by Kieran Nimmo
***
Saturday arrived. The sun that pierced Matt’s thin blinds awoke him in a pool of cold sweat. He sat up and gasped for air, as if he had been held underwater. It was over. He always seemed to dream of horrific events, not that he could remember them, as soon as his eyes shot open they were gone, lost in the never ending maze that was his unconscious.
The night before had been hectic for Matt. They were meeting later this morning to go jogging. Matt would be lying if he didn’t admit his fear. He had never been jogging before and wasn’t exactly the embodiment of fitness, but he was growing fond of her, which frustrated the hell out of him. She clearly wasn’t thinking the same way he was, just look at what happened on the train last night. They had known each other for less than a week, of course there was chemistry but would anyone in their right mind take an emotional risk like that? The more he considered the issue the further into a depressive spiral he sank.
There was no time for emotion today though, he had to get ready. Sam had standards and Matt knew that. If he had a hope in hell, he would have to be functioning at his best. He would make sure he was.
Matt showered, dressed, styled his hair and shaved, ironing out any misperceived and trivial imperfections. When he had finished, he stared into the mirror and was astounded by what stared back at him. He was looking good, especially in his blue tracksuit bottoms and plain red t-shirt and then he added the final touch, his red and blue cap, flipped backwards. He was ready.
Sam went jogging around the lake in Glenwood Forest – a short distance from their homes – every Saturday, at ten in the morning. She always started from a clearing, distinct from the others as a large oak tree stood in the centre - it looked rather odd as the entirety of the surrounding area was totally forested. From the clearing, Sam said it was possible to see the most stunning lake.
Matt had to find a clearing, near a lake, which had a large oak tree in the middle, in a huge forest. This wasn’t going to be easy. Not that anything worth doing ever was.
Matt looked at his watch, 10:02, she would have just left the swimming pool, which was around a twenty minute drive to their meeting point. He left, closing the door with a thud that reverberated through the derelict street. The sun had not entirely risen and the arctic breeze bit into him, his loose fitting gym clothes were no match for the chill of the brutal autumn wind. His walk developed into a run, he jogged leaving the collection of homes behind and headed for the woods.
Matt explored. He ran with his head constantly cocking from left to right searching for that bloody clearing. There was nothing. Every tree looked the same! How could he ever find one clearing in a seemingly limitless forest? 10:15, he was running late and his frustration was growing, everything appeared identical. He would have given up and gone home if he wasn’t so disorientated/lost. He could picture Sam leaning against the large oak tree, with a picturesque lake in the background as the grass rustled in the wind, the same smile, he had become so accustom to during previous days, engraved across her impeccable face.
He was running at a sprinting pace, there was still no sign of the clearing. Should he call her? Shit, he had left his phone in the house. Desire harassed him. For five minutes he ran aimlessly through the thick foliage, to no avail. He just hoped she would wait because he would find her no matter how long it took.
He had been sprinting for a solid fifteen minutes, if not more. There was no sensation emanating from his toes any longer, the icy numbness would burn when he returned to the warmth and safety of home, not that was problem for him, now. The more immediate problems were his calves that burnt as if they were going to rip into a million pieces of cartilage at any moment. His whole body ached. It had forced itself against the absolute power of nature for far too long. It was a physical impossibility to continue.
Matt had been searching for at least twenty minutes. He was late, cold and exhausted. He had to accept it, he thought, it wasn’t going to happen, not today, his burning calves playing testament. Inside he died a little when he finally murmured, defeated yet aggressed: “screw this!” Matt turned back the way he thought he had come and began completing the obstacle course that was his way home. It was still impossible for him to detach the image of Sam standing and waiting for him to arrive from his mind. Then her expression disintegrating when eventually she realised he wasn’t coming. When he thought of her like this, his heart skipped a beat, he felt ill and cold sweat enveloped his body. He had to do something, the only problem being he couldn’t.
Matt fumbled through the roots and over fallen logs, jumping over all of the major obstacles. He approached a large fallen log. He could jump it, was the thought screaming through his mind.
He was on the ground. He stood up grooming the dirt from his evidently underused gym clothes. The taste of soil gave way to a trickle of water. Then he smelt the dampness too! Yes! Yes! Yes! He screamed in his mind. There was a stream. He could tell where the lake was by the direction of the stream, it had to be downstream or it may just take him somewhere totally different, maybe out to sea (despite the fact that the coast was more than fifty miles away, Matt was so elated rationality didn’t seem rational anymore).
He imagined himself as nimble and flexible, swooping through the forest. The reality was, this was just fiction and he had been thrown to the hard forest floor more than once! Not that Matt cared, not even in the slightest, his whole body burned for her. He had to admit it now. How could he hide attraction from himself?
