Unspoken Memories (Unspoken Series)

by Gabbie S. Duran

  “Why would anyone pay to run, shouldn’t it be the other way around?” I say in disgust.

  Matt sighs, taking a deep breath. “Look. I’ve signed you up already. It’s not a big deal, it’d be like one of our usual runs,” he says before heading into the hallway bathroom forcing me to take in what he’s said.

  Dammit. Maybe I should follow him into the bathroom, but I already know that even if I did it wouldn’t get me anywhere. When it comes to arguing with Matt, he is just as stubborn as I am.

  THE NEXT MORNING Matt walks into my room yelling “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey.”

  “Since I don’t actually smell bacon, I’ve decided it’s not worth getting up,” I say into my pillow, turning onto my stomach, yanking the blanket with me to my chin.

  Last night I had decided that I wasn’t actually going to run this “K” thingy. I wasn’t the one training for a big race, so why did I have to keep putting my body through hell? Nope. I was putting my foot down today and sleeping in.

  I feel the covers being yanked from the bed, and when my mind has comprehended what has happened, I feel Matt’s large hand on my ass. The God-awful sting that comes with it causes me jolt up, a reflex reaction that anyone would have.

  Groaning, I immediately grab my pillow and throw it at Matt, hitting him in the chest with it. He throws the pillow right back at me, hitting me on the ass. At least that didn’t hurt.

  He laughs and says, “Sorry beautiful, I couldn’t resist,” tilting his head to the side staring at my butt, “it’s such a sexy ass.”

  “Just remember Matthew, payback’s a bitch!” I say to him as I get up from the bed and head to the bathroom, rubbing my ass at the same time.

  As he exits the room, I hear him shout, “As long as you promise it’s something nice.” His retort makes me roll my groggy eyes.

  An hour later, I have realized that putting my foot down does not work when it comes to Matt. We ate a banana and half a bagel instead of eggs and bacon. Which makes me swear if I don’t get eggs, bacon, and pancakes after this I just might have to murder this man, no matter how good looking he is.

  I didn’t realize that Matt had woken me up at 5:30 this morning until I looked at my phone as we got into the car. I could have murdered him for that alone. He claimed we had to pick up our packet before 6:30 because the race started at 7:00. Being that I’ve never run with Matt before 8:00 in the morning, my body was still trying to wake up. I couldn’t keep from yawning.

  “I didn’t know you could open your mouth that wide. It’s giving me ideas,” he says as he’s driving.

  Right now I’m so tired that I don’t even have a rebuttal for his perverted mind. Besides glaring at him, which causes him to laugh at me. I give up and sit there trying to stifle my yawns with no success. I already have a feeling this is going to be a really long day.

  We finally arrive at the race location and make our way into the line for registration pick-up. After a couple of minutes of standing in line, Matt and I finally reach the front of the booth, and I hand the volunteer my ID to receive my packet. She sees the name on my ID, snaps her head up at me, and her eyes go wide.

  “OMG, it’s Abigail Adams!” she says with excitement, practically jumping out of her seat.

  I wince since I’m still half-asleep, but this helps wake me up a little as I begin to yawn again behind my hand.

  “I can’t believe you’re running our race. This is good, I’ll make sure they know you’re running,” she says as she starts looking around like she’s looking for someone.

  I panic, my body going rigid and Matt notices. “Actually, she was hoping not to bring attention to herself. She’s doing this for charity and would really appreciate if you don’t mention her name please,” he says, trying to save me.

  The girl gives Matt a puzzled look. “And you would be?” she says in a snotty voice.

  “Her assistant. Now can we have our packets so we can line up?” he demands sternly.

  Her shoulders sag in disappointment and she begins to look for our packets. Once she has handed them to us, she moves on to helping the person behind us.

  As we’re walking away, I’m staring at the bib with my number on it. “See, this is why I should have stayed at home,” I say dryly while I cover another dreadful yawn with my hand.

  From the corner of my eye I see Matt grin and I really don’t want to know why he’s smiling like that. I doubt it’s because of what I’ve said. We keep walking in the direction of the start banner and find a spot off to the side.

