“I know. I’m so dumb. But I need to get my run in today. I have a study group and a couple of final exams. I’ll be gone until late.”
“Today I hate your schedule.” His arms tighten around me as he speaks as if he’s trying to hold me in place. I love the closeness of him and his need to be near me. It’s almost impossible to leave the bed right now. “Lay with me for just a few more minutes,” he requests, and I can’t possibly deny him.
“Okay, but just until you fall back to sleep.” My fingers run through his hair and down his cheek, comforting and calming him and within a couple of minutes I feel his breathing slow and I watch his eyelids grow heavy.
I slip out of the bed, grabbing my running shorts and a sports bra; I change in the bathroom before heading out to the kitchen.
Sie is sitting at the table drinking coffee and scrolling through her phone. Sometimes it’s a wonder how we became such close friends given the fact that she actually enjoys getting up early. She’s always said she likes the peacefulness of the college town when everyone else is in bed. I’m about to find out if that’s true.
I lean over and peck the top of her head before I flop down in the chair next to her as I put on my running shoes.
“You’re up early,” she says, wrinkling up her forehead and laughing a little.
“Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of shit going on today and I want to get my run in before I’m exhausted by the day.”
“Yeah, these next few weeks of finals are going to suck, but then four weeks off. Are you going home?” Sienna asks and her words almost instantly make my chest tighten.
She, Caleb and Reid don’t have anyone or any place to go home to. This is it. Our little house is now their permanent home. It will don Christmas lights and a tree soon. It will host a Christmas dinner and presents will be opened, but missing from it will be everyone but the three of them.
“I was planning on it, and I was thinking maybe you guys could come with me. My mom would lose her shit with excitement, you know that.” I roll my eyes, thinking about how much my parents both adore Sienna and will probably be super pissed if they found out I left her here to celebrate a holiday without a big extended family.
“Yeah, that would be really cool. I’ve never been up north to Lake Tahoe and I’m sure it will do us all some good to get away and have a meal cooked by your awesome mom,” Sienna jokes, smiling at me. And even though she’s being playful and silly about it all, I can tell it’s taken a small weight off her.
It will be Reid’s first holiday without his family and while they were never really close, it can still stir up memories or remind you of loss.
“Fill Reid and Caleb in when they get up and we’ll all head up to Tahoe in a few weeks. Maybe even do a little skiing.”
Sienna chimes in with an agreement as I slip out the back door and into the alleyway. The sun is just starting to rise and the streetlights glow dimly in the darkened space. I glance down the alleyway before I begin running, a car idles quietly; its headlights off.
Something about it sparks as unusual, but I brush it off. I’m never up this early and for all I know that car is there every single day. We share the alley with a bunch of houses and given it’s a college town, people are constantly being picked up by friends and whatever.
But as I turn my back on it and begin to run, the car creeps closer, never speeding up, yet oddly rolling slowly behind me.
I move to the side to let the car pass, but it doesn’t, and suddenly my heartbeat kicks up a few notches, panic taking over.
What if this has something to do with Reid’s dad and Caleb and everything that happened? But why would they be following me? I shake my head, clearing my thoughts and reminding myself to stop listening to crime show podcasts. It’s a fucking car in an alley. It’s not a dead body.
I pick up speed and reach the end of the alley, taking the corner a little faster than normal and I stumble a little. Catching myself, I look back over my shoulder and see the car now sitting at the exit to the street.
It’s a silver Audi sedan with tinted windows and the weirdo in me turns around and jogs back toward it, wanting to get a good look at the driver and knowing I can only do that through the front window.
I’m within a few feet of the car, my stride picking up so I can run in front of it but not look obvious, when the tires begin to spin and the car lurches out in front of me. I jump back, narrowly missing getting hit by it.
“Asshole!” I yell out, tossing a middle finger in the air and committing the car to memory. I’m sure it was nothing, just someone either lost or late for work who clearly didn’t give a fuck that I was about to jog in front of their car. Never mind the striped crosswalk lines that grace where the street and alleyway meet. Guess that dick doesn’t realize pedestrians have the right of way in California.
I finish up my run, the incident with the silver car still weighing heavy on my mind when I jog up the front steps to the house. Reid is on the porch drinking a cup of coffee and I stop for a second to say hi, but then instead of just greeting him, I sit down on the chair next to him. My heart is still pounding and my breathing is labored, and for a few seconds I just sit, wondering if I should tell him what happened.
This could have something to do with Caleb, Sie and him and what happened in Rhode Island. It wasn’t all that long ago, only a month or so and just because there wasn’t a trial doesn’t mean there aren’t still a ton of moving pieces in the case.
“How was your run?” Reid asks as I stupidly sit here in silence.
“It was okay,” I reply, despite knowing it really wasn’t. I’m all worked up over this and it was all I thought about during my run.
“Sienna left for class already. Wanted to get there early to study. She claims studying in the room where you actually take the exam is known to improve your score.” The way he says this makes it sound like he doesn’t believe it for a second, letting out a breathy laugh. He’s trying to make conversation because I’ve made things awkward by sitting down and not saying a damn thing.
“Caleb still sleeping?” I ask as I look back at the house.
“No, he woke up and went to the gym. I told him I’d go with him if he gave me some time, but he said he wanted to get moving early today.” Reid pauses a second, looking over at me. “He’s doing really well, Ruby and it’s because of you.”
“Yeah, he is doing well, but I’m not sure it’s entirely my influence. He’s still struggling, obviously, look at the party, but he’s working through things.”
I stop again, tugging my hair free from the hair tie that’s holding it up as I think about how I want to tell Reid about what happened on my run. There’s a weird charge that’s passing between us, almost like he has something more to say and so do I, something neither of us wants to admit.
The silence lingers between each of our sentences, hanging heavy in the air even though the substance isn’t anything of serious value.
I bite the bullet, my heart beating a little faster and it’s not because of the run as I now decide to just tell Reid what happened and get his thoughts on it.
“This morning while I was running, I was almost run over by a car in the alleyway.”