I suppose I’ll have to get a job to pay for my career, at least for a little while. I frown at the thought and keep running.
The sun is rising faster now, inching its way into the sky. The clouds have cleared and it’s starting to get warm. Sweat is trickling down my back now. I’m tempted to run right into the water, but that would make for a very soggy ride home. At least the breeze is constant, cooling me a little.
The jogger down the beach is getting closer and I can now make out a man and a dog. The dog keeps running into the water and then back up onto the beach beside him. I can’t make out the details of the man’s face, but he’s wearing a white sleeveless shirt and gray shorts. I can tell that he’s muscular and he looks pretty tan. He must spend a lot of time out here.
I glance at the horizon and then back at the man, then out at the horizon and back at the man. I watch his dog run into the water again. I think it might be a golden retriever. I try not to stare as we approach each other, but I look up right before we pass and I stop running. “Gabe?” I spin around and run after him.
“Hey,” he says, keeping his pace, which is much faster than mine. I have to double my strides to keep up with him.
“Hi,” I huff. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“I wasn’t expecting to see you either. Since when do you run?”
“I don’t know. Since college.” I glance up at him. His hair is wet from the sweat beading on his face and neck, and there’s more sweat trickling down the middle of his back, soaking through his shirt, which is clinging to the muscles in his back—about all I can see from my position a few inches behind him. I dig my feet into the sand and run faster to keep up with him.
He glances down at me and whistles for his dog that’s swimming through the surf several yards away.
“You got a dog?”
“Yeah.” He keeps his answer short and his eyes out in front of him.
“What’s his name?”
“Her name is Roxy.”
“Oh. That’s a great name,” I pant.
“It is, but I didn’t name her.”
I can’t tell if he’s being short with me on purpose or if he’s just trying to stay focused on his run, but it’s an unsettling reminder of the change in his personality from his injury. The old Gabe would have never greeted me with anything less than a beaming smile.
“She’s a service dog. They named her before I got her,” he explains.
A service dog?
“I have seizures,” he says, answering my unspoken question.
If I had any saliva left in my mouth, I’d try to swallow. My mom told me he had a seizure a few years ago, but I didn’t know that he’s had more. I run in silence, falling slightly behind him again. “I didn’t know,” I say with a winded breath.
“It’s not a big deal. I take medicine that helps.”
I try unsuccessfully to swallow the lump in my throat. “Gabe, can you slow down?” He ignores me and keeps his pace, so I dig my feet into the sand harder and ignore the burning in my calves. “Hey, I didn’t mean to take off like that yesterday.”
He slows down a little, like he wants to listen now.
“It was just...a lot,” I pant. “It was the first time I’ve been to Brandon’s grave in years and”—I gasp for air—“I wasn’t ready for much else.” I look up at him hoping to convey that I wasn’t ready for him.
“I know.” He glances down at me. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry—”
“I wasn’t ready either. My mom should have told me you were back.”
Would he have avoided me if she had? I try to ignore the sting of rejection I’ll probably always feel around him and say, “Well, maybe neither of us were ready, but now here we are.” I huff, trying to ignore the burning in my lungs.
He doesn’t respond, so we run in silence for a few seconds.
“Gabe, can we just talk about it?” I finally ask, feeling strengthened by the endorphins pumping through my veins. “Can we just get it all out? Because this isn’t the last time we’re going to bump into each other,” I struggle to say. “It’s a small island.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“There’s everything to talk about!”
“No, Liv, there isn’t. Just leave it alone.”
“Leave it alone? Seriously?” I slow to a stop and drop my hands to my knees, gasping for air as the burning in my calves radiates up my legs. I need closure, dammit.
Gabe keeps running.
“You know, everyone thinks you’ve changed because of your injury,” I shout down the beach. “But the only change I see is that you’ve turned into a jerk!” I yell, feeling overwhelmed with frustration and anger.
He turns around and jogs back toward me, slowing to a stop a few feet in front of me. He puts his hands on his hips and his chest rises and falls as he catches his breath. “Yeah, well, I’ve been called a lot worse than that. But you’ve probably forgotten,” he says, making new cuts in my heart. He knows I did everything I could to protect him from the awful things people said about him after the accident.
My eyes prick with tears, but I blink them back. “I hate you,” I say through clenched teeth, fighting a wave of emotion that’s ready to pour out of me.
“Yeah”—he closes his eyes and opens them again—“that’s what I thought.” He turns around and starts running down the beach again.
“Gabe,” I shout, but he doesn’t stop this time. “I didn’t mean it,” I whisper to myself as he disappears down the beach.
* * *
“Liv, honey, you’re still asleep?” my mom asks, opening the curtains that cover my bedroom window, but I pull the sheet over my face to block the midday sunlight that pours in.
When I got home from my run, I showered and climbed back into bed, but I haven’t been able to sleep.
“You missed breakfast and if you don’t get up soon, you’re going to miss lunch too,” she says, sitting on the bed beside me.
“I don’t care,” I mumble.
She pulls the sheet off my face. “Liv, what’s the matter?”
I blink my puffy eyes a few times until they adjust to the light and I see my mom hovered over me with a concerned look on her face.
“I saw Gabe.”
“Oh.” She nods her head thoughtfully.
“Twice, actually.”
“When?”
“Yesterday at the cemetery. And again this morning.”
“This morning?”
“I got up early and went for a run on the beach. You and Daddy were still asleep.”
“Ah.” She nods and moves the hair out of my face. “Well...it was only a matter of time.”
“I know. I just thought I’d have a few days to adjust first.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Yes. But it was...it wasn’t good. It was weird.”
“Well, honey, that’s probably normal. You have different lives now.”
I don’t need a reminder.
“Why didn’t you tell me he has seizures?” I ask.