by Archer, Amy
“I missed you too. I’m so glad you’re back.”
He leaned down and kissed me, and it was just as magical as that very first time. I wondered if Devin’s lips would ever get old. I hoped not.
Taking one of his suitcases in one hand, I grabbed his hand in the other and led him to my car.
“Tell me all about your trip,” I said as I eased the car toward the freeway.
“It was nice,” he said. “We did some hiking in the mountains. And my sister-in-law is pregnant, so there was lots of talk of babies.”
“That’s exciting!” I said, and without meaning to pictured what a child Devin and I had together might look like before demanding to myself to stop it. Practical, pragmatic me—getting way ahead of myself like someone who let her emotions get the best of her. Totally unlike me.
“How’s your sister?” he asked, breaking through my thoughts.
“She’s good,” I said. “Her perfume is going to be released in two months, so it’s all finished, she’s just finishing up the decisions about what the packaging will look like.”
“That’s exciting,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m so impressed with her. She’s really come a long way, and it’s all happened so fast.” January had agonized over all the details of her perfume after getting a contract to develop and release the fragrance after appearing on a reality TV show over the summer. To be honest, though, I was glad the holidays were over and I didn’t have to hear about the details of the perfume development process anymore. For someone not in the industry, listening to her discuss the differences between synthetic and natural scents had gotten a little tedious. And if I was totally honest with myself, it was hard sometimes to be around her when everything in her life was going so well: her dream job, a wonderful fiancé, thin, pretty—exactly where I wanted my life to be.
“So…” I looked up at him shyly. “Are you eager to get home? Or do you want to come to my place first?”
He grinned at me, that warming smile I’d missed so much in the past couple of weeks. “Oh, I definitely want to go to your place. We have some catching up to do.”
I blushed.
“Besides, I need to make sure you’ve been taking good care of that dog.”
“He’s missed you,” I told him. “He’ll be so happy you’re back.”
Devin squeezed my hand. “What about you? Are you happy I’m back?”
I squeezed his hand in return. “Devin, I’m thrilled.”
I parked in the garage beneath my house and we walked up the interior stairs. As I struggled with the door key, Devin held me from behind and tried to distract me with kisses. I giggled and playfully shoved him away as I pushed the door open—and then stopped cold.
Devin bumped into me, not yet realizing I’d stopped, and then we stared together at the horrible sight in the middle of the room: my bright purple vibrator was sitting in the middle of the living room rug, vibrating wildly. It was covered in dog hair and tooth marks. Beside it, Taco was just waking up from a peaceful sleep, and the moment he saw Devin he popped up and rushed toward him, jumping up and yipping in excitement.
I turned to Devin, horrified, feeling my cheeks redden instantly. “Um,” I stammered. “Oh. Oh god, I can’t believe this is happening.”
“It’s fine,” he told me, amusement playing in his eyes. I could tell he was trying hard not to laugh, and it didn’t look like he was going to succeed much longer—he was just measuring my reaction to see how amused he was allowed to be.
I, on the other hand, was almost hyperventilating in horror. I rushed over to the vibrator, turned it off, and ran out of the room to hide it away in my drawer—which I realized now I hadn’t closed all the way in my rush to leave the house.
How could I have done this? How could I face Devin now? This was humiliating. I didn’t even want a vibrator in the first place, and I’d let myself get talked into it, and now this had happened.
But when I got back to the living room, Devin was smiling at me with that familiar, kind amusement in his eyes.
“I’m so embarrassed,” I said.
“Don’t be,” he said. “If anyone should be embarrassed, it’s Paco.”
I smiled. Devin and I both persisted in using our own name for the dog, like a playful argument back and forth. He leaned down to kiss me deeply, and I melted into him. Devin was the only person in the entire world who could make me forget what had just happened, but soon I could think of nothing but getting his clothes off. I led him by the hand into my bedroom, and we crawled into bed together, exploring each other’s bodies.
Late at night, I lay in his arms hoping he’d never leave. When I was about to drift into sleep, I heard Devin whisper, “Hey Sophie.”
I turned my head. “Hmm?”
“We’re running the marathon together, right? Cheering each other on?”
I snugged in closer. “Definitely.”
I woke up in the morning and stared at the ceiling while the world pieced itself back together. Devin. Devin was here with me, his warm skin still pressed into mine.
But something was off. The sun was too bright outside the window. I sat up and looked at my clock. Five after nine. The marathon training session was almost over, and we’d missed it. My heart suddenly pounding, I jumped out of bed.
“Why didn’t you wake us up?” I wailed at Taco.
“He finally has both of us in the same place,” Devin mumbled, his eyes fluttering open. “He’s content.”
“But we’re missing training!” I said.
Devin reached out for me. “Come back to bed,” he said. “You can’t change it now.”
Mad at myself, I crawled back into bed and sat at the headboard, stroking his hair. Devin may not have been upset that we’d missed training, but I was. The marathon was supposed to be my top priority, and I’d gotten so carried away with Devin that I’d slipped up. Again. If I kept this up, I’d never be able to complete the marathon…and I’d have to face my old classmates overweight and unaccomplished.
