He rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t going to suggest that.”
“You totally were.”
“Fine. I totally was. Okay, restaurant.”
“Do you mind the sports stuff?” I ask.
“No.” He shakes his head. “Just missing you. I hope this is what you need.”
“Right now, the only thing I need is John Steed,” I reply.
* * *
X’s mom feeds us the good red ramen with eggs for dinner. We leave my bike at his place. I can barely walk. He waits until I make it to my front steps before leaving. He waves at me as he pulls away. I blow him a kiss.
“He’s a good friend,” Dad says behind me, watching through the screen door.
“He’s the best friend,” I say, still watching the taillights. He rode Lani’s scooter next to me for four and a half hours today. He almost had to carry me to the car once the soreness set in, and he’ll be back tomorrow with a smile on his face.
“How do his parents not know he’s gay?” Dad asks.
“Good old-fashioned denial.”
“Well, it’ll be nice that he’ll be around next year,” Dad says.
“But then he’ll be gone too.”
“Nowhere you couldn’t follow,” Dad says. “But I understand. You have to ‘do you,’ as the kids say.” He puts a hand on my shoulder, and then he goes back into the house.
It’s true, I think, trying to will my legs to stand me up. Maybe I could follow X to Cornell. It’d be a stretch, but maybe I could.
I haven’t even told Dad about applying to college yet. I think some dreams are better as a secret, especially when they’re scary. But without Dad constantly pressuring me to apply—now that I know it’s really my choice—it’s been so easy. Fill out a form. Ask for a recommendation. Write an essay. Get a transcript. Everything is one step in front of another. Applications don’t even open until August, and I have until mid-November to finish, to make it totally perfect. I’m ready.
I don’t know where I’m headed. But I know it’s not Cornell, not to follow my best friend.
I’ll miss him, though.
“Stand up,” I tell myself out loud, and I do.
In my room, it’s all I can do to peel my clothes off. My legs are hot. It’s like they’re generating heat even though my ride ended hours ago. I don’t even want the water in the shower hot because I’m boiling inside.
I’d like to stay in the shower forever, but tomorrow is coming. I get out and go to my room. I can’t, I think. Twenty-one miles. I can’t face it. I can’t do it. My legs are done.
Something makes me remember, and I pull open my dresser, digging through it until I find it.
I get dressed. And then I am dead out.
* * *
“Up,” X says, and I curse the time travel that brought me to this moment with no apparent sleep in between.
I pull the covers over my face.
The covers vanish, and my whole body snaps into a fetal position.
“Aren’t we fancy,” X says.
“Rei,” I explain. I am a knot of racing stripes. Matchy-matchy.
“Are you wearing your running shoes in bed?” X asks.
“Motivation.”
“For the record, you wanted this.”
I feel something cold wedge its way into my clenched hands.
“Get out of bed and drink the smoothie, partner. We’re already late.”
I slide out of bed and onto the floor. The smoothie is good.
“I like the outfit,” he says.
“Rei called it my power costume. She said it would make me feel like a superhero.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“It’s probably the bedhead.”
X sits behind me on the bed, undoing the knot I was hoping looked something like a French braid. He brushes my hair and I get that weirdly pleasant skritchy sensation of someone else doing your hair. I integrate more smoothie into myself. I become slightly more human.
A headband wraps itself over my braided pigtails, which I don’t even have to look at to know are now perfect.
“You’d be a more convincing drill sergeant if you weren’t so goddamn gay all the time,” I say.
“You clearly know nothing about the military.”
He pushes me, and this time I manage to get off the floor and onto my feet. I glance at myself in the mirror. I look like one of those Lululemon ads. No. I look like a triathlete. Battle braids, like Lucy Charles-Barclay. It’s weird, but I do feel lighter. Almost like I can fly.
Another blip in time, and I’m in the parking lot on the longest stretch of sidewalk we could find. I try to imagine the Aloha Tower behind me, like at the first Ironman.
“I think I can, I think I can,” I whisper.
“What are you muttering to yourself?” X asks as he gets his bike out.
“I’m trying to get all the bad words out of my system,” I say. I do some of the stretch things Rei emphasized that I must do. Foot to butt, crossed-legs toe touching, superhero lunge.
“Ready?” asks X as he climbs onto his bike. And, surprisingly, I am.
* * *
Twenty-one miles. I am at mile eighteen. Pain is a sense I left back at thirteen. At fifteen, I lost the feeling in my right foot. My legs keep shuffling. Just keep going, I tell myself. I stare straight ahead.
X is riding next to me, going so slow the bike wobbles. He keeps asking if I want water. It feels like every thirty seconds, but I can’t think. I hear him, but I don’t respond. It’s hot. So hot.
One step at a time, I tell myself. One step at a time. But my legs won’t lift. I look down and I can see that I’m still running, but I can’t feel it. I’m scared, then I’m elated, then I’m confused. But I can’t stop. Can’t stop. Stop. Can’t stop. Something in my calf is seizing and it feels like I’m wearing cement boots. I think I’m crying. I can’t even tell because I’m covered in sweat. My fingers feel huge.
