He searches my eyes, then nods. “Fair enough.” He wobbles to his feet and grabs the crutches leaning against the house. “C’mon. Let’s go play some Ping-Pong.”
•••
I serve.
Jeremiah hits the Ping-Pong ball back toward me. I bite into my lower lip, working to concentrate. I slap it to him, and he rears back and wallops the ball. I lunge to the right but I miss. The ball rockets off the table and into a corner of the basement.
“Yesssss.” Jeremiah does the Rocky pose. “Another point for me.”
“Goddammit,” I mutter. Jeremiah’s playing Ping-Pong, standing perfectly balanced on one foot, yet he’s still beating me. This is stupid. He’s going to hurt himself worse. I tried to talk him out of playing, but he’s too thickheaded.
I dig the ball out from under a dusty shelf and throw it back to him. He catches it with one hand. He leans his head back and tosses the ball up to serve, and the basement door squeaks open and feet pound down the stairs. Jeremiah rushes to set his paddle down and grab his crutches.
“Don’t mention we were playing!” he whispers to me.
His little sister appears along with a very sophisticated looking girl with long black hair and freckles, wearing diamond studs, short khaki shorts, and a cute tank top. Wow, she’s pretty. Is she here to see him?
“See, I told you,” Jennifer says to the girl.
She raises her eyebrows at me, then turns to Jeremiah. I start to worry that she’s pissed at me for being here with him, but then a sly grin pops on her face when she notices the Ping-Pong ball rolling around on the floor.
“Why are you playing Ping-Pong on that ankle, Jere?” she snaps. “You sit down, right now.”
He swallows hard.
“Jeremiah Brown!” a voice shouts from upstairs. His mother.
“Great,” he mutters. “Why are all the women in my life out to get me?”
“I need you to jump-start Mrs. Englewood’s car!” Mrs. Brown shouts.
“Coming, Ma!” Without another word he crutches up the stairs.
“Hi, I’m Kate,” the beautiful girl says, stepping forward. “I’m Jere’s brother’s fiancée.”
I shake her hand. “Matt’s?”
“Yep. And you are…?”
“I told you! She’s Annie,” Jennifer says with a grin.
“I’m Annie.”
“We didn’t know Jere was dating anybody,” Kate says.
Where would she get that idea? A girl can go to a guy’s house without doing him or whatever. “We’re not dating.”
Kate and Jennifer exchange a significant look.
“Jere used to bring girls home a lot,” Jennifer says. “But not anymore.”
“Oh?” Is he in a girl drought like Kelsey’s in a guy drought? Given how cute he is, I find that hard to believe.
“Jenn,” Kate warns, but it doesn’t do any good because she starts spilling all the juicy info.
“He used to bring girls home all the time, but he wasn’t serious about them. And Mama and Daddy got so tired of it they said if he brought one more girl home that he wasn’t serious about, Mama would stop cooking for him! And that is serious.”
“Okay,” I say slowly.
“But he brought you home!” Jennifer says, bouncing on her toes.
I take a deep breath. This has been an overwhelming day. An overwhelming year.
Kate clucks her tongue at Jennifer. “Your brother’s gonna get you for spilling.”
“Er, he doesn’t have to know. At least I didn’t tell Annie that Mama kicked him out.”
Kate shuts her eyes. “Now you’re in for it.”
“Oops,” Jennifer says sheepishly.
“Your mom kicked him out?” I ask quietly.
“Yeah, because he kept getting hurt at contests and stuff—he went to the hospital three times in one month! He, like, broke his arm mountain biking and didn’t tell anybody it hurt, and the bone grew back wrong and he had to have surgery to make his arm bend the right way again—”
“Jenn—” Kate tries to interrupt, but Jennifer is undeterred.
“And then he nearly lost his eye when he bungee jumped off this bridge and had to get ten stitches.” That explains the thin scar beside his right eye. “Mama said he couldn’t keep coming home and scaring her like that,” Jennifer says. “So he said he won’t do that stuff anymore because he loves me so much and he missed me.”
“How long did she kick him out for?”
“I didn’t see him for like a year!” Jennifer exclaims. “He missed my birthday party at Pizza Hut. And I had a two-tiered raspberry cake!”
My heart begins to speed up. How damaged is he? I touch my throat, swallow hard, and blink the tears away. I’m excited for college, but also dreading it because I won’t see Nick every day anymore. And Jeremiah didn’t see his sister for a whole year?
