by Ben Cass
“And you’ve made out there? Or done...stuff?” asked Doyle innocently, drumming his fingers against his chest. Ellie started to answer, but realized what was happening. She quickly shut her mouth and blushed furiously. The coach laughed.
“It might be time for a little woman-to-woman chat,” he said, winking at Jen. “Well, I’m off. Nice to see you again, Jen. Take care, Elowyn. Be careful next time you do stuff on the rock; I’ll bet that water is pretty chilly. Be a shame to slip and fall in.” He poked Ellie’s shoulder and set off jogging, his deep laugh floating back on the wind.
Chapter Four
The locker slammed shut with a satisfying, metallic clang. Ellie stormed out of the locker room and into the gymnasium, really hoping they’d get the chance to punch something.
They’d never done anything like that in class, but she could hope, right? If nothing else, at least she would be able to surreptitiously admire Coach Doyle. While Ellie technically had Coach Silvers for her teacher, their classes typically did everything together, so both coaches were there.
Maddie didn’t have P.E. this period, so Ellie wandered over to join the twins, Olivia and Abby Evans, whose flaming red hair set them apart in Groverton. They were the only redheads in town, and also the only twins, oddly enough.
“Ladies,” Ellie greeted them. Olivia grunted in response, as she was in the middle of stretching out, but Abby came over to her.
“I’m so sorry about your sister, Ellie. She’ll be okay, right?” Anger flared again in Ellie’s chest, burning like fire. She’d been up late on Saturday, arguing with Jen about going for a jog by herself that morning. Jen insisted she had to go, that she wouldn’t let fear rule her life.
Ellie insisted Jen was being stupid.
The fight had lasted all through Sunday, and they’d gone to bed without having resolved anything. Ellie hadn’t slept well and now just wanted to curl up and go to sleep. She wasn’t in the mood to talk about it with anyone, but Abby and Olivia were two of her closest friends.
“I’m sure she will. She went out jogging the next morning, like she always does. Except for a slightly black eye, a small bump on the head, and some really sore muscles, she’s physically fine.” Ellie bent over to touch her toes, stretching her back muscles out.
Abby gasped in horror. “She went jogging? By herself? Is she crazy?”
Ellie lifted a hand palm up, pointing towards Abby. “Right? Thank you!” Ellie went back to her stretching, muttering under her breath.
“I heard Coach Doyle saved her,” came Olivia’s voice. She was sitting down now, leaning along her leg, holding her toes. “I hear he put all three guys in the hospital with life-threatening injuries, and he did it in only a few seconds.”
Ellie nodded. “Pretty much, yeah. Sheriff told me what he did to them. Absolutely scary.” Ellie looked at them. “I’ll tell you this: I don’t ever want to see him get in a fight with somebody. That would not be good for the other person.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Abby. “I think it’d be kinda hot.” She wiggled her eyebrows at her twin, who considered for a second, then shrugged in what could have been either agreement or apathy.
Ellie rolled her eyes. “You’re such a Neanderthal, Abby.” Her friend took it the way Ellie meant it and laughed.
“Oh, come on, Ellie. You’d tap that ass if you could, and you know it,” Abby retorted. Olivia laughed as Ellie glared at the two of them.
“Hey now, there’s no amusement in gym class!” Doyle’s voice cut through the noise. He was somehow standing right behind them, their heads not even to his shoulders, and none of them had seen or heard him approach.
How in the hell does he do that?
He nodded to the twins. “Abby. Olivia.”
Abby pointed at herself. “Coach, I’m Olivia. She’s Abby.” She smiled sweetly. “It happens a lot, so it’s okay. You’ll learn eventually.”
Doyle snorted. “Nice try, short stuff, but you’re not Olivia.”
Abby crossed her arms, clearly skeptical. “Really? You’ve had us for a few days and you can already tell us apart?”
“Pretty much, yeah. Barely took me five seconds to figure it out. I’ve had more difficult challenges opening a childproof aspirin bottle. Go line up for roll, will you?” Doyle looked bored.
