Forever for a Year(50)

I couldn’t talk to Carolina about it. Was I supposed to tell her that before we started dating my existence was pointless? How would she take that? She’d either think I was way too negative before or way too dependent on her now. So I just had to pretend that this guy she had fallen for, this boyfriend she liked so much, who smiled all the time and sent cheesy-ass texts like “thinking of you every second,” was who I had always been. What if I couldn’t keep it up? What if the darkness came back? What if the real me came back and she saw it and dumped me, and I’d know for the rest of my life that I’d lost the greatest girl in the universe because I couldn’t just stay happy after I had found her?

Screw it. Who knew? Who cared? Of course, me, that’s who. But I couldn’t do anything about it. So screw it twice. Three times. Infinite times. Screw the Trevor who realized everything was bullshit by the time he was ten. Who could see my mom’s epic sadness even if no one else could. Who could see my dad totally detached from the deeper truth of everything around him. Who could see how every kid was clueless about their parents being messed up and pretending they weren’t. Adults lying about their kids or about their jobs or about everything. That ten-year-old Trevor could see it all. Fuck him. Die. Sick of you. He almost liked when Mom tried to kill herself. Psycho! He made me think I knew everything. He made me think I was better than everyone because I was real and I was true and I could see right through everyone else. Screw every moment of my life that happened before Carolina. Screw it and forget it. This, my life now, was good, it was so goddamn good, and I didn’t want anything destroying it, not even the real me.

*

Aaron, the sophomore runner who was becoming my closest friend on the team, told me that I shouldn’t see Carolina on the nights before cross-country meets.

He said, “Save that juice for the race.” I wasn’t totally sure what he meant, but I listened to him. It was probably good for our relationship to have an excuse not to see her. Otherwise Carolina would realize I was so stupidly in love with her and she might lose respect for me.

But I invited her to the first big invitational of the season. In the dual meets since that first freshman race, I had been running smarter and better. Coach Pasquini would point out the runner in the race he wanted me to draft behind, and I’d just fall in after him and kick when I saw the finish line. I stopped thinking about winning, stopped thinking anything when I raced actually. Not true. I’d think about Carolina. I would see her eyes and her smile. Not her voice. Not anything. Just a close-up of her face in the shadows of my basement. Maybe that’s not thinking. Maybe that’s just obsessing. I don’t know. It worked. Got third twice and won the freshman race last week.

So on Thursday, Pasquini told me I’d run junior varsity this Saturday. Told me I’d run behind Aaron and Tor during the race. That’s when Aaron told me not to see Carolina last night. I invited her to the race to make up for canceling our Friday night plans. She understood. She always understood. We video chatted and texted the whole night. Maybe Aaron was right, I would have gotten tired kissing her like we usually do. I got tired just wanting to kiss her.

But now that I was at the starting line, waiting for them to fire the gun, I wished I hadn’t invited Carolina. I’d forgotten how dorky these uniforms were. I could see her holding Lily’s hand and waving at me, but she must have been thinking she wished I played football. Football uniforms are cool. Football players are cool. What high school movie ever had the cool hero run around in big circles for three miles? Even though I was starting to like cross-country, maybe even really like it, maybe I should quit. Carolina was too great to have a boyfriend who was a dorky cross-country runner.

Bam.

Starter fired the gun. Brain went simple. Found the back of Aaron, looked at his shoulder, and ran. Ran. Ran. Didn’t notice anything else. Trees, I guess. Grass, then sidewalk, then grass, more grass, dirt, grass again. But really I just hung behind Aaron. Lingered, remember? That’s what I did. Carolina’s face painted itself on the insides of my eyeballs. So that was there. That would always be there, wouldn’t it? It would. Carolina. Carolina. Carolina. Carolina. Carolina. Carolina. Carolina. Carolina. Carolina. Carolina. Carolina. Thought it every breath. Twice. Breathed it in, breathed it out.

Aaron was slowing. I didn’t feel a thing. Not pain even. I felt like we had just started.

“Go, Pain, go,” Aaron said to me. “The kid from York, get in behind him.” So I moved around Aaron to the right, didn’t even see Tor—he must have fallen off a long time ago without me noticing. There was a thirty-yard gap between Aaron and the lead pack of five kids. Kid from York was in the back. I kicked it to catch them. The space was empty and foreign. Free but lonely. That’s when my legs whined. I liked it. Liked that I could still feel pain. Carolina. Carolina. Carolina. Caught the lead pack quick. Settled in. Waited. I would see her soon. Couldn’t stop seeing her in my head. Never wanted to stop seeing her in reality or fantasy.

Everyone rounded between two planted flags. A long straight stretch came into view. The finish was there. Was she waiting? Was she cheering for me? Go, Pain, go. Kicked in a second time. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, I went by four kids from the lead pack within twenty strides. The kid at the front had started his kick before I realized a kick could be started. He was skinny but strong, with perfect form, and could probably run another fifty miles. But I only needed to make it another two hundred meters. Go, Pain, go.