Kate senses my distress, I guess, because she whispers in my ear, “He used to do extreme sports, and he was hurt a lot, and their mom didn’t want his sisters seeing him injured when there was no reason for it. But Matt’s trying to help him get better.”
Is that why he works with Matt? Is that why he was so quick to jump to Jeremiah’s aid today out on the porch? How bad was it? He went to the hospital three times in one month? He broke his arm and didn’t tell anybody? Crazy.
I’m glad when Kate changes the subject. “So, Annie, how did you meet Jere?”
“Running on the trails. When are you and Matt getting married?”
“We’re planning on next summer.”
“I’m gonna be a bridesmaid!” Jennifer says. “And I get to pick out my own dress. It has to be a certain shade of dark red, but I can pick any style I want.”
“Sounds pretty,” I say. “You’ll look good in that color. Do you have any pictures of styles you like?”
She nods and rockets up the stairs, presumably to get pictures of dresses, and I sigh, grateful for the diversion.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Kate says, pulling me to sit with her on the couch. “Are you in college?”
“I’m starting MTSU in the fall.”
“Do you know what you’re studying?”
“I’m not sure yet actually…Are you in college?” She doesn’t look that much older than me.
“I graduated from Belmont last year. Now I’m working as a graphics designer at a consulting firm, like, designing logos and presentation materials.”
I tell her about how I met Matt and that he’s training me to run a marathon. She’s really easy to talk to and asks lots of nonintrusive questions. She reminds me of her fiancé.
Jennifer clomps back down the steps and sits to my right, drops assorted wedding magazines in my lap, and starts pointing out what she likes.
I tap my fingernail on a cute halter dress. “I think you’d look good in this one, Jenn.”
“I like that one too! By the way, did you know I’m an aunt now? I’m the first person in my class at school to be an aunt.”
“I heard,” I say, smiling. “That’s really cool.”
“Kate, Kate.” Jennifer flips frantically through a magazine. “Show Annie your dress.”
Then a girl a couple years younger than me appears in the basement: another sister, Lacey. After introductions, she squeezes onto the couch with us to look at pictures.
Kate finds her dress in the magazine, and we all oooh and ahhh over it. Jeremiah crutches back down the stairs and discovers us laughing together.
“Jere, is Annie your girlfriend? I sure hope so ’cause if she’s not, Mama’s not gonna feed you anymore,” Jennifer blurts, making Kate and Lacey snigger.
“Munchkin, you’re in big trouble now.” Jeremiah chases her on his crutches, and when he corners her, he lifts her and holds her upside down. She squeals.
And all th
e girls in the room, including me, blurt at the same time, “Get off that ankle right now, Jeremiah!”
•••
After all the church ladies have cleared out to go—yep, you guessed it—back to church, Jeremiah and I sit together at the picnic table in his backyard, playing checkers at twilight. It turns out his mother is a youth pastor and does Sunday night services, but she only makes him attend on Sunday mornings.
“It doesn’t matter how many times a week I go,” he joked, “I could bathe in an ocean of holy water, and I still couldn’t get the sin off me.”
Hearing that made me feel more comfortable around him; church has never been my thing—I don’t believe in heaven or hell or reincarnation. When this life ends, that’s it. Poof. When I was little, dying and being buried underground scared the crap out of me. Riding in the car late at night especially terrified me because the darkness made me think of death. It got to the point where I didn’t want to sleep with the light out and Mom finally made me admit what I was scared of. Then she said, “You can’t remember the world before you were born, right?”
“Right,” I agreed.
“When you’re gone, it’ll be like before you were born. Everything’ll be okay, sweetie.”
That made me feel better—at least to the point I could deal with it without shaking, but whenever I think about how I’ll never see Kyle again, this sick feeling rushes under my skin and I wish I could believe in something bigger, but I’m too much of a realist.
I really should have gone home already, but Jeremiah said, “Stay and play checkers with me. I’ll give you some cherry cobbler.”
I like bribes that involve dessert. I scoop a bite into my mouth and push a checker forward.
“Sorry about all the drama today,” he says, jumping one of my white pieces. “It’s pretty standard in the Brown household.”
“I can’t believe I lost at Ping-Pong to a guy on one foot. I better not lose to you at checkers.”
“I reckon we’ll find out.”
“I hope you’re not one of those guys who lets a girl win to make her feel good.”
A smile flashes on his face as he spoons cobbler in his mouth. “Never.”
I jump over his black checker and he retaliates by jumping three of mine in one turn. I lay my head down on the picnic table. “Damn.”
