace out. You either want to see him or you don’t,” I said. The dryer stopped and I checked the mirror. My curls stuck out every which way like a dirty, un-cool fro. I gathered it all and twisted it up into a bun on the top of my head. I rubbed on some foundation and pulled on a pair of jean shorts and last year’s state cross country t-shirt.            

            Lydia was still in her running clothes, staring inside her locker.

            “Dude, it’s time to go,” I said.

            “Casual Cutie?” She flashed a hot green baggie tank top and purple jean shorts. “Or Sexy Sista?” She held up a teeny black lace tank that was see-through everywhere but the built-in shelf bra and a pair of skinny jeans. I noticed her makeup was done at least.

            “What the—where did all of these clothes come from? Do you just have a closet stashed in there?” I asked.

            “You never know when you might need a change of outfit.”

            “Whatever, Casual Cutie. Time to go.” I walked out of the locker room without her.

            Cooper was waiting for me on the other side.

            “Is she coming?” he asked, rubbing his hands on his brown and baby blue plaid shorts.

            “Yeah, yeah, the princess will be out soon.” I started walking toward the parking lot. “What do you drive?”

            “The charcoal grey Mazda over there,” he said, jogging to catch up to me.

            “Zoom, zoom.”

            “Haha, yeah, exactly.” He smiled at me. “So she’s kind of high maintenance?”

            “You could say that.” I laughed. “When she’s just hanging with me. No, not at all. She doesn’t wear makeup. She chills in sweats, she burps, she snorts when she laughs, the whole bit. But around dudes, no. She zeros in, gets focused and decides who she needs to be to get them interested in her.”

            Cooper frowned. “So, she’s never herself? Doesn’t she want someone who will like her for who she is.”

            “She doesn’t really keep them around long enough for them to need to like her for who she is.” I shrugged. “I know that sounds awful. She just needs a decent guy who she’d feel comfortable enough around to be herself.” I paused. “Or maybe she and I will just end up old maids together.”

            Cooper laughed and we arrived at his car.

            “You can sit up front,” he said. “Don’t feel like you have to set us up and let her sit in front.”

            “No, it’s fine,” I said. “Really, I don’t mind.” No wait, I thought, what the hell? Lydia’s only coming because she thinks she can get with his brother. “On second thought, I will take shotgun.” I slid into the passenger seat.

            Cooper pulled the car around so that we were right outside the school door. Lydia ran out and hopped in, wearing the green tank, with a bright orange bra underneath and purple shorts.

            “That’s a loud choice of colors,” Cooper said, looking at her with his rearview mirror.

            Lydia smiled. “Bright colors make happy moods! Plus I might as well be noticed. Uh, so gay though, I forgot my neon blue shades.”

            “Hey, uh—”

            I cut Cooper off, “Dude, Lydia, how many times do I have to tell you? Cut out the using ‘gay’ as a negative.”

            “Right. I’m sorry. You know I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being gay,” she said. “People just say it all the time and it’s stuck on my brain.”

            “I was totally going to say the same thing,” Cooper said to me. He looked back at Lydia. “Try really hard not to say it today OK? Really, really turn it off in your brain.”

            “Um, OK? Any particular reason why?”

            Wowza, I thought. Lydia has no filter.

            “Colin’s gay. But my parents don’t know. They’re kind of conservative. No, they’re really conservative when it comes to gays and Colin’s pretty sure he’ll be disowned if they find out.”

            “But they have to find out sometime,” I blurted. Who’s the one with no filter now? “I mean, that’s who he is. Not that he’s defined by his sexual orientation. My mom’s gay. That’s not who she is, but she would never hide that from anyone. What about when he falls in love? He can’t hide it forever. Trust me, my mom tried to hide it from us—that just hurt me more.”

            “I know. He knows. We’ve talked about it. He’ll do it when he’s ready. Just please don’t say anything,” he said.

            “No, no worries at all. I’d—we’d never out someone or anything,” I said.

            Lydia was silent. Probably processing the whole business that her new man quest was a dead end.

            Cooper and I passed the rest of the ride talking about Mr. Miller and our upcoming physics projects.

            “Remember when he asked that joke about Heisenberg’s wife? I could’ve died,” I said. “Lydia listen to this joke Mr. Miller said in class on Thursday. ‘Why was Heisenberg’s wife unsatisfied? When he had the time he didn’t have the energy and when he had the position he didn’t have the momentum.’ Haha!”

            She wasn’t laughing.

            “Come on,” I said. “It’s a dirty joke. You don’t even have to know physics or who Heisenberg is to get it.”

            “Oh, I get it,” she said, staring out the window of the backseat.

            Oh, well, I thought. That was all the conversation we got out of her the rest of the ride. Which was fine. Cooper and I had fun.

            We got to Forrester’s cross country course in time to hear the gunshot as we got out of the car to approach the start line. Since we weren’t going to see the start, we went around to a different section of the course so we could cheer Colin on there. I’m not really one for cheering loudly for anyone other than my teammates, but Cooper and Lydia were going nuts when the pack of runners came toward out viewing spot.

            I kind of don’t blame them. The race was so close. Colin and one of his teammates, a dude from Carlton and a dude from Westin were really battling it out for first. Wow. College racing is a whole new game compared to high school. They were flying. And each of them looked like they wanted it more than anything else in the world. You don’t see that kind of determination on the faces of many high school kids. Usually there are one or two that are used to winning every race and it’s a rare circumstance that you ever get any really intense, close races outside of State and National competitions.