  With Matt’s assistance, I get my number on, and we’re standing in line with the crowd of people waiting. As I stand with him I start to get my playlist ready for the run, trying to select my favorite ones. Done, I start fumbling with my earphones, and I’m beginning to grow curious about how far this race is. He never did mention it.

  “So how many miles exactly is this 10K we’re supposed to run?” I inquire, staring at the start banner ahead of us.

  “Six miles,” I hear him say besides me.

  Horrified, I turn to him. I wasn’t awake before, but I am now.

  “You want me to run six miles?” I exclaim at him. “Are you crazy?” I practically squeal.

  I hear someone standing behind me chuckle and right now I’m thinking I should walk off. Ignoring the agitation growing inside of me, I go back to messing with my phone, ignoring Matt as well.

  He breaks our silence by saying. “Why don’t we make this run a little fun?” with a mocking tone.

  I stop fumbling with my phone and turn to look at him with my eyebrows raised. “What did you have in mind?”

  He tilts his head up as if thinking, his eyes going directly up to the sky, and then says, “Loser has to cook the winner dinner.”

  My mouth falls open. “That’s not fair! You know I can’t cook.”

  He smiles in victory. “Then you better not lose,” he says as he inserts his ear buds into his ears, walking forward as they herd us to the start line to begin the race.

  I narrow my eyes at him. Inserting my ear buds into my ears, I realize that I might be screwed. I can’t lose this race. Not only for bragging rights, but also because I really don’t want to have to cook.

  The gun finally goes off and the runners slowly start to jog over the start line to the course ahead. Matt begins moving to the outside of the crowd and I try to follow. It proves a bit difficult being that there are quite a few of people huddled together as they run forward, but he manages to find an opening in the small crowd and moves through it. Speeding through them, he leaves me stuck behind a couple running side by side.

  I’m shocked that he left me behind like that. He didn’t even bother looking back to make sure I was following.

  How rude!

  Already seeing him advancing in the crowd it pisses me off that I’m stuck here. I move to the left of the couple, find an opening to run through, and take it. I’m able to catch up to Matt by a couple of feet, but once again I get stuck behind another bundle of a crowd.

  Don’t these people know to move out of the way if they’re slow?

  I’m practically dancing back and forth as I’m running, trying to find a way to move forward and ahead of them. I finally find another open pocket and squeeze my way forward.

  I see Matt again and he must be focused because I see him weaving around people to get through openings and ahead. I keep watching him and I realize what he’s doing to make it easier to get ahead. So I follow his lead and finally start to advance. It’s not easy, because unless you want to be impolite, you have to keep bobbing back and forth around people to get forward.

  Somehow after fifteen minutes of doing this, a majority of the people split off to the left. The remainder of us go running to the right, in the direction of the sign with an arrow that says “10K runners this way.”

  I see Matt up ahead and I begin to speed up my pace, catching up to him. I’m thinking he’s going to run the rest of it with me, but I was wrong. Once he spots me
at his side, he gives me a smile, and speeds up again. Realizing that he’s mocking me flares my temper.

  All right buddy, you want to play these games? It’s on.

  I start to speed up and pass him, feeling better now that I’ve given him a taste of his own medicine. But then he catches up to me, and next thing I know; it feels like a normal run with Matt all over again. He always does this to me when we go on our usual runs. He’ll let me pull ahead of him a bit, allowing me to catch my breath. Then he’ll speed up making me follow him.

  I slowly start to feel that we’re both running faster and faster. Since there aren’t many people left on this part of the course, we are able to weave by them with speed. Then I see a sign that says Mile 4.

  Mile 4!

  I get so excited because I know it’s almost over. I could easily handle two more miles. I can do this, I think to myself.

  It continues with Matt and me running side by side for the next mile, and by the time the last mile comes up I keep thinking, not much to go. Then I see a sign that says Mile 6 on the side of the road, but I don’t see a finish line anywhere in sight. I thought he said this thing was only 6 miles?

