Starting Position

Chapter 11

I nodded and forced a smile, once again returning to my book. Nevertheless, I couldn't focus and kept reading the same line over again. My heart started to race, lungs empty. I could feel my father's eyes scanning me like lasers.

"Well, I'm gonna head out to the garage, see if I can find some more tools."

"Okay, Dad," I said, my eyes still staring at the page full of text as if it were blank.

As soon as he lifted off from the couch and removed himself from the living room, I snapped my book, and my eyes, shut.

***

It turned out Cambrie had an, in her words, exciting and steamy evening with the mystery man. Asher Modine was a six-foot-tall, densely built man with roping muscles, tanned skin, and pearly-white smile, and according to Cambrie, hands that nearly melted her panties off. They had flirted, danced, flirted some more, and then had a sizzling make-out session on the patio.

"In late-January?" I had asked, and while Cambrie's initial reaction was to roll her eyes, her face took on a look of guilt soon after.

"Yes, and all the while, you were running away alone."

I had laughed at her disposition, flattered at some level with her concern. Not that I was surprised; it was in Cambrie's nature to care, and I was grateful to have her.

When I asked if she was going to see him again, she simply shrugged, shot me a covert smile, and said, "We'll see."

It was now Tuesday and, I noted, week sixteen. I was on my way back to campus after having spent a few hours at the pet store before track practice. After changing quickly in the locker room, I entered onto the field, and felt small droplets of water fall periodically onto my skin. The sky was completely overcast, and threatening clouds were morphing together, creating one solid mass.

Soon after addressing the collective team and glancing towards the darkening sky, Nelson and Rodriguez explained we would spend the day conditioning and pointed us in the direction of the athletic complex. Having been a community college participating at the junior level, the campus housed a decent athletic complex. While some colleges boasted full indoor track arenas, ours did not, but the weight room was nothing to be rivaled. It was a large space with two levels. The ground floor had a full gym, complete with free weights and any machine imaginable. The second floor had one track to run and a plethora of medicine balls and yoga mats.

I had spent the first half of the practice downstairs completing repetitions on some of the equipment. Exhausted after forty-five minutes of non-stop exercise, I headed up the stairs to the second floor and perched myself on a yoga mat to stretch. Before I could begin, however, I noticed a familiar face on a yoga mat of their own, practicing an even more familiar sequence of movements.

Ben was positioned on his mat about fifteen feet away uncoordinatedly moving through a series of motions that made me remember a recent memory: me showing him the starting position. He was practicing the movements, and it took me a while to realize I had been staring. I noticed he completed one segment incorrectly.

I should have left it alone. It wasn't my responsibility to help him. He may not even want my assistance or input. But, the memory of last weekend popped into my head like an annoying calendar reminder, and, even though alarms were firing off in my brain, I decided to suck down a breath and make my way over to his mat.

"Um, hi, Ben," I said sheepishly.

Ben was in a shallow lunging position with his arms at his sides. His head immediately snapped towards me and body lengthened.