Toronto Collection Volume 2 (Toronto Series #6-9)

by Heather Wardell

  Andrew squeezed his eyes shut. "Jeanine, please. No details."

  "Are you sure? It's a spectacular story."

  He pretended to throw up and we laughed. She seemed to be perking up, no doubt energized by it finally being race day, and I was glad to see it.

  We did our warm-up together, and to my delight my body felt relaxed and ready to run. At least, it did until after we finished Jeanine said, "Andrew, ten minutes to race time. Should we go find our spots in the starting corral before it fills in too much?"

  Ten minutes. My heart began pounding.

  Andrew nodded then turned to me. "Have you got everything? Water, Gatorade, gels?"

  I tapped each item on my fuel belt as he called it out then said, "All present and accounted for."

  "Good stuff. Need anything else before we leave?"

  A time machine so I could go back to yesterday and say no to Amanda? Rocket shoes? A secret shortcut to the finish line? "Nope, I'm all set. Terrified, but all set."

  "Don't be terrified." He gave my shoulder a firm squeeze and smiled at me. "Remember..."

  He pointed down at his flat stomach and we read the words from his t-shirt together. "Find your happy pace."

  "I'll try," I said, then I shook my head. "No, I will."

  His eyes filled with pride. "Definitely. You'll be just fine. See you at the finish line."

  "Yup," Jeanine said. "Andrew will watch me finish then we'll both watch you."

  I almost said, "I hope you brought a book to read," since I'd probably be at least an hour behind Jeanine and far more behind Andrew, but I knew they'd both remind me not to worry about my finishing time for my first marathon so instead I said, "Sounds good."

  Andrew smiled again and squeezed my shoulder again. "It will be. You've worked hard and it'll happen."

  I reached out and slid my arms around his neck and he pulled me close. "You're a tough cookie," he said softly into my ear, and I hugged him even tighter in gratitude.

  When we released each other, Jeanine said, "All right, if you insist," and hugged me too.

  We all laughed, then I watched them walk away from me.

  Andrew looked back and gave me a thumbs-up, and I smiled and returned it, then they were swallowed by the crowd of runners.

  I stood, feeling so alone despite the throng, for a moment then took a deep breath and looked around. At least fifty portapotties had been set out near the start line for the runners' use. There were thousands of people in the race, most faster than me, so Andrew had told me I wouldn't cross the start line for a good ten minutes after the gun went off. Spending that long doing nothing but standing around getting more nervous and berating myself over Amanda didn't appeal, so I decided to hit the bathroom once more so maybe I wouldn't have to stop during the race.

  Following some unstated rule, the runners had formed lines that each accessed several bathrooms. Unfortunately, the line I chose turned out to barely be moving. Even more unfortunately, a woman behind me took this as a personal affront and wasn't shy about sharing her opinion. Though she was several people back her shrill voice carried over the large chattering crowd as if she were part megaphone.

  "I have things to put in my car. I have to go back to the parking lot and there's no time."

  "Why are they taking so long?"

  "That guy went in a good four minutes ago. What's he doing in there?"

  Nobody commented, and I saw several people rolling their eyes, but that didn't stop her. When the poor guy, who looked rather green, finally emerged she made a disgusted sound and said, "Well, finally. I have stuff to put in my car."

  "We know," the man in front of me muttered before moving forward to enter the vacated bathroom, and I couldn't hold back a little snicker.

  Neither could other people nearby, and maybe she heard because she upped her game. "Excuse me, sir, can I go ahead of you? I really need to put some things in my car."

  I stood frozen, praying her victim would refuse, but he said, "Actually, I was just thinking I'd had just about enough of waiting here. You can have my spot."

  Instead of thanking him, she said, "Excuse me," to the two teen girls right behind me. We'd spoken a little, when one shyly asked me if they had their race numbers on straight and then got the nerve to ask me to take their picture, and I didn't get the impression they'd be able to stand up to her. Sure enough, when she said, "I need to go ahead of you," there was a brief shocked silence then one of them said, "Um, I guess so."

