Wing Jones(31)

Aaron’s eyes are bright and he’s grinning a mile wide and shaking his head and he’s still running, still trying to catch me, and I don’t know if I slow down or he speeds up but suddenly we’re running side by side.

“Damn, girl,” he says between breaths, and I roll my eyes but I’m smiling as wide as he is. The clouds have risen, out of my reach, but now I can see the stars and they wink down at me like they’re saying “You go, girl” and I tilt my head back and smile up at them, and I hope that from way up there my smile looks like a bright shiny star winking back at them.

I lose track of how many times we go round, but then Aaron veers left, toward where I’ve tossed his sweatshirt and collapses on his back, arms and legs spread out like he’s about to make a snow angel in the damp grass. He’s breathing heavily, and all I want is to go put my head on his chest, I don’t even care that it’s drenched in sweat, and listen to the drum of his heart.

But I don’t. I sit next to him, leaning back on my hands, legs out in front of me, and revel in the ache that goes from my toes up through my shins and along my thighs. It’s an ache I never knew before I started running. A bone-deep satisfaction I can’t get enough of and I wake up craving.

“Who knows?” His eyes are closed and I’m glad because I can stare at his face, drink it in, without him noticing.

“It isn’t a secret.”

Aaron’s eyes fly open and lock onto mine. I love how his lashes curl up. How dark his eyes are. I want to dive into them and swim as far as I can and then dive deeper and never come back up.

“Wing? Did you hear me?”

I blink and pull myself out of his eyes. “Sorry?”

“I said, if it isn’t a secret, how come I didn’t know you could run like that? How come Marcus didn’t know?”

“I told you… I didn’t start running until after the accident.”

“And you could just … run. Like that.” His voice is flat with a hint of sharpness. Like a knife on its side, smooth and safe, until it flips.

It stings. That he didn’t think I could do this. That he can’t quite believe it.

He sees me like everyone else does. Like someone who can’t. Someone who is content to be on the sidelines. He sees me the way I’ve always seen myself, but now I know I’m different, not just different the way I’ve always been different but I’m a good different, I’ve got something special inside me, not just speed, not just strength, but something more.

I hope Aaron sees me like that now.

He stretches his arms over his head like he’s making the wings of his grass angel, and then he laces his fingers through mine. It sends a jolt through my whole body and I gasp. The sound is louder than I expected and he gives a soft chuckle. I let my fingers close around his and I’m so aware of his fingers, so aware, and then he pulls them away and I wonder if I did the wrong thing, if I should have let my fingers lie like dead fish in his hand, if he was just stretching and happened to brush against my hand and his fingers wrapped around mine just out of some sort of evolutionary response, like touch woman hand, hold on and then he realized what he was doing so he let go.

“Who else knows?” he says again, not mentioning the hand thing, excitement rippling in his voice. Like this is some big secret. Like he feels special that he knows.

“No one.”

“Why? You can’t hide this, Wing!”

But hiding is what I’ve always done. And why would I want to tell anyone? Or show anyone? It’s just running. One foot in front of the other, again and again. I don’t know why he’s making such a big deal about it. Besides, even if I wanted to … show someone … I wouldn’t know how. I try to tell this to Aaron.

“What am I gonna do, Aaron? Just show up one day on the track and challenge Eliza Thompson to a race?”

“This is track and field, Wing. Not drag racing.”

I poke Aaron in the side and he gives a gratifying wiggle. He’s been ticklish since he was little.

“Ticklish?” I ask, because I don’t want him to know I remember.

He snorts. “You know I am! You and Marcus used to corner me and tickle me all the time. No mercy. The two of you, man, when you decided to go up against someone, usually me…”

I laugh and shake my head. “What are you talking about? The two of you were always ganging up on me. Or totally ignoring me, off doing ‘boy things.’”

Aaron flips over on his side in one fluid motion so he’s facing me and his chest is just a few inches away. “If I remember correctly…” he says, and his voice is soft and slow and then his hand darts out and he’s tickling me and I’m squealing and wriggling and rolling away from him. Which feels completely counterintuitive, so I roll right back.

“Truce,” I say, and now I’ve got the hiccups from laughing so hard.

“Truce,” says Aaron with a grin. Then his voice goes low, goes serious. “Wing, you’ve got to show someone. Hell, you’ve got to show everyone. This is … it’s incredible.”

“It’s my own thing,” I say. I start thinking of people watching me run, people other than Aaron or Marcus, because oh, how I want my brother to see me run, but the thought of anyone else watching me makes my stomach twist into a pit of wrestling snakes. “It helps me relax. Takes my mind off … things.”