Unspoken Memories (Unspoken Series)

by Gabbie S. Duran

  Oh hell no.

  That house was screaming bachelor pad from head to toe. I’m surprised I even went near the toilets to pee the first day I moved in. I ended up calling a maid service; I even paid extra for them to come over that same day and take the first round. After that I took over. Maintenance was a lot easier once you’ve set some ground rules.

  “What, I don’t get to drive your car again?” I say, pouting my lips.

  He grunts before saying, “Beautiful, even if I was dying, I would still make you call an ambulance before I let you drive Eleanor again.”

  I laugh at his response. He’s never going to get over that.

  “Deal,” I say, knowing that I’m going to end up losing anyways. The guys are going to have to eat a lot of canned soup for the next week, or else starve. It gives me a little confidence knowing that he doesn’t want to do the cleaning just as bad as I don’t want to cook.

  It’s still dark outside as we stand around waiting for them to start ushering us ahead. Since every corral was gathering in a different section of the city, you really didn’t know when exactly you were going to start. Just standing around was making me nervous. The nerves were there all week, but I was too tired to let them take over. I’ve been so worn out from the running that we did during the week, I practically passed out last night. So I didn’t need a repeat of Matt keeping me company, which I was grateful about. After the tub incident, I was scared of getting too close to Matt’s body in fear of raping him.

  I feel the crowd around me start to jog forward. I’m wondering where the hell the start line is, but as I’m jogging along I finally see it up ahead, and I start getting excited.

  The beginning of the race goes very smoothly, with Matt and me weaving and bobbing our way through the crowds of people. With every mile that goes by we start to get a silent routine between the two of us, occasionally separating to get around people, but coming back together.

  This race is a lot different from the half that we ran because it has long stretches of land before you have to loop back around and run the same stretch all over again. Since Matt had me study the course online, it was killing me knowing how much we had ahead of us.

  The clocks alongside the course are what really keep me distracted. According to them we are keeping a faster pace that we normally did during our runs. I was starting to get a little worried since my body didn’t feel fatigued yet. I couldn’t help but wonder if we were going to crash and burn towards the end. We’re definitely going faster than we did last week.

  I keep the thought to myself, trusting that Matt knows what he’s doing, and lose myself in the music blasting through my ears. As we cross over St. John’s Bridge, knowing it’s the first of two that we have to go over, I get excited noticing the crowd has really thinned out by this point. We are well over with the first half of the race.

  I start to notice that my body wants to give up, but I see Matt speaking to me, and I pull out my ear bud to listen to him. “Your body is going to want to hit the wall soon, but try to ignore it, and push through it. It’s all mental Abigail, your body can do it. Or you could start planning all the meals you’re going to have to cook for the team as well, while you’re running,” he says before pulling ahead of me.

  Oh hell no.

  I think to myself that there is no fucking way I’m cooking for half of the team as well. I’ll end up burning down the kitchen; no, the whole house!

  So I pick up the pace and push forward. I have to win this thing. Or at least finish it. I’m not giving up, dammit. I see the sign that marks the 20-mile mark, knowing that I have never run more than this distance. I have to listen to Matt and tell myself I can do this.

  When “Firework” starts to sing about feeling like a plastic bag drifting through the wind, I make my legs go faster as I see the Broadway Bridge. I know that the race is almost done past that bridge.

  My body feels like it has found a second wind with excitement. Next thing I know, I’m passing Matt with speed as I’m going over the bridge. Forgetting about him, I promise myself that I’m going to beat his ass again, even if it kills me. Every time a new song comes on I use the tempo of the bass to keep me going. I had timed my songs, leaving my most motivating and fastest ones until the end, knowing that I was going to need the beat to push me harder.

  I finally see the buildings of downtown up ahead, and know it’s practically over. I dig deeper, moving faster than my protesting legs want to go, but I ignore them. I start using the visual of the screaming crowd on the sides of the streets to encourage me. I finally turn a left at a corner. Only a few feet ahead of me I see the banner, and I’m crossing the finish line while the announcer says my name.