  I shut my eyes and wished with all my might that she'd be satisfied with her progress, but the tap on my shoulder said otherwise. "Excuse me."

  I took a deep breath and turned around. "Yes?"

  She wore the black race shirt, black shorts, and a cold expression. "Please let me go ahead of you. I need to go to my car."

  The 'please' surprised me, and my knowledge that she had no right to ask battled with my gut instinct that I had no right to refuse. It was still so hard for me to take a stand. I took a breath, honestly not sure of how I'd answer, then felt determination sweep through me. "No."

  She actually started to move forward before her face showed she'd understood what I'd said, and her clear expectation that I'd give in made me even less interested in doing so. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean no. It's nearly time for the race and I need to use the bathroom."

  "So do I! And I also need to go to my--"

  "I know," I said, before she could repeat it yet again. My voice was shaking as what I was doing began to sink in, but I managed to say, "The answer is no."

  It might have been the first time someone said no to her. Her shock suggested it was, anyhow. Her mouth opened and closed and she stared at me, then finally said, "Well! I can't believe you'd be so selfish."

  I couldn't quite believe it either, but I'd done it and I didn't want to back down. I turned around and continued waiting.

  She stayed silent for a few seconds, then began grumbling in a voice I knew I was supposed to hear about how rude some people were and that anyone decent would have been willing to grant her such a little favor and let her go ahead.

  I stood still, fighting with my feelings of guilt and my annoyance with myself for having those feelings when she was so clearly out of line to ask, and mentally begged the people already in the bathrooms to hurry up so I could escape her.

  They didn't, unfortunately, so I spent at least two minutes listening to her grumble and feeling her 'accidentally' bumping into me every time she swung up her arm to check her watch for how little time she had before the race before I was finally able to scuttle into a portapotty.

  The starting pistol went off as I locked the door, startling me, and with that added to her judgment of me I was trembling so badly I could barely get my shorts down. I'd rather spend an hour in the tiny bathroom, in the stench a myriad of nervous runners had left behind, than another minute with her.

  It had been an unreasonable request, but I could have done it. That was the problem. I could have let her go ahead of me and I chose not to. As my mother would have been only too happy to point out, I decided to be a bean counter and insist on what I thought I deserved rather than help someone else.

  I took care of business as quickly as I could given my shaking hands, while trying not to think of the help I'd already promised for later that day. With any luck I'd have more physical strength to run than I'd had emotional strength to refuse Amanda.

  To my relief, the woman was gone when I came out of the bathroom, and I slipped into the back of the starting corral then stood still with the other waiting runners. Weird not to be moving since the race was officially on. Soon, though, I could see the crowd ahead beginning to shift forwards, then it was my turn.

  Shuffling toward the start line with hundreds of excited runners around me, I tried to push aside my upset over the portapotty woman and my regrets about saying yes to Amanda and focus on what I was about to do.

  Happy pace.

  I wasn't feeling so happy at the moment, bu
t I knew Andrew was right. I had to find my happy pace, the one that would let me run the race with at least a little comfort.

  Then I reached the start line and I took off like a bat out of hell.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I knew better, of course, since Andrew and Jeanine had drilled into me how important it was not to rush out at the beginning, but I couldn't help it. When I saw the start line, and the brown mat across it that would pick up the signal from the timing chip I'd carefully attached to my shoe, the whole thing suddenly seemed so real and I couldn't hold back.

  The excitement of the situation was part of it, the knowledge that I was finally doing my marathon, running in a huge crowd while spectators cheered us on, but it was more than that. I felt like I was racing away from things rather than toward the finish line. The portapotty woman, Amanda, my mother's disappointment in me: I had a lot to run from.

  And Andrew to run toward.

  The thought of seeing him at the finish line made me want to run even faster, but after about a kilometer I got myself back under control, and after that I kept checking my watch and made myself stick to what we'd figured would be a good pace for the first half of the race.

