Page 81 of Witchful Thinking
Horatio rubbed his palms together as if summoning the right words. He faced Alex; his eyes became serious. “Does Lucy know that?”
Alex lifted his shoulders to his neck. “Eh…we haven’t really talked about it.”
“Maybe you should,” Horatio said. Alex wanted to hide from Horatio’s concerned glare.
Lucy knew that this was just a fling. Nothing had to change. The cottage was still going up for sale. He was leaving at the end of the summer. That was the plan. He was sticking to the plan. Dread filled him at the thought of leaving the Grove and Lucy, but he knew it would be worse if he stayed. History had taught him that lesson. It was better for him to deal with the tides he knew rather than swim into the unknown.
***
Run a race, they said. It will be fun, they said. Well, there wasn’t a real “they” or a person who’d encouraged her to run, but she’d been the one with the bright idea that she’d run a 10K race. It was only six miles, she thought. Only six miles in the rain. Only six miles in the stinging, sideways rain in her thin racing gear. Thank Goddess she was wearing her black top. Otherwise strangers would’ve seen the entire outline of her sports bra.
Lucy limped up the stairs to her porch, favoring her left leg. Her rain-soaked racing medal thunked against her chest as she took it one step at a time. She’d been less than a mile from the finish line when her ankle rolled. Her leg went out from underneath her, and she’d hit the ground hard, scratching her arm, hand, and knee. She’d lain there on the wet muddy pavement, wanting to give up. She’d wanted to give in, but something happened. Something she didn’t want to think about just yet. Lucy took a calming breath and made her way to the porch landing. There was Alex sitting on one of the porch chairs. He had a gift bag on his lap.
Alex looked her over, his brow rising as he clocked her dirty racing gear. He stood up, holding the bag. “Are you alright?”
He came over and cradled her face with his hand. “You look like you’ve had quite a day.”
Lucy leaned into him. His touch was the balm she needed to ease her aches and pains.
“Don’t worry. I left some mud on the ground. I didn’t bring it all home.”
Lucy dug into her racing pouch and pulled out her keys. She let them into the house, toeing off her muddy sneakers at the threshold. Alex closed the door behind her, and they went into the living room.
“Lu, you should get out of those wet clothes. You’ll get a cold.”
Lucy took a step forward, closing the space between them. They were close enough to touch but far apart enough that she didn’t get him muddy.
“I should’ve been there at the finish line.”
“You would’ve been waiting for a long time,” she muttered. It was clear that having Alex there would just have added to the pressure she felt standing at the starting line.
Alex stared at the medal dangling from her neck. “You finished.”
“Barely,” she whispered. A thin layer of shame covered her, along with the rain.
She didn’t just come in last; she’d come in dead freaking last, the last person to cross the finish line in the entire race. The Freya Grove Fire Department had sounded out the sirens for her, and all the firefighters in their gear clapped her very late arrival. It was kind of them, but she couldn’t look them in the eye. The race director personally gave her the medal as the crew cleaned up the finish mat. Lucy had held back tears as she drove home. Failure felt like she’d swallowed a fistful of sand that made her mouth dry.
“You didn’t give up.”
“I was last. I was the last person to finish,” Lucy said. “I should’ve been better; I should’ve been faster. What will people think?”
The people who read the class notes would probably laugh at her once the race results were posted online. What type of runner am I? I could barely finish six miles. There was a certain unspoken expectation that came with being the woman she wished to be. It seemed like there wasn’t enough room or space to mess up because of the image she projected.
“Hey,” Alex said softly, breaking her out of her spiraling thoughts. She looked at him. His eyes turned warm, momentarily lifting the chill from her body. “They’re going to think, ‘Look at this amazing woman giving everything she got. She didn’t walk away. She kept going. She gave it all she got because she has no quit in her.’”
“Yeah,” she said. Her breath caught in her throat. Nana would’ve said the same thing to her. Maybe she was speaking through Alex in some way.
“Yeah,” he echoed. “Think back to the finish line. Tell me what you saw.”
“Strangers were cheering for me. They didn’t even know my name and they were so…proud.” Lucy lowered her head. The truth humbled her. She touched her bracelet, and her mind flashed back to the moment when she’d considered stopping the race.
“When I was all alone out there, bruised and banged up on the course, I wanted to quit.”
Alex waited for her. He listened.
“I heard Nana. It was like she was standing right there with me. She was cheering me on,” Lucy said. “Once I heard her voice, I felt like I could’ve run the New York City Marathon.”
Alex stayed silent. He waited for her to finish.