“Was it only the knee?”
No. The diner stayed around me: syrup bottle, chipped mug, Amy’s six-mile medal made from a folded napkin beside her plate. My body supplied a different room anyway. A paper cup crushed in my hand. A barricade against my palm. Noise arriving from too far away and directly inside my skull.
“I got scared before the knee,” I said.
Amy did not move. “During the first race?”
I nodded. “There was a point where my fingers stopped feeling like mine. I could see a volunteer talking, but the words kept sliding past. I thought I couldn’t get air even though I was breathing.”
The confession was only a piece. It was also more than I had given anyone except Rose.
“Did you know what was happening?” Amy asked.
“No. I thought I was dying. Then I thought everyone could see me fail at dying correctly.”
The joke came out wrong. Amy let it fall instead of helping me make it funny.
“What happened after?”
“Medical staff took me off the course. The second time, I trained like I could punish the first race out of my body. My knee started hurting. I kept going until stopping was no longer my decision.”
“Because stopping voluntarily felt like the first race had defined you.”
My voice came rough. “Yes.”
“Did the injury end your running?”
“For a while.”
“But you run now.”
“Shorter distances. No start lines.”
“Why not?”
I moved the fork through eggs I no longer wanted. “Because I can tell another person to slow down without hearing the crowd. I can read their breath. I can see their shoulders climb. When it is my bib, my body gets there before my brain.”
Amy absorbed the answer. “Is this the full account?”
“No.”
“Does the deadline you gave me still stand?”
“Yes.”
She aligned her fork with the napkin. “Then I will not turn tonight into an interrogation.”
Relief and disappointment arrived together. “You are very controlled for someone who just ran six miles.”
“I am choosing not to exceed the agreed scope.”
Pure Amy. The boundary made the fragment feel safer rather than smaller.
“What about you?” I asked. “Why finance?”
“Numbers are honest.”
I smiled.