I fall to my knees. I think I skinned my knee. I stand again and keep running.
X is off the bike. He’s saying I need to stop. I think he’s shouting. But it’s only three more goddamn miles. He’s saying something again, but I ignore him and keep going.
The pavement shimmers golden. I see the air, rustling through the fields that aren’t there. Birds lift off, and for one moment the whole of it is still, the birds catching the force under their wings, letting it sweep them wherever they wish. Flying isn’t fighting. It’s letting the wind move you.
I hear X saying something, but the thing I feel is my palms hitting the ground. Then I’m lying there, and then I’m gone.
chapter twenty-one
X watches me nervously as I eat some onigiri he got from the 7-Eleven and drink two full bottles of Gatorade like I’ve been in a desert. “It’s not on the nutrition plan,” I insist, but he makes me eat them anyway. Some onigiri becomes many as X makes trip after trip back inside for more. I am so hungry I barely get the plastic wrap off before shoving them in my mouth. I have grains of rice sticking to my hair.
I ride on the back of his bike to meet up with our crew. I hurt so much. At this point, I’m used to being in constant pain. I walk around with the uncertainty of a fawn, on legs that no longer respond the way I’m expecting. I have tired muscles that mock me when I give them commands. They do what I tell them. Just not right away, and not always right.
We meet up on the beach, and it takes all my effort to get off the bike. My stomach is cramped. I am so nauseous I never want to move again. X is looking at me with genuine concern.
“I’m fine,” I tell him. I need to put a brave face on this, not for me, but for X.
“I swear this is the last time I’m going to ask, but I’m scared. Think about it. Do you want to stop?” he asks.
“Stop what
?”
“Training. The race.”
I cut him off before the others can hear.
“No,” I say firmly. “Absolutely not.”
“No one will blame you if you want to stop. We’ll say your dad said you’re not allowed.”
“I can’t stop.”
“Why? This is killing you.”
“Because…”
“Can you please try to explain it to me?”
“I need to do this. I need to know that I can.”
“I hate that he did this to you. You never needed to know these things before.”
“It isn’t him,” I say. “I need to know it for me.”
“And what do you even care what he thought about you? He was such a poser.”
“I don’t,” I say, which is mostly true. “X. It’s not about that anymore. It’s bigger than that.”
X sighs. “I know.”
* * *
“Sounds like you were bonking,” Rei says when she hears about my misadventure. “And then you kept going. Which is bad.”
“Bonking?” I ask.
“She was bonking in public?” Trinity asks.
“…yes?” Rei says hesitantly.
“Miho, that’s gross.”
“What exactly do you think bonking means, Trinity?” Rei asks.
“It sounds like a sex thing.”
“Not everything is a sex thing.”
“I’m pretty sure bonking means doing it.”
“No, it’s a running term—”
But Trinity’s already got her phone out, and is showing us her findings. “Internet says doing it.”
“Let me see that,” Rei says. She looks at the phone and rolls her eyes.
“Fine. It’s also called ‘hitting the wall,’ ” Rei says.
“That could be a sex thing,” Trinity says.
“It’s not a sex thing! Will you let me finish?”
“That’s what she said.”
We are all laughing, and the laughing hurts so much I can’t breathe. My insides are in pain. I’m a little worried about that. I hope it’s muscle pain and not some kind of organ failure.
I look over and I notice that Lani is laughing, but she’s looking at Trinity. Like, really looking. She catches me watching and turns away.
“Whatever you call it, it’s a nutrition problem,” Lani says. “What did you eat?”
“Whatever you wrote down for me to eat this morning.”
“But, like, were you hungry? Were you tired? What did you eat while you were running?”
“Who eats while they’re running?”
“People who are running twenty-one miles,” Rei says. “Pretty sure I told you that.”
“Yeah, I ate all that before I ran so I wouldn’t have to stop,” I say. Lani brings her hand to her forehead, and Rei shakes her head.
“Doesn’t work like that,” Rei says.
“It saves time.”
“Nope. Doesn’t work like that. So that’s problem one.”
“Were you hungry?” Lani asks.
“I mean, I was starving. I’ve been starving this whole time.”
“What?”
“I’m always starving,” I say.
“You shouldn’t be starving,” Lani says.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“No, I don’t mean you shouldn’t, like, you’re not allowed to be starving. I mean shouldn’t, like, if you’re starving, there’s something obviously wrong.”
She looks at the menu she wrote out. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you told me what to eat and I ate it!”
“But if it wasn’t right for you, why wouldn’t you say something?”
“You know so much about food. I assumed I wasn’t trying hard enough. I thought that the problem must be me.”