CHAPTER 6
I woke up extra early on Sunday morning to try to make up for having slept in Saturday. This was exactly what I was trying to avoid, exactly why I’d been nervous about dating someone right now. I couldn’t let anything get between me and the marathon.
I’d let my guard down when I bought the vibrator. I’d let my guard down when I adopted Taco even after being told he was naughty. And I’d let my guard down when I started getting close to Devin, allowed him to distract me from my goals. How could I do this?
I know that getting stability back is the most important thing right now, I thought, but everything I’m doing is just throwing me more and more off-kilter!
I took a few deep breaths and set out on my morning run, pushing myself harder than normal. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to get far away from both Devin and Taco. Yet I didn’t want to get far away from them. I liked them—maybe, I admitted to myself, even loved them.
But could I remain focused on my rules for getting my life back on track—could I remain focused on the marathon—with them around?
I didn’t know. I just didn’t know. Some moments, I felt like I couldn’t live without Devin, and in those moments I didn’t care about anything else. I didn’t care about making my life stable, I didn’t care about my rules, I didn’t even care about the marathon. I only cared about lying there in Devin’s arms for a little while longer, even if it meant going to bed late, having a hard time waking up, not performing as well on my morning runs—sacrificing the one thing I was supposed to be pouring myself into.
I couldn’t believe how little sleep it sometimes seemed like Devin functioned on, and I knew that I couldn’t do that in my own life. I’d seen the way my performance had suffered when I gave in to my impulses to spend that time late at night with Devin.
And Taco was just pure chaos personified—or whatever the word for personified would be when referring to a dog. Caninified? The disorder that Taco brought into my l
ife was in direct opposition to my goals for feeling stable and grounded.
I liked them. I wanted them in my life. Yet there were moments when I thought how foolish it was to accept their chaos into my life. I’d set a goal for myself of running a marathon, and I was not someone to take my goals lightly. I couldn’t mess this up. Devin’s spontaneity could lead me anywhere, and I wasn’t sure I had the ability to resist getting swept up in it. And then what would happen? I would lose my grounding, that much was sure. I’d already missed three marathon training sessions due to my involvement with Devin and Taco. I couldn’t afford to miss any more.
Even if Devin didn’t knock me off of my goals, could I really be with someone so spontaneous? I had liked that Matt was so predictable. Some people saw predictability as boring, but I saw it as a positive. Knowing what to expect from one day to the next made me feel grounded and stable. If I stayed with Devin, would I ever feel grounded? And could Devin ever really want to be with me for the long run when I liked to plan everything out in advance and he preferred to wing it?
Besides, I had my high school reunion coming up. What would my old classmates think if I told them I was still in the same place in my life as when I’d graduated from college and started teaching? My life hadn’t moved forward at all since then—only backward, when Matt had dumped me. And though I knew life was about more than checking off a bunch of boxes—career, relationship, house, kids—I couldn’t help but feel that losing those six years with Matt set me behind where I should be. And where all of my high school classmates would be. I had to at least have something to show for my time, like being able to say that I completed a marathon.
Wait, I suddenly thought. I will have completed the marathon by then, right? I knew the date of the marathon by heart by that point, I’d been obsessing about it so much, trying to picture what it would be like, how I’d feel, whether or not Devin and I would run together or if he’d surge ahead, being faster than I was. The marathon was to take place on Saturday, May 28.
But the reunion, I had no idea. I had the vague feeling that it was over the summer, but when I’d gotten the invitation it had felt so far away that I’d simply RSVP’d without much thought to when it would actually happen.
I stopped running, taking my phone out of its armband. I searched back through my email for the confirmation I’d gotten that the planning committee had received my RSVP. “We look forward to seeing you at seven o’clock in the evening on Friday, May 27.”
I gasped out loud on the empty street. No. It couldn’t be.
The reunion was the night before the marathon?
How had I not realized this? This was terrible news. I needed to rest the night before, to go to sleep early, to mentally prepare for the coming day. Not to mention, the marathon itself started at 7:00 a.m., though Devin’s and my group was a little later, at 7:25.
Could I do this? Would I have to choose one or the other? There was no way I could fully enjoy the reunion knowing that the marathon was coming up the next morning, and no way I could be in my best shape for the marathon if I went to the reunion.
Life can’t always be perfect, a little voice in my head said. Sometimes you just have to make do.
I took a deep breath. Okay. I would make do. I would go to the reunion and not have anything to drink. I would talk and catch up with my former classmates. And then I would go to sleep early and wake up early, ready for the marathon.
I could do it all. I started running again, heading back home.
Somehow, this affirmation made me feel better about Devin himself. I could do this. I could date Devin and stick to my guns and go to bed early when I saw him. I could handle Taco’s chaos and still do my training runs, still compete to the best of my ability. I could date Devin and find my grounding at the same time.
I just hoped I wasn’t fooling myself.
I saw Devin a couple of days later at our Saturday morning training. He’d brought Taco, and now, in the clear light of day, I was embarrassed at my freakout and surprised at the force of my excitement at seeing the two of them.