Following the stream was never going to be easy. Banks became steeper. The ground material, which was at one point was solid, had transformed into a gunk that squelched whenever Matt so much as tensed a muscle. He no longer had the luxury of grip and was sliding whichever way nature intended. He pushed on, no matter how many fallen (wet) logs he had to scramble over or how many times he had to hop across the torrent underneath skipping from stone to stone, with the occasional miss guaranteeing a very wet shoe, he would continue. Only one image pushed him and made it possible. Whenever trouble arose he saw her, waiting for him, her heart dying a little more with every second that passed when he had not appeared. He saw her smile collapsing and forced his exhausted legs to move faster, for her smile to be lost was a fate worse than death.
Five more minutes of being at the complete mercy of nature passed. Then he saw it, the best thing he thought possible to see in his whole life. At the opposite side of the stream, he saw why Sam could have been so vague in her description of the clearing. The large oak tree stood still and resilient, on looking the water that glistened, reflecting the sunlight onto the leaves above, making them glow a mix of yellow and brown. The clearing was surrounded by a vast selection of autumn greenery and wildlife. He went into auto-pilot, jumping the small stream – which was now second nature - and returned to his sprint pace on the adjacent side, hurtling towards the perfection of the clearing
He got closer to it, its splendour becoming more apparent with every forward footstep. It was almost an exact replica of what he had imagined but far superior. The colours were clearer, the scent of rotting leaves and dew combined to create autumn. Then there was the lake, the way the quay bobbed up and down, its wood creaking with every move... He stopped mid-thought. There was something missing. Where was Sam? The lake was small enough to enable Matt to see the entirety of its perimeter, he checked, hopeful that he would see her silhouette pumping around it. There was no sign of her.
The truth hurts. His heart felt as though it had plunged into his stomach. She wasn’t coming. Yet part of him still believed - he hadn’t stopped running after all. Tears built behind his eyes. He couldn’t concentrate. His mind was running at capacity thinking of her.
He was alone when he plummeted into the clearing’s solid ground. He tumbled, hard, face planting into the soil. He only came to a stop, when he wrapped himself around the large oak tree, smashing his face into the bark. His nose burst and blood was streaming over him, the pain emanating from his nose was silence
d by the agony from deep within. For the first time, he was truly alone.
“Oh my god Matt, are you okay?” squealed a familiar voice. It was her, she was here! The misery that had acted as a censor to his face pain was gone. Physical pain shot through him at the speed of a hungry cheetah that had just caught sight of easy prey. Gathering himself he rushed to his feet and skilfully babbled, “How could I be any better? I’m with you.”
Sam entirely ignored this ingenuity and burrowed into her pockets until she surfaced a packet of tissues. She didn’t give him any, even when he offered a hand to take one. She removed one from the packet, knelt down, positioned a comforting hand on the back of his head and began to tend to his nose while running a protective hand through his hair, shivers travelled down his spine each time her fingers pulled towards his eyebrows. The sensation Matt was experiencing was that of a young child’s when hearing the tinkle of bells on Christmas Eve, full of anticipation, hope and bewilderment.
“Ouch!” Matt cried as Sam ‘helped’ him. He could feel her warmth pressed against him. Together they fought back the frosty gale. Nearly her entire body was in contact with him, he felt it tremble, he felt the anxieties and he felt the Heavy Metal heartbeat, thumping faster than he thought possible for a human. He collated all of this information and it could only tip him towards a sole collusion.
“You big baby!” she interjected, ironic yet satirical, as if he were a young child. “Here hold my hand and squeeze if hurts, okay?” She sounded sympathetic but malicious at the same time. There was nothing romantic about what was happening and he knew that. On the First Aid course that was obligatory in all Scottish schools, they teach students to offer the patient a hand to a) comfort them and b) become aware of their pain instantly. It was mechanical.
She offered him her hand. Matt’s could feel his whole body pulsing. He weightily inhaled and accepted. Their hands intertwined, finger to finger, palm on palm. Both of their bodies were throbbing, they could feel each other trembling. Everything that was Sam or Matt was interchangeable via holding hands. They both sensed the fright, excitement and desire in the other.
The blood flow had curtailed, “Well are you coming then? I don’t want you getting lost, you know!” she mocked his blood stained face. Matt staggered upright and forced a grin through his still painful nose and face and body.
She cantered ahead, carving past every obstacle the forest could throw at her with ease. He watched her nimble body flow through the trees, spring over the fallen logs and shimmy around or dive over the large puddles that had formed the night previously. Matt forced himself into a run despite his aching calves. He furiously pushed in an effort to catch the figure of perfection bombing around the lake, with little care for her running guest.
He tore forward, desperate adrenaline pumping through him, forcing him to the upper limits of his body’s physical endurance. Every time he instructed his feet to move one in front of the other his pain increased slightly. He only caught sight of her green reflective shoes bouncing through the crunching leaves beneath.
When he caught up, he was exhausted. Panting he asked “how do you do that?”
Wonder filled her voice, “do what?”
“Never mind,” he caved as the pressure of talking while running fatigued him further. His heart pounded, nausea set in. Reality set in. He was unfit, there was no way around that. To win Sam over would he have to prove himself as an athlete? Could he even do that? As