  As I slow to a walk they put a medal around my neck. I turn around to look behind me, and see Matt starting to run up to the finish line with a smile on his face. Almost as if he’s laughing while the announcer says his name as well.

  Matt comes straight to me once they are done placing the medal around his neck and says, “Just couldn’t resist leaving me in the dust, now could you?” He throws his arms around me bringing his sweaty body against mine, and kisses me on top of my head.

  I embrace him back, holding him around the waist with both my arms, smiling from ear to ear. I notice that there are at least three camera people surrounding us, taking pictures as they circle us.

  I ignore them, wanting to take in the moment.

  We collect our rose for finishing, memorabilia, and a souvenir shirt that we immediately put on. We leave the race, heading straight to my new favorite hangout. I’m starving right now and I want a big juicy burger to satisfy my hunger.

  On the way I call all our friends. Once we’ve arrived at the Brewhouse, they’re waiting for us, ready to celebrate. We walk through the door and they start cheering for us as we walk into the restaurant. I can’t help but throw my hands up and down in the air taking the praise they were giving.

  “So who won?” Trey immediately asks as we take a seat in the bench.

  I start to smile, while biting my lip as Matt answers. “She did,” he says, hooking his thumb in my direction, not sounding too happy about it.

  The manager of the day comes over to our table and asks, “What can I get our runners to drink?”

  I look up at him, beaming. “I want Matt’s usual. A really big one, I think I’ve earned it today,” I say to him, as he nods his head at me.

  “Damn right you earned it,” Trey says to me.

  This makes everyone laugh, and we start to order our food while we sit there sipping our beer, and I savor the moment.

  After looking back at it, I realize that no matter how much Matt has to push me, in the long run I’ve ended up finding something I like doing. I would have never thought that I would love running, but since the first day I started, I fell in love, and wouldn’t change it for the world.

  I’m grateful that Matt is finally going to start the season. He doesn’t do races during the season, so I was in the clear of him trying to sign me up for any. I can finally give my body a break from long distances and just do it for fun. Which is exactly what I plan on doing.

  THE NEXT DAY I wake up to Kelly’s ring tone blaring through my peaceful sleep. Even though I want to ignore it, I know I can’t, or else I won’t hear the end of it from her about ignoring her phone calls. I reach over, and answer the phone, half-asleep.

  “This better be an emergency Kelly, or else I’m not speaking to you for a week,” I grumble into the phone.

  “Have you seen the sports section of today’s newspaper?” she says to me.

  Knowing that we don’t get the newspaper, I say to her, “No.”

  I hear the sounds of beeping, as if she’s exiting the car, then a car door shutting. “Well, I’m at your front door, so get your butt up so you can see for yourself,” she says before ending the call.

  Knowing she has a key to the house now, I stay in bed, counting the moments until she walks into my room. I hear talking coming fr
om the hallway and wait for Kelly to come to my room, which is 30 seconds later. What I didn’t expect is for her to be dragging Matt along with her.

  He comes over to the empty side of the bed, and climbs beneath the covers, trying to go back to sleep. If it weren’t for Kelly in the room, I would have snuggled up against his body, and fallen back to sleep with him.

  For that split second of a thought I did forget she was in the room, before she walks over to my side of the bed swatting both of us on the shoulder with what feels like a newspaper, shouting, “Get your asses up, you made the front page.”

  This wakes both of us up in a heartbeat. I sit up, grabbing for the newspaper in her hand. I see Matt and me on the front page. The headline reads, “Local celebrity runs marathon!” It’s a picture of Matt embracing me, and I have a huge smile on my face as I’m leaning into his shoulder at the finish line. This must have been the photo all the photographers surrounding us were trying to get.

  Crap. Right when I’d finally got Bill out of my hair, I’m out in the public all over again. I only had three more weeks to go to ride out the contract, and here I am on the front page of the newspaper.