  As I run past the sign, confused, I start to slow down thinking maybe we’re just supposed to stop. Comprehending that we are not anywhere near done when there are people still running around me, I keep going.

  What the heck? I thought this race was only 6 miles. He lied to me, but I keep running. After another minute, I finally hear the crowd and we turn a corner, and I see the finish line up ahead. I pushed my body to the limit before the 6th mile mark thinking that I was done, so I am beat at this point. My body feels like it’s ready to collapse and I haven’t even finished yet. My legs are burning, wanting to give out. My lungs are screaming for air, and I want to give up.

  I can see the crowd roaring at us and I turn my head slightly to look at Matt before he smiles at me. Next thing I know he’s speeding up ahead of me, leaving me behind by a couple of feet right before he crosses the finish line. There’s no way I can say that it was a close call because I even saw him cross ahead of me.

  Fuck! He’s beaten me and now I’m stuck cooking dinner for his ass.

  All that is going through my mind right now is that I want to strangle the hell out of Matt for signing me up to run this thing. I walk over to the side to get a bottled water that volunteers are handing out to the racers who have finished, relieved that at least I get something out of this. Even if it is only water.

  I take up a spot to the side, twist off the cap of the water, and take a huge gulp out of it. I see Matt come up to stand in front of me, and he’s beaming from ear to ear.

  Right now I want to smack that smile off his face.

  “By the way beautiful, my favorite dish is enchilada casserole. Try not to burn it; I would actually like to enjoy it,” he says as he walks with the crowd towards the exit.

  The only thing that keeps me from chucking my bottled water at him is that I desperately need it to quench my thirst.

  WHEN WE GOT back from the race, I headed straight to my room. I was so tired that I wanted to take a nap without even taking a shower. To say my body was worn out was a bit of an understatement.

  I throw myself on the bed, letting my body sink into the mattress. As I am lying there, beat from the morning, I hear Matt walk in.

  “Hey beautiful. You okay?” He sounds concerned.

  Being upset about this morning I say, “Leave me alone Matt, you’re not my favorite person right now.”

  He chuckles and climbs into bed next to me. I’m already facing in his direction, with my hands tucked under my pillow. He looks at me, while I shoot him with a glare.

  With his usual mocking smile, he says, “Don’t tell me you’re a sore loser?”

  “It’s not about the losing. It’s about you lying. You said it was only six miles. According to the six mile sign that I passed, it was obviously more,” I bitterly respond.

  He shrugs the one shoulder that isn’t lying against the bed. “Okay, technically it was 6.2 miles. I didn’t think that .2 miles would be much of a difference to you.”

  I roll my eyes and turn over, wanting to ignore him completely. I quickly feel him grab my body and pull me against him into a spoon position. He tucks his muscled forearm under my head and I feel his other arm that is wrapped around my ribcage tighten, pulling me closer against his chest. I’m so tired at this point that I lie there and take in his warmth. My mind immediately forgets why I’m even upset at him, and I fall asleep.

  When I awaken a couple of hours later, I’m alone again in my bed. He must have left while I was still sleeping, but his smell is still on my sheets. I lay there taking it in, wanting to absorb as much of it as I can. I don’t know why he came to lay with me, it’s just another thing to add to my list of questions when it comes to Matt.

  I’M STANDING IN the kitchen the next afternoon reading a recipe on how to make Enchilada Casserole that I got from the Internet. I watched several YouTube videos, but it looked easier to watch someone else make it, than trying it myself. Matt always makes cooking look easy, when in reality it isn’t, as I’m now learning.

  As much as I’m dreading making this stupid thing, I did lose fair and square. So I have to keep my side of the bet and cook dinner for Matt. At this point I’ve got sauce all over the stove, counter, and myself. I think I even have some in my hair. Matt had wanted chicken instead of ground beef. Although, I didn’t have to cook it since I was able to buy a rotisserie chicken to shred. Another plus to recipes online is that they come with a list of ingredients to buy, because I would have died trying to figure out what to put in this thing.

  All of a sudden my mind goes blank.

