Runner Girl

Chapter Fourteen

I wait for my phone to ring, for any of the cheer team to call and check on me and make sure I didn't die of embarrassment or something, but nobody gets in touch, and I try to focus on homework over the weekend instead, even though I'm alternately mortified and furious that none of my so-called friends cares enough to call.

On Sunday, somebody knocks on my bedroom door, and I try not to sound too eager as I say, "Come in."

My dad opens the door a crack. "I wanted to talk to with you. Can I come in?"

"It's your house," I tell him, trying to act like I don't care.

He slides in the door and leaves it open, staring around my room for a moment. He looks like he's never seen it, but I haven't really bothered to decorate or change much of anything, so the room still looks a lot like it did when I moved in. Except for the pile of clothes on the floor, and the fact that I hid that stupid photo.

I watch him for a moment, and the longer I stare, the more I realize that I'm searching his face for signs that we have anything in common. Genetically, sure, I know I share a lot with him, but I haven't really bothered looking at him to see if I can actually see it. The set of his jaw reminds me of the way I look before a race, and there's something about the shape of his ears that vaguely reminds me of mine, but other than the eyes, those are the only pieces of me I see in his face. I wonder if I look like my mom, I think, the thought rising unbidden. I didn't really make a careful study of the picture, since I've done my best not to think about her even before I came here, but now that my dad has pushed back into my life, I realize that she's the piece of the puzzle that's missing. Would she like me, I wonder, or would she be just as cold as Dad?

Jerking my mind away from those dangerous thoughts, I turn back to my desk, waiting for him to say something. Springs creak, and I realize he's sat down on the edge of my bed. After we sit in silence for a few more seconds, I finally swivel around and raise one eyebrow at him. "What?"

"When did the doctor say you'll be up and around again?"

I roll my eyes. "If you haven't noticed, I've been up and around plenty since I fell."

He makes an impatient sound. "When will you be able to get back to running?"

"Another month, maybe." My fingers twitch; I've been so tightly wound since the dance, all I want to do is put on my shoes and pound the pavement, but I don't want him to know that. "If I decide to go back to it, that is," I say, lying and watching his face.

He narrows his eyes. "You won't turn down the sponsorship. It's a valuable opportunity."

I snort. "Valuable for you. I don't care if I make you look bad; you shouldn't have agreed to something like that without asking me."

He glares at me, but I glare back, and for a moment, we just sit there at a stalemate. He looks away first, and I repress the flicker of triumph that fills my chest at such a stupid victory. "I'm thinking of you," he says finally, not meeting my eye, and I resist the urge to snort again.

"Whatever. In the end, it's my decision, right?"

He nods after a second, and I'm surprised. I was expecting him to sit there and argue with me, to tell me he's going to force me to do it, no matter what. I wasn't expecting him to act...almost human. Before I can react, he stands up. "Your Mom loved to run," he says, actually looking at me again. "It was in her blood. She wouldn't stop, even when she was pregnant, and the doctor's told her it was okay." He pauses, his eyes skimming the room, and I wonder if he's searching for the photo. "You get it from her."

With that, he leaves, closing my door before I can even process the bombshell he's just dropped in my lap. When I'm sure he's not hovering outside waiting to pounce, I tear across the room and pull open the dresser drawer, taking out the picture and studying it with intensity. Mom ran? I thought, looking at her delicate, feminine face. In the picture, she looks like the perfect stereotypical woman, complete with a rapturous expression as she stares up at me and my dad. I trace her form through the glass, wondering about her. Am I a runner because of her? I close my eyes, willing myself to try to remember what it felt like to bounce along inside her womb while she jogged her way through pregnancy, but the earliest memory I have has nothing to do with either of my parents; it's the morning when Miles walked me and Cal to the preschool in the church basement up the road from our house and dropped us off. No matter how I try, I can't remember anything from any earlier in my life, and I glance at the picture again. They kept me for at least a year, I realize, staring at my baby face. What would it have been like to actually grow up here?