Page 106 of Run
Sophie twists her hair up and fastens it with a clip. “You’re going to love it. And you’re going to be great at it.”
Now that I can walk again, I let Sophie talk me into trying my hand at substitute teaching. Since all you need is a college degree and a clean background check to be a sub, I am more than qualified. However, I’m a little nervous about being back in a school environment. Lord knows I didn’t thrive there.
“So, have you seen Ethan much this week?” Sophie leans forward to pick up her soda from the table in front of us.
I instantly smile just thinking about him. Ethan and I have fallen into a little habit of spending our weekends together. Since I have my work-from-home gig during the day, as well as PT and occasional therapy sessions, and he works into the night designing and sending the newspaper to press, we don’t see each other much during the week.
When I do stay over at his place, I’m getting used to his restless nights, which I can’t figure out. I know a lot of veterans have nightmares, but that’s usually from experiences in active duty, which Ethan never had. Last weekend I had to wake him up to get him to snap out of it, and when he did, he wrapped himself around me and wouldn’t let go.
But we also bicker. He wants to dote on me hand and foot and I’m just not used to it. I don’t want him cooking me dinner, drawing me a bath, or washing my clothes. In fact, I want to do that for him and I’m at the point that I can do all those things now. DeShawn has amped up my training sessions, and Ethan doesn’t know it, yet, but I’ve been walking around on my own all week. I even went up the stairs the other day. DeShawn says I’m on my way to being able to drive again, which will be such a relief.
Ethan wanted to drive me to PT today, but I told him I already asked Sophie to take me and that we were having lunch beforehand.
It wasn’t a complete lie; I do have plans with Sophie today, but she isn’t taking me to therapy.
“So, uh, I guess we better get going?” Soph says from beside me, pulling me from my thoughts.
I nod, reaching for my sweatshirt. “Let’s go.”
***
“So, as usual, I just want to go on the record and say I think this is a bad idea and I wish you would stop coming here and forget about this wretched place altogether,” Sophie says from the driver’s seat as her car tires chew up the broken gravel in the dilapidated driveway.
“Noted,” I give my usual response.
I keep waiting for this place to feel smaller somehow. For the big picture window on the side of the house to have curtains covering it, for the old car parts to be removed from the driveway and front yard, or for my bike to be moved from the spot where it’s lain on its side since I left. But that never happens.
“I’m setting the timer.” Sophie refuses to come inside, but also hates that I go in by myself. So, she gives me fifteen minutes to go in and make my peace, and says if I’m not out by the time the alarm goes off, she’ll call the police. She hates aiding and abetting me in this endeavor at all, but I manipulated her into driving me here.
It started a few months after the accident. I didn’t want him to know I couldn’t walk, so those first few trips we just drove by. But since I started walking, they’ve become visits.
And Sophie is the only one who knows. She’s the only one I could trust to help me and to keep it a secret—because she’s as broken as I am.
I close the car door behind me and walk across the driveway, feeling my shoes teeter on big pebbles of gravel under my feet. I slowly ascend the crooked steps, and when I get to the top, I don’t knock. I walk in with my head down and hear the door slowly swing closed and click shut behind me before lifting my head.
I see him sitting there on the faded, torn couch, elbows resting on his knees, work boots unlaced over dark shop pants, and his filthy hands clasped. His greasy hair is thinning but still a littletoo long, and falls in his face—only partly shielding his dark, cold eyes.
Eyes that bore into mine as he speaks. “You’re late, girl.”
I swallow. “Hello, Axel.”
Here’s the thing … My relationship with Axel is totally fucked. I know this.
I had many therapy sessions when I first moved in with the Millers, way before the accident, where we evaluated my perception of parent-child relationships—from nature versus nurture, to assumed and reversed roles, to manipulation and abuse, and the convoluted idea I have of maternal and paternal love equating to loyalty.
You name it, I’ve discussed it with someone ad nauseam.
Nothing “cured” me.
Hence, me standing in my childhood home staring at the monster who tormented and broke me.
But he’s also the man who raised me. Who kept a roof over my head and food in my stomach. He may have shown his affection the wrong way—with his fists and his belt—but at least I had someone who was pissed that I left him wondering where I was if I was late to make dinner. Lena never gave a shit. Sure, she may have been kinder to me, but she could go four days without laying eyes on me and not one shit did she give.
Axel gave a shit.
“Why are you late?” His gravelly voice breaks the silence as I look around the dingy house.
In a small voice, I answer. “I told you, I’m not always sure when I can make it here.” I take a breath and slowly move toward the kitchen where I see dishes piled in the sink. “Where’s Lena?”