            “Is every race like this?” I asked Cooper. He was jumping up and down, his straight, straw-like brown hair bouncing all over and a huge smile on his face.

            “Wooo! Go, baby, go!” he shouted. Then turning to me he said, “Yeah, they’re all pretty close. It gets me so pumped up. I wish our races were like this.”

            “That’s so amazing. I can’t wait to run in college,” I said.

            “Yeah, you know, cross country is why I’m going to St. Ann’s. We’re not even Catholic.”           

            “Me too.” I nodded. “Cross country and Lydia. We’ve been friends since Kinder Cheetahs Running Camp in second grade!” I winked at Lydia. She was still smiling, her face flushed from the excitement of the race.

            “Stop chit-chatting, we have to get to the finish line!” She grabbed my arm and took off running.

            We made it to the finish line. The runners were coming up the hill toward us. Colin was still in the lead pack. Just he and the Westin guy were still striding out for first. Their legs transitioned from the short quick steps of hill-climbing to reaching out long and powerful, tearing up the grass, on the last sprint to the finish as the ground leveled out to flat. Everyone was screaming around us. There were a couple of dozen spectators. Pretty good turnout for a cross country meet.

            I could feel the pain Colin’s body was going through. I could see it in his eyes, feel his lungs burning for air, the numbness in his legs and the ache in his chest. Make it, I pleaded to him, just make it to the finish. You can do it. A few more yards, baby, push. I sent him all the encouragement that I give myself when I’m running that hard.

            My heart was pounding in my ears and I couldn’t catch my breath. It was like I was running too.

            The Westin guy gave one last kick. He lunged at the finish ribbon and won by inches. Then collapsed on the ground and barfed twice. Colin bent over, heaving. Coaches rushed to their runners and the second group of athletes ran crossed the finish line.

            “Conner,” a woman yelled. “Conner, over here!”

            “My parents,” he muttered to Lydia and me.

            A large woman with wispy yellow hair and too much lipstick wearing a green and yellow Forrester shirt and a tall man with a beer belly and a Forrester hat huffed up the hill toward us.

            “You missed the finish,” Conner told them.

“It’s a long ways to come from the start line. We didn’t see you there,” his dad said.

“He lost. He got second, I mean. He lost by inches,” Conner said. “And the course wraps around. The finish is like half a mile from the start. I’m going to go talk to him. This isn’t going to be good.”

Conner left us standing awkwardly with his parents.

“Well, the least he could’ve done was introduce us. I’m Helen and this is Tom. I assume you’re with Conner?” Conner’s mom, Helen apparently, said to Lydia and me.

 “We’re on the cross country team with Conner. I’m Jasia and this is Lydia,” I said, holding out my hand to shake hers.

Lydia smiled and shook their hands too but barely looked at them. “I can’t see how he’s doing,” she said, standing on her tiptoes, trying to see past the crowd surrounding Colin. “Does he get really upset when he loses?” she asked his parents.

“Yes. Those boys! My lord. You’d think getting second was the worst thing in the world. It’s not losing,” Helen cried.

Yes, it is, I thought. Might as well lose if you aren’t getting first. Hell, I’d rather get third than second. Third you’re excited you at least got a medal. Second blows. Especially when you get second by inches. Losing.

Colin and Conner made their way toward us. Colin had ice wrapped around both knees. That must be why we couldn’t see him. His trainer was wrapping on post-race ice.

“Bad knees or just the usual?” I asked when they arrived.

“Just the usual runner’s thing. You know, ice this, heat that.” Colin forced a smile at me—the first time he’d smiled at me since the day I met him. I was glad he seemed to finally have forgotten that he thought Lydia was keeping me from being a serious runner.

“That was so amazing, Colin,” Lydia squealed. “Oh, my God. I was freaking out the whole time. You were truly wonderful. It’s so great to see real competition. It just gets me so fired up.”

“Yeah. Too bad I lost. It’s great you guys came. Thanks so much for being here. Jasia, I heard you’re giving Conner a run for his money in practice while I’ve been hanging with the rest of the crowd. That’s great. I gotta go cool down and eat something and possibly hit something. I can’t believe, fu—” he looked at his parents and caught himself, “inches. Freaking inches. How did I not have that push at the end?” He kicked the dirt and walked off, lacing his hands behind his head and looking up at the sky.

“You kids. I swear to God. We come to all these meets and if you don’t win, you stomp off and don’t even say thank you for coming,” Conner’s dad said to him as he watched Colin walk away.

We started walking back toward the parking lot. Conner talked to his parents. I grabbed Lydia’s elbow so we lagged behind them.

“What are you doing?” I hissed at her.

“What do you mean? She asked.

“Colin. You know he’s gay, but you’re totally doing it. You heard Conner in the car. I know you did. But you’re acting like you can get Colin to have feelings for you. You know that’s not going to happen.”

“It did for your mom, right? ‘You fall in love with a person not a sex.’ That’s what she said. Well, he should fall in love with me.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Colin and I are soul mates. We have so much in common. There are all the reasons in the world that we’re perfect for each other.”

“Except for the small detail that you are both attracted to boys.”

“Just you wait, Jasia. It’ll be magic.”

“You’re an idiot.”