He laughs. “I wish we’d bet on our game now. I could make bank playing you.”
“If we were bowling, I’d totally be beating your ass.”
He smirks. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
We play the game in a nice silence. Crickets chirp. Warm wind rustles the green trees. It baffles me that we’re doing this all backwards: we nearly had sex last month and I’ve already met his family—his dad grinned at me and firmly shook my hand—but I still know next to nothing about him except that he’s addicted to extreme sports. Where does he go to school? What’s his favorite book? Favorite movie? And most importantly, do I even want to know these things? I’m not sure. Things must’ve been pretty bad for his mother to kick him out of the house and his little sister not to see him for an entire year, and like I said, I need white bread, not hot sauce.
But did he feel lost like I do? I haven’t seen Kyle in eight months and it’s like looking into a black hole.
“Your sister told me your mom asked you to move out,” I say.
He nods. “When you were in the bathroom, Kate told me what Jennifer told you. I don’t mind that you know…I mean, my brother told me what’s going on with you.”
I guess it’s only fair. “I don’t mind that you know about me either.”
Our eyes meet for a moment. I briefly wonder what he’s thinking, but then I find out. He jumps me twice, ending the game. He pumps his fist, gives me a wicked smile, and I let out a low groan.
“I should be getting home,” I say, sliding out from the picnic table.
“Stay.” Again, his wicked smile. “Want to play some hide and seek?”
I laugh. “I have to run tomorrow morning ’cause I’m working the night shift.”
“Trying to beat the heat by going early?”
“You got it.”
“Well,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “Maybe I’ll call you sometime?”
“For real this time?” I say with a laugh.
“For real.”
When I drive away from his house with a plate of leftovers Kate wrapped up for me, he waves good-bye with one of his crutches. It’s like a robot arm.
I plan out tomorrow’s running schedule and meals in my head on my way home. I think about which of my running clothes are clean and which are dirty. I have one sports bra that fits really well and one pair of underwear that never ride up. I hope they’re both clean, because I’m running five miles in the morning. My goal is to finish in less than an hour.
But soon I’m out of running-related stuff to obsess about. So I think of Jeremiah. Will he call this time? Do I want him to? At a stoplight, I look over at the empty passenger seat. When it was my turn to drive, Kyle would massage my thigh, kiss my neck at stop signs, and suffer listening to the country music station, just because he knew I loved it.
Spending time with Jeremiah was good—great even, but the risk of caring is too high.
A friend. He can be a friend, but nothing more.
When I pull into my driveway at home, I check my cell and get my answer about whether he’d call. He texted: You really think you can beat me at bowling? Name time and place.
Marathon Training Schedule~Brown’s Race Co.
Name Annie Winters
Saturday
Distance
Notes
April 20
3 miles
I’m really doing this! Finish time 34:00
April 27
5 miles
Stupid Running Backwords Boy!!
May 4
6 miles
Blister from HELL
May 11
5 miles
Ran downtown Nashville
May 18
7 miles
Tripped on rock. Fell on my butt
May 25
8 miles
Came in 5 min. quicker than usual!
June 1
10 miles
Let’s just pretend this day never happened…
June 8
9 miles
Evil suicide sprint things. Ran w/ Liza. Got sick.
June 15
7 miles
Skipped Saturday’s run…had to make it up Sunday.
June 22
8 miles
Stomach hurt again. Matt said eat granola instead of oatmeal.
June 29
9 miles
Matt says it’s time for new tennis shoes.
July 6
10 miles
Jere got hurt.
July 13
12 miles
Finished in 2:14! Only had to use bathroom once
July 20
13 miles
July 27
/> 15 miles
August 3
14 miles
August 10
11 miles
August 17
16 miles
August 24
20 miles
August 31
14 miles
September 7
22 miles
September 14
20 miles
September 21
The Bluegrass Half Marathon
September 28
12 miles
October 5
10 miles
October 12
Country Music Marathon in Nashville
IT’S ON
I knew I was in trouble when he brought his own bowling ball.
Who has their own bowling ball?!
Until tonight, I hadn’t seen Jeremiah in a week and a half. Against my advice, he ran on his injured ankle and managed to come in sixth place overall, which is just crazy, and based on how he’s bowling now, you’d never know he had a sprained ankle. He’s beating me 138 to 72. I guess he and Matt somehow knew it would be okay for him to run.
I step up to the lane and eye the pins. I bring the ball to my chest, step forward to roll, and Jere blurts, “Focus, Annie!”
The ball veers sharply to the right. Gutter ball.