“Prove it,” Olivia challenged him. “Close your eyes and spin around.”
Doyle sighed. “It’ll take more than that to fool me, but if it’ll shut you up, why not?” He started to cover his eyes with his hands, but Abby stopped him.
“Hang on, coach,” she said. “Gotta make sure you can’t peek.”
“That’s insulting,” Doyle said, but shrugged. “What do you want me to do?“
Abby started to pull her shirt off, but Doyle stopped her, his eyes wide. “Whoa! Hey! No stripping in class!”
“Coach!” one of the guys yelled in dismay. “C’mon, man!”
Abby dropped her hands from her shirt. “Dream on, guys,” she yelled back. “Out of your league!” She looked at Doyle, tapping her cheek with her finger. “You’re wearing two shirts, Coach. Take one off and hand it to me.”
Doyle shrugged and pulled his black shirt off, revealing a skin-tight white shirt beneath. Ellie’s breath caught in her throat and she fought not to stare. He handed the shirt to Abby. She crooked a finger, and Doyle leaned way over, his giant frame nearly bent in half. Abby wrapped her shirt around his eyes and tied it in place. “Perfect,” she said, checking to make sure it was secure.
“Can I start?” he asked.
“Yes,” Olivia said. “Whenever you’re ready, Coach. We’ll tell you when to stop.” Doyle began spinning in place, moving quicker and quicker. Ellie stared in awe; it was like watching an ice skater spin in place, except it was on a gymnasium floor. In sneakers.
Abby and Olivia, meanwhile, quickly switched positions several times, finally ending up standing opposite from each other, on different sides of Doyle. They even removed their different-colored scrunchies from their hair, letting their red locks flow free.
“Ready whenever you are, Coach,” said Olivia. They quietly switched places again as she finished speaking. After about another minute, Doyle stopped spinning. Without removing the shirt, he pointed directly at Olivia.
“Olivia.” He then pointed at Abby. “Abby.” He leaned down, pulling off the makeshift blindfold and handing it back to a wide-mouthed Abby, and calmly said, “Now get lined up for roll call. You can keep that as a souvenir, if you like.” He strode off with a casual wink, high-fiving a few of the guys and leaving the girls open-mouthed.
“No! Nobody has ever been able to tell us apart in less than a year!” Abby seemed unable to accept it. Olivia was staring at him, awed.
Ellie was determined to ask Doyle how he’d done it. He came across like the kind of person to notice small, seemingly insignificant details, so Ellie figured he’d spotted something about the twins nobody else ever had. She eyed them surreptitiously, trying to find some little clue. There had to be something to help him.
Then again, he hadn’t hesitated for even a split second. He hadn’t even looked. He’d stopped, pointed, and named, almost all in one motion, with the shirt still tied around his eyes.
After the coaches got through the attendance, they took the classes outside. Coach Silvers announced it was a “fun” day and they were going to be running the track. She cackled over all the groans and complaints.
“We’re going to go for at least two miles,” the white-haired woman told the students. “We’ll see who can keep going after that.”
Doyle chimed in. “Yeah, I want to see you run until I get tired.” That drew some laughs; the coaches always sat on the bench by the track and watched.
“Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is, big man?” Ellie twisted her neck to see who had spoken. Ah, Mike Morris. Naturally. He was a decent guy, and often said or did weird things just to get a laugh. If she was being honest with herself, she’d had a big
crush on him for a while; they’d gone on a couple of dates, but had mutually decided they were better off as just friends.
Did Mike know what he was getting himself into here?
Doyle folded his arms, which just emphasized his physique. Ellie certainly didn’t mind when he did that, and judging by the whispers and hands fanning faces around her, neither did most of the girls or some of the guys. “What do you have in mind, Pooky Snookums?” More laughter; he’d already displayed a knack for calling his students everything except their actual names. Pooky, Sparky, Bob, Toodles...whatever he thought of.
Mike grinned at the name and stretched, trying to show off his own biceps, which were nothing next to Doyle’s. “Well, Mr. Muscles, how about you run with us? If we outlast you, we don’t run for a month.”
