Page 43 of Here We Go Again

The Atlanta General Annual MS Walk starts early on a Saturday morning.

So early that I’m still sluggish and sleepy when Mia and I pull up to the Piedmont High School football stadium just down the road from the hospital.

“Is there coffee?” I ask through a yawn. “There has to be coffee.”

“What is wrong with you?” Mia asks. “This is barely earlier than when we get up for work.”

“But it’s Saturday, and I know I’m not working. My brain is confused.”

“I’m sure there’s coffee,” Mia says. “And probably a million other things for us to choose from for breakfast.”

Though it’s not even seven a.m., the stadium is already buzzing. Rows and rows of tents are set up along the edge of the parking lot where participants are checking in. Multiple food trucks are selling breakfasty things, including coffee and something that smells like cinnamon rolls, which—sign me up for one of those.

I imagine, as the day progresses, the food trucks will swap out with others geared more toward lunch and then dinner, then rotate back to breakfast for the end of the event this time tomorrow.

Mia and I won’t be here for the entire twenty-four hours. The goal is to have someone from your team walking laps on the track for the whole event. We signed up for the first twelve hours, then a second shift will replace us for the next twelve. While we’re here, we’ll walk for an hour, then take an hour break, then walk for another hour, and so on until the next group arrives to take over.

I assumed night shift would be the harder gig, but now that I’m here, they might have the better end of the deal. At seven a.m., it’s already starting to feel warm. Walking the track at two in the afternoon is going to be brutal. Though maybe not as brutal as walking all night when I’ve got to work first thing in the morning.

Plus, Theo will be here during the day.

Not that it matters. I’m trying very hard not to think about the fact that I know when he will be here at all. I’m not proud of the fact that I was willing to fill out three forms of information on the Jaguars website and make a donation to the MS Foundation just to get to the page that specified when each of the hockey players would be walking.

I should have just texted him. When I left his apartment last week, we talked about seeing each other here, but we never really specified when.

I thought he might text me and ask, but he never did.

Then I started overthinking.

Because of course I did.

And now, I’m almost to the point where I wish I’d never called him or gone over to his apartment in the first place.

I knew this would happen. I knew. Ignoring my rules was bound to get me in trouble. I broke them, and now I’m thinking about him way too much.

“Okay, what do we do first?” Mia asks. “Check in? Or get food?”

“Do you know me at all?”

“Check in,” Mia says, turning toward the appropriate tent. “Because you will not want to be late.”

Twenty minutes later, we’re all checked in, with our team’s matching armbands secured around our biceps. We’re fueled with coffee and the cinnamon strudel we smelled earlier—it was every bit as delicious as we hoped—and we’re at our team’s tent, listening to Emily, who is the nursing team captain, give out our walking assignments.

As long as one of us is always on the track, we’ll be following the event’s rules; but we’re assigned to walk in groups of three or four so we always have company and so nobody freaks out if someone needs a bathroom break. To our left, I see another tent of Atlanta General staff, and I recognize several of the surgeons I work with. Dr. Novac looks up and meets my eye, then lifts her hand in a friendly wave.

“What do you have to do to be on that team?” Mia asks.

“Drive a car worth more than our annual salary,” I say back, and she snorts.

Mia and I aren’t assigned to the first shift, so we settle into a couple of camp chairs in the shade. I pull out my Kindle to read, but I don’t even open it. I’m too busy scanning the rest of the field, looking for any sign of Theo or the rest of his team.

“It’s near the fifty-yard line,” Mia says, and I turn to look at her.

“What is?”

“The Jaguars tent. I know that’s what you’re looking for.”

I huff and open my Kindle. “I am not.”