  I cruised along, my watch making a cheerful beep as each kilometer went by, and could feel my body settling into its task. Physically, I felt great.

  Emotionally, though, not so much.

  I still felt awful about the woman at the portapotty, and I couldn't let it go. I knew her request hadn't been fair but I could have given in. I would have felt annoyed with myself for doing so, but I wouldn't have felt sick the way I did now. Would I have been better off to say yes? If I'd feel bad either way, wasn't annoyance better than self-disgust?

  On top of that question, dwarfing it, was how I felt about Amanda. Why, oh why, had I told her I'd do it? Though the last thirty-two-kilometer training run had gone great, I'd been so tired after our lunch afterwards that Andrew had insisted on driving me home in case I fell asleep in my car. I'd fallen asleep in his instead, in the fifteen minutes it took to get from the café to my place, and poor Andrew had barely been able to wake me in my building's driveway. I was adding a lot more distance today, so how would I possibly be able to help Amanda? At best I'd be just as tired as I was after the thirty-two. At worst I'd be comatose.

  I'd known all that, but I hadn't been able to say no.

  I sighed and shook out my shoulders, not wanting to think about it any more. I'd said yes and I'd have to live with that. I would make this the last time, though. Definitely.

  Hopefully.

  I shook out my shoulders again and looked around for something to distract me. The crowd of spectators had thinned out considerably now that the race was truly underway, but the sight of the upcoming seven-kilometer marker made me smile.

  Seven kilometers! I was one-sixth of the way through the race. So far so good. In only ten minutes or so I'd have been running for an hour and I'd take my first food break.

  I patted my fuel-belt pocket, on my hip, where my energy gels waited for me to suck their thick carbohydrate-laden selves from their packaging. I'd brought the five little packets I expected to need, one for each hour, plus a spare in case I couldn't get one open or dropped one like I'd done a few times in training or just felt the need for a little more food.

  That would be enough to keep me going physically, but for both physical and emotional support I'd naturally also brought the special chocolate-caffeine gel Andrew had given me a few days ago after we'd gone out for dinner. He'd waved his hands over it and mumbled a few nonsense words, while I watched and giggled and melted inside at how cute he was, then said he'd made the gel doubly effective, to be taken only if I found myself in desperate need of super-charged energy.

  I didn't think I would, though. I felt too good to have a crisis. Maybe just having the enchanted gel on my person made the difference. Or maybe it was thinking about Andrew that did it.

  I had loved his applause when I finished that first hour-long run. How much nicer would it be to get his congratulations at the end of a marathon?

  My smile widened as I thought of him, then faded as I heard the mutterings of the man I was about to pass.

  "Bastard, get moving. What the hell is wrong with you?"

  He wasn't talking to me, clearly. But why on earth was he talking to himself that way? I'd almost convinced myself I'd misheard when he said, "Hurry up, asshole. You can't finish it like this. Smarten up."

  What an awful way to treat yourself. How could he do that?

  I considered saying something encouraging, but before I could think of anything an older man who was passing on his other side said, "Son, that ain't gonna do it. Pat yourself on the back for getting here, don't beat yourself up. It's early yet. Lots of race to go."

  The guy turned on him. "I didn't ask for your advice. I can talk however I want, so shut up and leave me alone."

  As if to make sure he did, the guy stopped running entirely, slowing to a stomping walk.

  The older man and I kept running and he looked across at me. "Ah, well, I tried."

  "Yeah," I said, still shaken by the self-hatred in the guy's voice. "Too bad he didn't listen."

  He smiled. "Some people can only learn from screwing up on their own."

  I smiled back. "I'll be good to myself when it gets hard. I learned from him."

  "Good," he said. He held out his hand for a high-five and I gave him one, then he said, "Have a great race, kiddo," and slowed down to eat a snack.

  I carried on since I hadn't reached an hour yet, glad I didn't beat myself up like that. What an awful way to live.

