Gin Fling (Bootleg Springs, #5)(89)

I’d done worse things for longer. Heck, I’d been stabbed. I could freaking finish this race.

Using the seat of my bike, I pulled myself back up to standing.

I lumbered my way back to the start. My legs felt like overcooked spaghetti.

“The run’s my worst,” Gus said, appearing next to me. “If you need to leave me out there to finish, you do it.”

“Not happening, Gus, my man,” Tameka said, between hits from her water bottle.

“Let’s do this,” I said, putting my hand out. “Three point one miles is the only thing that stands between us and grandkid hugs and five hundred dollars and all the dino nuggets I can eat.”

Their hands joined mine.

“Let’s do this,” Gus wheezed.

“I want that money,” Tameka huffed.

“I want those nuggets.”

We started off slowly, and I tried to focus on form. It deteriorated when I was tired, and I was so freaking tired. My legs felt like blobby gelatin in an earthquake. I added Jell-O to the list of things I was going to eat tomorrow.

I should have chosen to prove a point with just a 5k. Or maybe a nice hike. Then I remembered bears. I glanced around at the scenery. We were on a country road, but the woods were thin enough that I felt confident I could see a large mammal coming at me.

West Virginia really was beautiful. The trees were lush and green. Fields and hills rolled off in all directions in more greens and yellows and browns. This part of the road was flanked by a tidy split rail fence.

I steadied my breath and focused on the rhythm of my foot strikes.

“First mile is the worst,” I whispered to myself.

I wished Jonah was here, urging me on. Squirting water on me. Telling me I could do this.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Tameka said through gritted teeth.

“You are absolutely doing this,” I told her, glancing down at my watch. “Five hundred dollars in exactly two miles.” One mile down. The worst mile.

Gus was wheezing on my left. He didn’t have the oxygen to spare to complain. So I did it for him.

“It’s so hot. Like convection oven broiling a steak hot.”

“Like coal-fired pizza oven hot,” Tameka gasped out.

I added pizza to my Sunday meal list.

Gus grunted.

I was sweating so much I felt like I might dehydrate into a raisin.

But my legs kept moving.

We all kept going forward. Things were starting to hurt. My shins, my heels, my arches. I could tell I was going to have bra burn from the amount of salt exploding from my pores. But my breath was still there. My feet were still moving.

The crowd around us had thinned.

Some pulling ahead in the run, others slowing to walk. The August sun beat down on us, bouncing back off the asphalt of the road.

I thought about what I wanted after this. Thought about calling Jonah from the finish line with my medal. Thought about calling my parents. I’d tell them. I could tell them now. Because I’d done this.

We paused at a water station, rehydrating and rinsing the sweat from our faces and necks.

“How much farther?” Tameka asked.

Gus was still too winded to speak.

“One mile to go,” the attendant said cheerfully.

We pushed off again without discussing it.

One mile. I repeated it to myself. Chanted it. There’d been a time just a few short months ago when a mile hadn’t been possible. When I’d battled pain just from existing. Now, I had one mile left to go, and I was going to finish.

The hair on my arms rose. I hoped it was determination and not a symptom of heat exhaustion.

“One mile, guys,” I barked. “We’re finishing this!”

It was the longest mile of my life. That ribbon of road seemed to stretch on indefinitely, and I wondered if maybe I’d stumbled into some strange corner of hell where the race never ended. The torture was never over.

Then I heard cheering.

“There! Over the hill,” Tameka hissed.

Gus, the workhorse, hadn’t lifted his gaze from his sneakers since Mile Two. “Just lead me in the right direction,” he puffed without looking up.

The hill, the longest, tallest hill in the history of West Virginia geography, gave way to the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life.

The finish line.

The route was lined with spectators and athletes who’d finished ages ago. I wanted to hate them, but I didn’t have the energy.

“It’s all downhill from here,” I wheezed.

“Let’s do this,” Gus said.

“I’m definitely puking,” Tameka confirmed.

“Do it after the finish line.” Together, we took the decline. The cheers, the flutter of the Finish Line sign drew us in like a siren’s song.

It was really happening. I was finishing an entire triathlon with a disease. I couldn’t tell the difference between sweat and tears. Judging from the wet snorts coming from my compatriots, they were experiencing the same sense of overwhelm.

The cheers were deafening. I felt them in my blood and bones.

Community. Connection.

“Let’s do this, ladies,” Gus said, his voice cracking.

Together, we linked hands and, sobbing and sweating, made our way across the finish line.

I. Did. It.