Doyle scratched his cheek. “Interesting proposal, but not daring enough. How about this: I run with you and anybody who outlasts me doesn’t run again the rest of the year, but everybody else runs twice a week instead.” He looked over at Silvers, who shrugged.
That got some conversation going, especially amongst the guys. Many of them ran track and cross-country, and their teams had done well last year, finishing in the top three in the state finals. After some conversation, the guys began chanting and stomping their feet. Mike grinned. “I won’t dare speak for the girls, but with the guys....you got a deal, Coach!” They shook hands on it.
Ellie glanced at Doyle’s legs and shook her head. She hoped Mike didn’t end up falling on his face as Doyle left him in the dust.
Doyle waved an arm, his voice booming. “All right then, hobbits! Let’s run!” Silvers took her spot on the bench while Doyle lead the pack of students onto the track, jogging backwards and trading banter with some of the guys.
Ellie really didn’t mind running. She wasn’t super-fast or anything, but she could do a mile in about eight minutes. Being one of the faster girls in her class, she wasn’t surprised to find herself up towards the front of the pack. Coach Doyle was cheerfully striding alongside Mike and some of the other guys, talking with them as they all ran. Doyle really made it look effortless; they’d already run a quarter of a mile and he wasn’t even sweating.
Ellie glanced around and suddenly realized she was the only girl up there, and there was a big gap between her and everybody else behind her, with the track stars a little ahead of her. That was weird, but she ignored it and just focused on running. The rhythm of her feet on the track surface helped her focus her emotions, which had been scattered all morning long. She felt herself push through a group of bodies, making some of them stumble, but she didn’t pause to check on them.
She was so angry at her sister. She understood what Jen meant about not letting fear run her life; she really did. That was something Dad had taught them, and Jen had taken the lessons to heart. Still, as far as Ellie was concerned, she’d been really irresponsible the other morning.
Jogging by herself, into the damn forest, a day after almost getting killed? Yeah, sounds like a safe idea. More like the start of a horror movie murder, if you ask me. Pretty girl goes into the forest alone, the masked murderer follows and the bloodshed begins. Damned idiot.
Ellie started putting more effort into her strides, barely even feeling the ground anymore. She stopped noticing her surroundings and just focused on the track, the cadence of her footfalls providing a background music to her inner dialogue. In the recesses of her mind, Ellie felt her legs starting to really churn.
What if she’d been attacked again? She got lucky once, but is she stupid enough to depend on luck holding a second time?
Left, right, left, right, left, right. Her feet pounded the rubber below. She felt the warm breeze in her face and the beads of sweat on her forehead. She could smell the grass in the center of the track, could feel the warmth of the sun on her skin. It seemed warmer than usual. She ran for several minutes, her mind roiling with thoughts.
Besides all that....what about ME? What would have happened to me if something happened to her? I’ve already lost my parents, and I could have lost my sister as well.
Ellie couldn’t recall the last time her body had worked so perfectly while running. Her arms and legs moved together in perfect synchronicity; her lungs were effortlessly breathing in and out. She picked up some speed, pumping her arms accordingly.
Maybe it’s selfish to feel that way, but I don’t care. I’m not worried so much about where I’d live. Groverton is my home, and somebody would have taken me in for the last few semesters of school I have left. I just couldn’t imagine how I would have felt.
A deep voice interrupted her thoughts, making her stumble momentarily. “You would have felt like crap, but you would have gotten through it. I get the sense you’re a survivor.” Ellie regained her footing and looked over at Doyle, who was matching her pace. “Sorry,” he said contritely. “A few minutes ago, it looked like you wanted to make like Zeus and smite somebody, so I thought I’d join you and see what was going on. You were talking aloud just now.”
“How...generous...of....you,” Ellie panted, taking deep breaths. He still didn’t seem winded. She’d lost count of what lap she was on; she figured it was the second lap, maybe the third. Maybe she’d somehow finished the two miles already. She had no clue.