  Matt is standing over the stove, with a spatula in his hand. He’s staring at a pan with eggs in it. Although he looks to be only twelve or thirteen, he has apparently hit puberty already. He’s taller than I am and his voice is deep.

  “Now what do I do?” he asks.

  I look at him, saying, “You have to let the eggs cook a little, then you begin to stir them around slowly.”

  He goes to try to stir the eggs, but I stop him by placing my hand on his wrist. “Give it a couple of seconds. If not, you’re just going to be stirring around liquid.”

  He starts to look impatient and I laugh at him. “Okay, silly. Go ahead and stir away, find out for yourself. These are your eggs, you can cook them anyway you want.”

  He starts stirring with force and it spills over the pan. We hear a sizzle from it hitting the flame, and some of it has fallen on his hand, burning him a bit.

  “See, that’s why you have to let it cook a little, or else that could happen as well,” I say, still chuckling.

  He lets out a groan. “I don’t know why I have to learn to cook. Isn’t that what women are for?” he says.

  My lips go into a frown. I cheer up and say, “Let me tell you a secret. If you know how to cook, you’ll have girls falling over you.”

  His face brightens up with a smile and he enthusiastically goes back to his task.

  I stand there smiling at him, beaming with pride.

  “Abigail!” I hear Matt shout my name and it startles me out of the memory.

  I look around the kitchen and it’s full of smoke. The pan in front of me is bubbling, with tiny geysers of sauce shooting everywhere.

  “Oh shit. I’m so sorry,” I say, embarrassed about the mess.

  Matt starts turning off the stove. He moves pans to cool on the other burners that are turned off. He reaches for the dishtowel on the sink, and starts cleaning. I reach for another and start helping him, mortified at what happened.

  As I bend down to the floor, I stare in disgust at the mess. I’m so disappointed in myself that I start to tear up. I’ve even managed to screw this up; I can’t ever get anything right. The tears start to trickle down my cheeks causing me to sniffle and Matt hears. He bends down to pull me up and pulls my chin up to look at him. “Why are you crying, be
autiful?”

  I shake my head and duck my eyes as I try to help wipe the counter down.

  “Come here,” Matt says as he pulls me into a hug. I try to push him away because I really don’t want his pity at this moment, but he doesn’t let me. He pulls me tighter against his body, holding me tight, rubbing my back with his hand. I finally give up and let him comfort me.

  I sniffle again, turning my face into the crook of his neck, and say, “I’m so sorry; I’ve screwed up the one thing you were looking forward to.”

  He keeps rubbing his hand up and down my back, making me feel better. “Shhh, don’t cry. I hate seeing you cry. It’s not that bad. It’s the fact that you at least tried that counts.”

  Not happy with myself, I shake my head. He always knows what to say or do to make me feel better. This is the only side of Matt I know. Not the asshole side of him. He’s never shown that to me.

  “It’s not completely ruined, you just burned the tortilla and the sauce, that’s all. You’re halfway done anyways,” he says into my hair.

  I take a deep sigh in defeat.

  Finally calm, he kisses my head and lets me go, looking at the counter. “How about I help you finish up? That way I can make sure you don’t kill the dish completely, giving us food poisoning,” he says chuckling.

  His comment hurts my feelings all over again. I can’t believe he thinks my cooking would give us food poisoning. I wonder if he’s always thought this? If he did, then why in the hell did he tell me to cook for him?

  I hit him on the chest with the dishrag I’m holding and growl at him. He laughs harder and just kisses me on the cheek. Taking the dishrag from me, he uses it to finish cleaning up the stove.

  While Matt takes over the cooking on the stove, he instructs me on how to do most of the layering and it goes smoothly from there. His instructions seem much easier than trying to read or watch how to make it. Fifteen minutes later, we are done, and he is grabbing plates so he can serve our portions.

  Although dinner ends up turning out delicious, it’s only because Matt came and saved the day. I know if he hadn’t taken over, it would have been a total disaster. We would have been eating take-out right now. I don’t know what I would do without him and I really don’t want to find out.