  Matt is looking at the newspaper with his chin on my shoulder, still half-asleep. I shrug it to wake him up. “Well, it only proves one thing. You missed Boston by 18 minutes, what a bummer,” he says before he gets up and walks out of my room.

  What is he talking about? What the hell is Boston, and why is it a bummer to miss it, if I’ve never even been there? At least I don’t think I have. Wanting to know what he’s talking about, I get up and follow him into the living room. He’s sitting on the couch now with the remote in his hand, turning the TV on.

  “What were you talking about when you said Boston? Why would I miss it?” This earns me a laugh from Kelly as she sits on the other couch, leaving me standing in front of Matt with my arms crossed over my chest, still waiting for an answer.

  Obviously Matt is ignoring me, causing Kelly to answer my question. “Boston is the Super Bowl of running races. You have to run a marathon under a certain time in order to qualify for it,” she informs me. “Even if you do make the qualifying time, you have to sign up in a certain time frame, which is super hard to get into.”

  I look over at her confused, wondering how the hell she knows all this info. As far as I knew, she wasn’t a runner. She shrugs her shoulder, seeing my confusion. “My dad ran it one year when he was young. That’s the only reason I know about it. It’s his proudest race to date.”

  Still confused, I look back at Matt. “So how fast are you supposed to run a race in order to qualify?” I ask, throwing my fingers up in air quotes as I ask him.

  He takes a deep breath like he’s frustrated, as if he’s finally decided to answer me. “Women your age have to run it in under three and a half hours. For me it’s under three.” His lips go into a grimace. “So you missed it by 18 minutes, being that your time was three hours and fifty-three minutes. Which is pretty good for your first marathon, and you had a lot of people to push out of the way.”

  Kelly pipes up and says, “Are you kidding me? You’re just pissed ‘cause she wiped your butt all over that asphalt again.”

  This makes me laugh, because that’s exactly why he’s in this sour mood right now. They had placed both of our times in the newspaper, making it seem like I did wipe the asphalt with his butt, for it being my first marathon.

  I don’t care that I didn’t make this Boston thing anyways. I was proud of myself for even finishing, that’s all that mattered in my mind. The only thing I was worried about at this moment was the fact that my face was plastered on the front page of the Portland newspaper, claiming I was a local celebrity. I was far from being a celebrity anymore, and I wasn’t looking to be one.

  “ARE YOU SURE you don’t need any help?” Kelly asks, leaning against the island counter in the kitchen, as I’m placing the frozen lasagna dish into the pre-heated oven. I close the door as I look up at her, and say, “No, it has to cook for about two hours, and then we take it out. Put in the garlic bread while we are putting the salad together, and everything should be good.”

  I start the timer on the oven the way Matt had taught me the last time I cooked with him, and walk into the living room with Kelly following me.

  As we sit on the couch she says, “I don’t know why you’re making dinner tonight. You did win the race after all.” Then she lifts her eyebrows with curiosity. “Unless you’re trying to score brownie points with Matt. You know, my momma always says, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” she says with a mischievous smile, while wiggling her eyebrows.

  I roll my eyes knowing exactly where Matt’s heart is. “I thought I would actually try to voluntarily make dinner for once. It’s their first practice back, and I didn’t want Matt to have to cook dinner. It has nothing to do with winning Matt’s heart,” I clarify to her.

  Now she’s the one to roll her eyes at me, and we both laugh. “What time are the guys done with practice today?” I ask.

  She shrugs her shoulders, looking down at her phone in her hand. She’s just as bad as I am with that thing. One time she left it here accidentally and drove back in the middle of the night to get it. She had woken us all up ringing the doorbell like crazy. That was the reason why she now had her own key. I had discovered I liked my sleep, so that night I was not happy she woke me up.