Doyle and Ellie rounded the bend, their legs perfectly in sync. She had no idea how he managed to take those long, gorgeous limbs and make them match her shorter strides, but he did.
“It’s okay to be angry at your sister, Elowyn,” he said gently. “What you’re feeling is a normal reaction.”
“Oh, and you’re an expert on feelings?” she snapped. “You’re just a substitute coach!”
“Maybe I am,” he replied, ignoring her outburst. “However, I’ve lived longer than you have, kid. I’ve been in the military. I’ve fought in war. I’ve had friends die right beside me, watched them take their last breaths, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I had to bring them home to their families. I had to watch as their wives or husbands, boyfriends or girlfriends, parents, even children...I had to watch as they all said goodbye. You think you had it rough this weekend? Try that sometime.”
So she’d been right about him: he was military-trained. That might also explain the scar running across his face. Ellie thought about what he’d said. His voice hadn’t sounded harsh or angry. In fact, he didn’t even sound sad. He sounded...concerned. For her. Ellie felt her anger starting to lose its grip.
Doyle looked around and grunted. “Good grief. You’d think they’d never seen a race before.” Ellie suddenly heard sounds she hadn’t noticed until this moment: cheering and screaming. She quickly glanced back and saw nobody, not even the track stars, close to them. Somehow, she had left them all way behind her. In fact, they were all standing off the track, hands on their knees, chests heaving, watching her.
In that moment, she also realized something else: Doyle wasn’t matching her pace.
She was matching his.
They tore around the track, their legs perfectly in time with one another. Ellie thought they must have made a funny sight: like a chinchilla next to a giraffe, except the chinchilla was somehow matching the giraffe’s strides.
She could hear people yelling at her to keep going. Ellie ran faster, watching the track vanish under her feet at faster and faster rates. Doyle stayed right beside her the whole time. They sped around the track; she’d never run so fast, or even so far, in her life. She really didn’t care what lap they were on. She just suddenly wanted to beat Coach Doyle. They ran several laps without speaking, the only sound Ellie’s breathing, which was getting louder.
“Let the guilt out,” he suddenly advised, his arms pumping in tune with his legs. “It’s holding you down. You’re too bright of a soul to be held hostage by it.”
Ellie gritted her teeth. “What, now you’re a psychic, too? And I don’t have any guilt!” Ellie pushed herself to go faster, but Doyle kept up.
Pink pigs on a falafel! He could at least b
reathe hard or something! Ellie was gasping for air and he looked like he was out for a casual jog through the park! Her irritation at him spurred her to go even faster.
“Of course you have guilt,” he said, still matching her pace. “Trust me: I know how much guilt can hold you down. I’ve been there. Hell, I’m still there. Fight through it, Elowyn. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong.”
“I hate that name,” she grunted, trying to catch her breath. “And what, oh wise one, am I thinking?”
Doyle’s legs were covering ground at a ridiculous pace. He started to move ahead, but as he opened up a lead of a dozen feet, Ellie gritted her teeth and pulled even. He glanced over, gave her an approving nod, and spoke. “You’re thinking you should have been there when she was attacked. That you could have prevented it from happening.”
He was right, she realized. That was precisely what she had been thinking. She just hadn’t admitted it to herself. She looked at him, and then sped up, going ahead of him.
A few seconds later, he caught up to her. For the first time, he looked like he was actually having to put forth some effort. She could still hear the screams of her classmates as she and Doyle again passed by them, but they sounded distant, almost as if she were inside a bubble that deafened sound.
Doyle spoke again. “You know what you’re not thinking about, though? What detail is escaping your attention? If you had been there with her, you would have been attacked, too. Maybe things would have been better. More likely, things would have been worse.” He shook his head. “The problem with ‘maybe’ is we can never know whether it would have been or not, so there’s no point wasting energy worrying about what could have happened. All we can do is accept what happened and that it did happen. Make the most of the situation you have, not the situation you wish you had.”
Tears stung the corner of her eyes, and she blinked them away. “Jen says something like that all the time,” she choked out.
