Run

Chapter 1

"Coming down the backstretch is Usain Bolt! He's pulling away from his competition now and there's the smile and celebration we've become so accustomed to! How does he do it? Pulling up with 10 meters left and looking at the crowd, he's simply on a different level."

Someone nudged Kevin on the shoulder. He grumbled, annoyed at being disturbed during his millionth rewatch of Usain Bolt's record-breaking race. No matter how much he watched it, he needed absolute quiet until the very end or the manifestation his father had taught him wouldn't work.

"Sorry to bother, but your mother is now available in the visitation room." A woman wearing a nurse outfit whispered.

"Thank you," Kevin responded, his prior annoyance giving away to anticipation. Not the good kind that came before a race, but the kind that came before seeing your mother for the first time since checking her into rehab against her will. Her last words to him were 'If you do this, I'll never forgive you'. 

Those words had haunted him since.

He followed the nurse as a knot built in his stomach, wondering if his mother was still feeling particularly vengeful and hateful. She led him to a back room surrounded by bare white walls. In fact, the whole damn building hosted bare, tasteless white walls that give an eerie feel one would expect from a horror movie or perhaps a haunted house. 

Kevin pushed the thoughts of death and ghosts to the back of his mind as the nurse opened the door and made way for him to enter. He complied with a muttered thank you at the nurse.

The room had only two pieces of furniture in it which consisted of two couches facing each other. His mother sat at one end, slightly hunched over. A TV was hung at the far end but she paid no attention to it, simply staring off into space. Kevin let loose a final sigh before joining her on the opposite couch.

"Hey," he said warily.

His mother took a second to register she had been spoken to, eventually looking up at him with the cloudy irises of someone clearly heavily medicated. This wasn't her first rodeo so Kevin wasn't surprised that she had been sedated. He always marveled at the medical practitioner's solution for addicts diagnosed with bipolar disorder being treated with more drugs when that was the problem in the first place. It was like adding water to a flood in his opinion but he didn't have medicinal degrees so who was he to criticize them.

Finally, his mother's dark brown eyes flashed with a moment of awareness. "Hey, dear." She said slowly. "How are you?"

Kevin's tense shoulders unwinded in relief. She was in a good mood, or rather, high enough that her anger had dissipated for now. "I'm fine, Mom. How about you, they treating you alright?"

She smiled in response, some newfound wrinkles appearing on her face. She was in her early forties and two years ago she could've passed for someone in their mid-twenties but recently her age was starting to show, thanks to her new habits. "Look around," she replied, waving her hand at the meek surroundings of the enclosed room, "I'm in paradise. Away from society and injected with enough drugs to give an elephant pause. This is how it must be, right?"

Kevin pinched his nose. "Mom..."

She held up a hand for him to stop. "I'm not complaining or blaming you. I wasn't being sarcastic, it's ok. I'm plenty aware of the hurt I must have caused you and frankly, for the moment, I'm enjoying the quiet."

Kevin digested her words suspiciously. It wasn't like her. 

"Did they skip the group activities and go straight to the brainwashing?"

His mother laughed, a croaking sound that sounded partly painful. "There's that humor I missed so much."

He smiled along with her but couldn't bring himself to laugh. Being in an all white room with your laces taken and any sharp objects like keys because your mother showed suicidal tendencies tends to do that to a person. 

"Ah, how's your track training going?" His mother asked after her laughter died down.

"It's definitely going. I ran a personal best last week. I'm just trying not to get my hopes too high before the first track meet so that a repeat of last year doesn't happen."

His mother gave him a dismissive wave. "Nonsense! There's no sense in expecting the worst, only preventing it. And in my limited knowledge of track, training is the only preventive measure against injuries, so anything beyond that is out of your control. So stop thinking about last year, this is a new year and you've been given the blessing of being underlooked."

She wasn't the most optimistic person ever, so Kevin knew she meant every word. He hugged her and she hugged him back as tight as her frail hands could. 

They didn't start tearing up and telling one another how much they loved the other and how much they needed them, it simply wasn't their way. Instead, they embraced quietly, soaking up each other's warmth and scars, offering what little spirit they had to give to help in their battles.

Eventually, the nurse came back informing us that visitor hours were about to end.

"Well get out of here then," my mother chimed, "this place reeks of sickness and sadness, I'm sure you have better places to be."

Kevin smirked. "You sure? I was planning to sleep over, I heard the drug palate here was world-class." 

"If it's drugs you're after go down to 112th street and tell Bobby I sent you. He'll cook you up something real special. Can't promise you won't end up in the madhouse with me though."

They laughed together and for a moment, everything was right in their worlds.

__________________________________________________________________

For Kevin, that happy feeling was as fleeting as it was on the track. The walk out of the building reminded him where he was, where his mother temporarily resided and suddenly, there was nothing to laugh about anymore.

He got into his modest 2019 Honda that his father used to joke he was probably faster than. Regardless, after slaving away for an entire summer to pay for it with some help from his mother, it was one of his most prized possessions.

Kevin had made sure he didn't check his mother into a rehab center too far away as he had learned his lesson from last time, so he got home in 10 minutes flat. The house was as modest as his car was, a medium-sized home in the suburbs not too far from his school. 

Kevin wasn't in the habit of being ungrateful but as he opened the door to creaks against empty walls with not even rehab ghosts there to greet him, he couldn't help thinking it didn't feel much like a home at the moment. Kevin pushed his feelings of loneliness down into the deepest depths of his subconscious and busied himself with preparing a pack of spicy ramen noodles.

He usually ate healthy, with the whole being an athlete and stuff but a little ramen on the side surely couldn't hurt. He turned on the TV to a Tom and Jerry rerun and settled down as comfortably as he could while putting ice packs on his propped-up knees.

Between laughing at Tom and Jerry's ridiculous antics, Kevin couldn't help but let his mind wander off eagerly to the events planned for tomorrow. After school, there was a bit of a track and field team showcase planned to build up hype for the fast approaching track season among the students.

For Kevin, it was a chance to prove to himself that he could perform under pressure. His high school, Eastwood High, took their sports seriously so a big crowd was bound to materialize. There was no sense of nervousness as he visualized blazing the track and the cheers of the crowd, only a calm confidence.

He looked over at a picture that rested on the table, showing a younger Kevin, his mother and a man with his arm draped around them both with a smile that seemed larger than life. Kevin was almost the spitting image of him, from his russel skin tone to his hard-set eyes, the two could've passed for an older and younger brother.

"I'm going to make you proud, Dad."