Page 56 of Walk With Me
“Morning, love.”
“Mmm.”
“Coffee?”
“Water.”
I’m not very talkative in the morning as is. At this hour, my brain is still upstairs asleep in my bed.
“Eden, what…what are you wearing?”
Slapping my cheeks several times, I down my glass of water and turn to my dad. “Nothing we ever need to discuss. Forget you saw me. Now I have to go and listen to Sarah Millican. Have a good day.”
His chuckles follow me out of the house. I was right. It is cold. Putting in my earbuds, I try to switch mindsets. I’ll never reach 5k if I keep being my own worst enemy.
Completing the challenge is turning into a personal thing. Let’s be honest: I agreed to the whole thing because Sloane wanted me to do it, and I wanted to spend time with her. But now I’ve done a couple of sessions, I’m serious about completing all ten weeks for myself.
Sarah Millican’s voice isn’t melodic. It’s a little high-pitched, which is great because I’m thirty seconds away from falling asleep. She tells me to walk at a pace that will get my heart pumping. It’s only five minutes, which I’m happy to report I can now do without feeling like I’m gonna collapse.
I’ve already mapped out a rough route. It’s not 5k, and I won’t get to that point for a few weeks. My legs areburning by the time Sarah tells me to slow down and take a drink of water. I didn’t bring any. Bugger.
With the brief rest over with, Ms Millican tells me I’m going to do my first long bout of jogging. She even tells me how to do it, which I appreciate. Apparently, I shouldn’t bob up and down as I run. She says if someone were to see me on the other side of a hedge, they shouldn’t be able to tell I’m jogging.
With that firmly in mind, I wait for her to finish the countdown. I have one full minute of jogging for each interval. Yesterday it was only thirty seconds. The music playing is techno, and I’m not happy with it. I need to see if I can use my own tunes.
At the halfway mark I’m breathing hard, but I’m not struggling as much as I thought I would be. The sun is higher now, and the worry that I might get jumped lessens significantly. However, with the daylight comes people. Notably, my neighbour who lives a few houses down. Karen Miltz and her four-year-old cockapoo. She spots me and I see her eyebrows raise. We have a few seconds of awkward eye contact. I’m breathing too hard to talk, so I give her a quick smile and carry on.
With one last jog to go, I focus my energy on the scrambled eggs and coffee I’m going to shove down mythroat as soon as I’m home. Every muscle in my body hurts. Several I didn’t even know I had are piping up too.
The irritating music finishes just as I reach my front porch. I won’t deny I crawl up the steps and collapse for a few seconds. I just have to get my breath back.
When I can hold my own bodyweight up again, I fall through the door and stumble to the kitchen. Mum is sitting where Dad was, wearing the same shocked face.
“Morning, love.”
“Mmm.” This time, it’s my need for water that has me rendered mute. My mouth is that gross, tacky kind of dry. Where your saliva is more solid than liquid.
The litre of H2O barely touches the side, as I feel my organs sigh in relief. I need to buy a water bottle for my next session. Thankfully, I get tomorrow off for recovery. I’m thinking about an evening of Netflix after a long bubble bath. I’ve still got today to get through first.
“Are you alright, Eden?” Mum laughs.
“I…I…did…it!”
“Jesus, Eden, you look like you’re about to die!” Jenna says as she sweeps in on a cloud of damned souls. “Why are you so sweaty?”
“Jogging,” I gasp. God, am I like allergic to this shit? How can I feel worse than I did when I got back?
“Sloane has got you so whipped.” She laughs.
16
Sloane
The feel-up session with Eden seems like a lifetime ago. Becca was indeed in my room bawling when I got home. She was almost inconsolable. I thought for a second someone had died.
No one was dead, but Becca confirmed my suspicions regarding her and Bella. They’d been hooking up since the party. Becca wasn’t having a gay crisis or anything, in fact she’d already come out to her mum as bisexual. Admittedly, I had a minute of irritation that she hadn’t come to me, but at the end of the day she didn’t and doesn’t owe me her coming out.
Anyway. Her tears were because Bella received an early acceptance to MIT. Becca and Bella will be thousands of miles apart next September. It took several hours of ice cream, Doritos, and a box of tissues before she finally calmed down.