“And that’s what trashes female athletes,” Rei says. She takes me by the shoulders. “Starving. Athletes. Do. Not. Perform. Well. Period.” She emphasizes each word by shaking me, and I’m too proud to tell her it hurts.
Oh, I realize. Pride. That’s part of the problem.
“Food isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing. That’s why you need to tell someone if you, say, are feeling constantly woozy and vaguely psychotic because you’re hungry. There’s no universal formula. There are guidelines, but there are so many variables, and what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another.”
Lani thinks for a minute.
“I’ve got an idea,” she says, gathering up her bag. “Let me see what I can do.”
* * *
A week later, we stand in a line, waiting for the signal. My heart is pounding.
“Ready?” Lani asks. The rest of us nod. “Three…”
How bad will it be?
“Two…”
I can’t. I can’t.
“One…”
Okay. Head in the game.
“Go!”
We each rip the top off homemade foil packets and pop squares of goo somewhere between the texture of a gummy bear and glue into our mouths. They’ve got liquid-y centers.
“Not bad!” Rei says with relief.
“It’s salty because of electrolytes,” Lani says.
“Mr. Oshiro says electrolytes are government propaganda to get you to buy expensive sports drinks,” I say, struggling to chew.
“Nope,” she replies. “Not true.”
“It’s good,” I say. “Kind of not sure I can chew this while running.”
“I’ll work on it.”
We are in Trinity’s garage, the evidence of this project all around us. I’m slightly concerned that Trinity’s science experiments may have taken place on this same table, given that she went through a bacteria-obsessed phase, but Lani’s a pro. We probably won’t die.
“How many calories are in this?” Rei asks.
“Fifty a square.”
“So they’re like the least healthy candy on the planet. What is the difference between this and a handful of jelly beans?”
“Electrolytes, complex carbs, caffeine, and some Miho-specific science-ing courtesy of Trinity’s Littlest Chemist set.”
“What is this flavor? I can’t place it,” X says. I watch as he discreetly spits his into a handkerchief that of course he is carrying. He raises a finger to his lips when he catches me watching.
“We went with POG. Everyone loves POG,” Trinity says.
“I still think POG is an elaborate joke you guys are playing on me,” I say.
“California Niece,” Trin says, shaking her head.
“Well, even if POG isn’t a thing—”
“It is a thing!”
“—I still dig it. These are great, Lani.”
“So you eat these during the long run and long bike, not before,” Rei says.
“During,” I confirm.
“Another?” Lani asks. “These ones are pineapple.”
“Gimme!” I say. She tosses one to me. I take a step forward, trying to catch it, and my left leg buckles. I hear Lani gasp. I see X reach out to catch me, but Wyatt springs forward, knocking into Rei. I catch myself before I hit the ground, and then Wyatt and I are standing there face-to-face, and Rei is picking herself up off the floor.
“Priorities, darling,” she says, looking at us, dusting herself off.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, going to Rei. I put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She shoves my hand off.
“No, no. I see how it is,” she says. “How’s that game you guys like? Or is it pictures back and forth? Good old-fashioned sexting?”
Wyatt sighs. “Rei, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I, though? Or am I just not being a sucker.”
Wyatt throws up his hands. It’s so horrifyingly awkward that I want to disappear. Lani and Trin obviously feel the same way, because they are silent as mice slinking into the shadows.
“I want to talk to you,” Wyatt says. “Can we go?”
“No. Say what you have to say,” Rei says. Wyatt looks around nervously.
“Fine. You’ve been acting jealous for weeks now, trying to see what’s on my phone. If you can’t trust me, then we shouldn’t be dating.”
“So show me what’s on your phone and I won’t be jealous,” Rei says. She holds out her hand.
“Rei, there’s nothing on my phone.”
“Then why can’t I see it?”
“Because it’s private.”
“Wait,” I say, finally catching up. “You think Wyatt and I have been texting behind your back?”
Rei turns to me, scowling. “Oh, I didn’t want to think that. But, I mean, what was that?”
“I fell. He was being a Boy Scout, like he always is,” I say.
“He pushed me out of the way to get to you,” she says.
“Rei,” I say, but then I shake my head. After what happened to me with Scumbucket, nothing is going to make her feel better but incontrovertible proof. I dig my phone out of my pocket. I unlock it. I hold it out to her. “Here. Read all my text messages. I don’t care.”
“Rei, if you touch that phone, I swear to god I’m breaking up with you,” Wyatt says. Rei scowls at him, but she doesn’t take the phone.
“Fine. You basically confirmed it anyway.”
“No he didn’t!” I shout. I scroll to the only messages between me and Wyatt off our group chat. They’re all about swimming drills and asking him about training numbers and stupid homework questions back when school was in session. And, as I’m looking, some memes. And a few pictures of Achilles, and of his cat. His Boy Scout badges above his bed. And a few inside jokes. Wow, Wyatt and I have been talking a lot.
But it’s not like we were cheating! That would literally have never occurred to me!
Fierce as the Wind Page 16