  *****

  I sucked the contents of the first gel into my mouth and washed it down with water from my fuel belt bottle, thinking as I did about how Andrew had magically empowered my chocolate one. He was so funny, and unlike James and my ex Chad and Brandon and most of the other guys I knew his humor never involved putting other people down. He teased sometimes, like when he'd taken me out for sushi and I'd been a chopstick catastrophe, but not in a mean way.

  I took one last slurp of water, imagining it washing the awful feelings about Amanda and the porta-potty woman down into my stomach where they'd be digested and not bother me any more. It helped somehow, so I did it again then put my bottle away and carried on running, letting my mind replay the feel of Andrew's hand in mine at Jeanine's performance. Would he hold my hand again after the race even though it'd be sweat-stained and probably gel-stained too?

  I pushed away the surge of frustration at the fact that I wouldn't be able to hang around long enough to see if he would because I'd need to go help Amanda and instead wondered when we'd get to discuss his leaving the foundation and what if anything it meant for us. We weren't running tomorrow since he'd said a full day off was a good idea, but maybe Tuesday--

  "Seriously, hey!"

  I didn't know how many times the man had called me while I was lost in my thoughts, but the annoyance in his voice suggested quite a few.

  Or maybe that was just his regular tone, because once I said, "Sorry, what's wrong?" the annoyance was still there when he said, "I see you've got lots of gels in your belt. Can you spot me two or three?"

  How would I 'spot him' gels? It wasn't like he could give them back later. "You want me to give you two of my gels?"

  "My fuel belt's zipper broke and my gels all fell out at some point. So yes. Three isn't enough but it'll help."

  I couldn't give him three. Losing that many would mean I couldn't eat as often as I did in training and I wouldn't put myself in that position for the race. If I gave him two, I'd have to plan to use the Andrew-blessed chocolate one and I'd no longer have a spare. Even one would cut down on my cushion, and a smaller cushion made me nervous. What if I dropped a gel and then needed an extra boost at some point? I'd be out of luck.

  "I need them," I said, but quickly added before he could give me a hard time, "I do have two packs of those sport beans they were giving out at the start. I c
an give you those."

  "The jelly bean things? I've never used them. No, I need the gels."

  His matter-of-fact tone, and his clear expectation I'd obey him, sent annoyance ripping through me. "So do I. Sorry, no."

  "If you were actually sorry you'd give me the gels. But fine, be that way."

  He sped up, no doubt looking for someone else to sponge from, before I could say anything.

  Just as well, because I had nothing to say. I so hated not giving people exactly what they wanted, hated disappointing them, but I also hated the feeling that I'd spent my life not holding onto anything that mattered to me. Why wasn't it all right for me to keep the gels that I'd brought?

  I crossed the pace mat that marked the twelve-kilometer point of the race then saw two huge archways made of balloons up ahead, one bearing a sign saying "Marathon" and one labeled "Half-marathon". In case that wasn't clear enough, volunteers on both sides of the road yelled over and over, "Marathon to the left, half to the right."

  Andrew had told me he always wanted to ask, "Which way for the marathon?" just to be funny, but I didn't feel amused at the moment so I just silently went through the correct archway. Nearly everyone around me took the half-marathon path. Only me and the guy who'd wanted my food were doing the marathon, and he was too far ahead to talk to even if I'd wanted to.

  Twelve kilometers down. Thirty to go. I'd done thirty-two in training, so basically if I just pretended I was starting now, this wouldn't be any worse than my longest training run. Admittedly, though, some of my training runs had been pretty painful. And of course, I'd missed one thirty-two to attend Amanda's birthday party. I'd hated doing that, but in the end she'd worn me down and I'd had to go.

  A flicker of something I couldn't quite identify sparked through me. Had to go?

  Yes. I'd had to. She had needed me so I needed to be there. Just like with today.

  I licked a bit of gel from my lip and sighed. This had been the weekend of demanding people, to be sure. Amanda, the portapotty woman, and now this gel guy.