  Since the team had started practice today, they had no clue when they would be done. David had mentioned when he dropped Kelly off to keep me company, that they were probably going to have a usual meeting for the new players and go over the rules with them. It shouldn’t take too long. I was just hoping it was long enough for the lasagna to cook. I had forgotten that I wanted to cook dinner, so I was a little behind on time.

  As I start to channel surf, the doorbell rings, surprising both of us.

  Kelly looks over at me confused. “You expecting anyone?”

  I shake my head, just as confused. Who would be at the door? My gut feeling says to ignore it, but then I hear a determined knock. Kelly gets up from the couch, and I stay there not wanting to attract any attention at the door in case it’s someone I don’t recognize. Everyone who would come over is at practice right now, besides Kelly, so this has me troubled.

  From where I’m sitting I can see Kelly open the door a crack, and she begins to speak to someone, shaking her head. But as I see her try to use her body to force the door shut, she’s instantly thrown back with it, and in walks Andre with Bill on his heels with a determined look on both their faces.

  “Hey what the hell, you can’t come in here!” Kelly shouts at them, while trying to grab onto Andre, but he shoves her aside causing her to fall to the floor.

  I automatically panic, jumping off the couch. I try to run to the back door. But as I take my first step, I feel a pain in my scalp from my hair being pulled. I turn my body around trying to shove my attacker away, but I’m thrown to the floor, landing on my side.

  I lift myself up with my arms, trying to stand. Just as fast, I feel something whack me on the side of my face. I’m thrown once again to the floor and I hit my head. My head is now throbbing, and my face is stinging.

  My body doesn’t have the strength to fight back, but I can hear Kelly screaming in the background for them to leave me alone, and she sounds very panicked. Since my hair has fallen forward, covering my face, I can’t see anything. I try to crawl in the direction of her voice. After a couple of crawls, I feel my head being yanked up, and I’m looking directly into Bill’s eyes. He looks ready to kill.

  “You thought you could hide from me, bitch?” he says angrily. “You’re lucky I need you, or else I would kill you right now,” he growls into my face.

  I try kicking at him with my feet, while trying to push at him, but he moves away from my legs. Then he throws my body again. As the side of my body hits the wall, my ears start ringing, leaving the room silent.

  I’m expecting him to come at me again, so I
brace myself in a fetal position praying to let me die right now. I can’t take any more. I want it to end already. But after a couple of seconds I don’t feel anything, and it scares me.

  The ringing slowly starts to subside and I hear Kelly’s shouting again, with grunts along with it. In the corner of my eye, through the cracks of my hair, I see two guys, David and another guy from the team, tackling Andre to the ground pounding into him.

  I automatically start to look for Matt and when I finally find him, what I see is surprising. He’s pounding into Bill as Trey is holding him back by the neck, keeping him from moving. Matt looks furious as he’s repeatedly punching Bill in the stomach.

  I start to hear shouting again, this time coming from the door as police officers start running in, guns pointing everywhere. Everyone stops, Trey dropping Bill to the ground as he lifts his hands up in the air, but Matt ignores them and runs over to my side.

  “Abigail, are you alright?” he fearfully asks. “Don’t move. Somebody call an ambulance!” he shouts behind his back.

  There’s instantly a police officer at my side asking where I’m hurt, but another is pointing a gun at Matt, while shouting at him to put his hands up in the air. I don’t want them hurting Matt so I grab onto him as tightly as I can, “He’s okay, he’s my roommate,” I tell the officer.

  I see the policemen stare at each other hesitantly, but the one next to me nods his head, and gets up talking into his radio ordering an ambulance. I shake my head trying to get him to stop, but even that hurts too much.

  Matt takes me into his arms as gently as he can. It still makes me wince since I’m in so much pain, but I don’t care. I just want him to hold me right now, even if it hurts. I bury my face into his chest while he uses his hand to push my hair up and out of my face. He keeps whispering into my hair that everything is going to be okay. I don’t know what to believe right now, but his voice calms me, so I sit there and listen.