I approached shyly. “Hi, Devin,” I said, and he wrapped me up in a big hug.
“Hey, you,” he said.
We ran together, the three of us, and it felt comfortable, safe.
“Hey, so what are you doing this time next month?” he asked.
I searched my memory. “That’s the last weekend before the marathon, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I thought it might be good for us to get away for a couple of days. Do something different. Maybe go to the coast. Just relax a little before the stress of your high school reunion and the marathon.”
I almost tripped in my surprise. “You knew? You knew the reunion was the same weekend as the marathon?”
“Of course I knew,” he said, side-eyeing me. “Is this a trick?”
“No trick. I just didn’t realize it myself until yesterday,” I admitted.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Ooh-hoo,” he said. “You’re saying I’m more organized than Little Miss Plans-It-All? Surely not.”
I smiled and punched him playfully. He was right. I’d been the one who hadn’t planned ahead this time, not him. “I’m impressed,” I said.
“So how about it? Want to go away with me for the weekend? I’ll find us a little place to rent. We can leave after training and come back Sunday evening.”
I hesitated. It sounded nice—really nice, in fact. So why did I feel so much anxiety every time Devin suggested doing anything out of the ordinary? What was the worst that could happen?
“That sounds great. And”—I couldn’t resist adding—“I’m impressed with you for planning ahead a whole month.”
He grinned at me. “I’m pretty impressive.” And then he did a little dance as he ran—a celebration dance, perhaps. Goofy Devin. While I felt like my lungs were going to explode, he had enough extra energy to play his way through his workout.
Over the next few weeks, I saw Devin and Taco almost every day. The three of us were settling into a comfortable routine, and I couldn’t imagine my life without them. We went out to restaurants that allowed dogs, cooked together, rented movies and snuggled on the couch with Taco at our feet, and went for runs frequently.
But as the date drew nearer, I was increasingly nervous about the marathon. Being with Devin had meant eating rich foods and having desserts, and any weight I’d lost from running I’d gained back from spending time with him. I also wasn’t as fast as I needed to be, and Devin often wanted to go for shorter runs that I felt I needed. What if I couldn’t finish the marathon? What if I was so slow that he left me in the dust while he ran ahead? What if…
The questions could rattle around my head for hours, drowning out everything else, if I let them. I could definitely use a distraction, and I was glad I had our weekend away to look forward to.
A week later, Ms. Mayfield called me into her office first thing in the morning.
“Sophie, I have some good news for you,” she said.
I perked up. “About the field trip?”
She nodded, and I felt the excitement rise up from my stomach into my throat. “I can take them?” I couldn’t believe it. It had been months since I’d first broached the topic, and I’d assumed Ms. Mayfield putting me off was an answer in itself.
“I just got off the phone with the museum’s educational coordinator,” she said. “They don’t normally take groups that young, but I explained that you believe these particular kids are capable of handing it.”
My mind was racing. “When can we go? There aren’t a lot of weeks left before the end of the school year.”
Ms. Mayfield had hesitated. “Well, that’s the one problem…” She had explained that another school group had just canceled, and the museum director was hoping we could take their spot so that their educational coordinator could be there to give a tour. The slot, however, was only two and a half weeks away—days before the reunion and marathon, I’d noted. I’d have to rush to get m
y permission slips signed and to coordinate parent volunteers.
I was overjoyed by the news, though, and undaunted by the work ahead. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll get it all figured out right away,” I promised.
I rushed back to my classroom to make and print permission slips along with a letter to parents explaining the trip and why I thought it would be good for the students. As soon as the kids started arriving, I made sure each parent had a letter in their hands or in their child’s backpack.
But most importantly, I pulled Angelina and her mom aside the moment they arrived for their dropoff that morning. I practically skipped over to them, eager to share my news.
“Angelina,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “Guess what!”
“What?” she asked.
I told her about the museum field trip, glancing up at her mom for support, and Angelina’s eyes lit up. “That’s great, Ms. Burleigh!” her mom had said. “Angelina will love that!”
This was just how I had hoped it would happen. This field trip was going to be amazing! And Angelina, for her part, had been ecstatic, bouncing and dancing around the room in smiles.
The rest of the day, the smile never left her face. I was thrilled, and I hoped that the trip would live up to her expectations. It was kids like Angelina who made me enjoy being a teacher, kids who were excited about learning and about their futures. I pictured her walking around the museum with her typical careful gate, cautious not to disturb anything she wasn’t supposed to touch. We would show the educational coordinator that even these five-year-olds were capable of appreciating art. They would be the best-behaved group of kids the museum had ever seen.
I made a mental note to have a stern talk with Brandon before the field trip.
That afternoon, I got together with Rachel. Rachel was the last of the Honeybees, my one high school friend I hadn’t yet seen. I’d never been as close to her as to the others, and I felt less like I could relate to her life since high school as well. In part, it was because she lived further away, in the beautiful house along the coast I’d seen in photos. For another, I’d heard she got married very young, at twenty-two, not long after graduating from college, and so I imagined her life as being very different from my own.
