Wrong Quarterback | ✓

36 | of best friends and boyfriends

But that was a week ago and the more days that pass since she got back to Acebridge, the harder it is to escape the jumble of her mind. The harder it is to escape everything that happened before she left. No matter how hard she tries to outrun it, it's beginning to catch up to her. Still, as she passes the row of Bed & Breakfasts lining the end of the boardwalk, she quickens her step. Darting off it, her feet sink into the sand as she runs along the shoreline.

Silence – or plain stillness – seems her foe. The moments of silence provide nothing but a chance to stare at nothing in particular while her mind runs wild. They provide nothing but the outcome of a tension lingering within her, hovering above her.

Her days are long, yet they all seem to melt into a blur. She does her school work. She spends time at her friends' houses. Nic or Callie's houses preferably. They give her space, while everyone else always want to make sure she's doing okay. Most, she spends time with her mother – be it playing a game of cards or folding laundry together. And then, she runs.

There's something satisfying about running in the January weather. In some ways she likes how the cold tears at her, how the hard wind chills her to the bones even through her layered clothing. How it strains at her airways, adding a bite to her flushed cheeks.

Setting off up the beach trail, she takes the uphill slope in smaller but quicker steps before shortening them further, careful as not to tumble as her path becomes narrower. The bare branches surrounding her whip in the wind as she forces herself to become mindful of where she places her feet. Sidestepping roots as her eyes gaze out at the dark blue below, eyes tracing the far-away edge of the sea as warmth seeps into her skin from within to fight off the cold.

Sometimes Ethan runs with her. Keeping up with her changes of pace and quick turns.

She's not completely clueless. She's aware it's less of a wish to spend time outside on his part and more of a want to make sure she's okay. To make sure she doesn't strain herself too hard. It's all written in his flickering sideways glances, in the way he purposefully slows or shortens their routes. And she tries. She's trying. She is. But it's easier not to have to think about it – to let the denial wrap thick and heavy around her mind. So while he slows their routes, she kicks up speed. She doesn't mean to. She just needs to run.

Taking a left off the trail, the neighborhoods replace one another as she dashes through them. The warmth flushing her from within melts together with the cold sharply prickling her skin as her chest positively aches, a cry caught in her throat as she pushes into a sprint.

Spending time with Robert had, for the most part, felt like encountering a stranger. Through their dinners, while strolling about town together and even before that – during their phone calls. Over the past decade, they have shared no milestones.

Beyond their phone calls, beyond the facts, they don't know each other. It's a hard truth; but it's the truth. Still, it has never stopped her from wanting him to be her father. It has never put a stop to her wishful thinking. It hurts. She doesn't want it to hurt, but it does.

She suppresses the ache in her every muscle as she passes Nic's house, quickening her step without thought. Turning the corner, her house comes into view and her breathing grows shallow as she conquers the slight hill. She doesn't let her legs – or herself – give in until she's crossed the sidewalk, toppling onto the frost layered grass of her lawn.

Kicking her legs and arms out long, her heart drums in her chest. She glances up at the blue above, one of her palms coming to her side to soothe the hint of pain beneath her ribs, her now heavy breaths escaping her lips in misty clouds.

♡♡♡

'Luke'

Want to go for a walk?