Penny looked down at her feet and tried to focus on the rhythm of her footfalls, rather than the burning sensation in her thighs. It might have been a mistake, this plan. Going for a run. What was she thinking? She'd allowed her fitness club membership to lapse months ago when she could no longer afford the dues, and she hadn't exactly been a gym rat before then. What had made her think she'd be able to keep up on a run this morning with David?
She snuck a glance at his face, and he met her eyes with the slightest trace of a smirk. He hadn't even broken a sweat yet. Could he tell how she was suffering? Probably. He was probably enjoying it, too. No doubt he was just waiting for her to stop and catch her breath so he could laugh at her. After all, the whole thing had been her idea. It had seemed like such a good plan this morning, when she'd first woken up beside him.
She'd never been much of an early riser, but this morning she'd awakened hours before the alarm. She'd tried to close her eyes again, but she knew it was no use. Not with the way her heart thrummed with giddy happiness the moment she remembered where she was. And who she was with. And the weekend she'd just spent with him.
It had been a bit rocky that first night, but they'd worked it out. She'd come clean to him about everything - or almost everything. There are still a few wrinkles to iron out, but she's told him the worst of it, and he still wanted her. No, scratch that. He still needed her. She couldn't suppress the automatic smile that popped onto her face as she remembered that muddled, middle-of-the-night speech he'd made.
"I need you," he had said. That had been the gist of it at any rate, and the rest of the words hadn't mattered. The look on his face when he said it had told her everything she needed to know. She recognized that look. Not David, the Wall Street power broker, with his fancy suits and his rules and his rigid routines. This was David, the scared little boy, afraid of the monsters under his bed. She'd seen that look on his face before - a few times, as a matter of fact. And in that moment, she'd suddenly realized that she was the only woman alive that he'd ever allowed to see it.
"I need you," he had told her, and she knew that it was true.
They'd both made a mess of things these past few months, but she'd woken up this morning full of energy and plans to get them back on track. She just needed to make a few arrangements. She'd slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb him, and grabbed his Blackberry off the bedside table as she went.
It was a full two hours later before he'd finally emerged into the living room, dressed in his running clothes.
"Finally!" she'd said. "You slept forever."
"My alarm didn't go off. Have you seen my phone?"
"I borrowed it." She'd held up the Blackberry up for him to see, smiling at him sunnily. "You were sleeping."
"Well, that would explain why my alarm didn't go off."
"No, it went off." She tapped the phone with the back of her fingernail and then slipped it back into her pocket. "About twenty minutes ago."
"You didn't think I might want to, say, wake up at that point?"
She'd shrugged, biting the inside of her lip to keep a straight face. "You looked a little haggard last night. I thought you should sleep in."
"Penny, it's a Monday. I have a job. I can't just-"
"So obsessed with punctuality." She'd clicked her tongue in disapproval. "You should really work on that, David."
He'd rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to say more, but he seemed to think better of it. "OK," he muttered calmly. "No big deal. I can just cut my run a little short today, and..." He'd stood on the treadmill and tried to turn it on, but the LED display remained dark. His muttering had given way to swearing. "Come on, you piece of shit. Turn on...."
"Problem?" she'd asked innocently. And that was when he'd noticed her holding the unplugged power cord, hidden behind her back.
"Dammit, Penny! Plug it in."
"Nope." She'd ignored him and begun winding the cord into a tight loop, careful to keep her eyes on her hands instead of his face.
She could hear him start to huff and puff then - just inches from losing his temper. "Penny-"
"No more treadmill," she'd replied, looping the cord neatly around the treadmill's base. "Come on. We're going for a run. Outside."
"I don't have time for that-"
"Let's go. Right now. I'm wearing my running clothes and everything."
"Your running clothes?" He ran his eyes up and down, taking in her outfit. She'd slipped back into the same old track suit that she'd borrowed the other day, rolled up at the wrists and ankles.
"Finders keepers," she'd replied, as she bent to lace up her sneakers.
He'd rolled his eyes again then, but she hadn't missed the way his mouth had worked as he tried and failed to keep the corners from curling upward. She'd smiled back and began stretching out her quads, and he'd stood and watched her for a moment before he shook his head.
"I can't," he said. "You know I like to be at my desk by quarter to nine-"
"Actually, you're not going to the office today." She'd bent over to stretch her hamstrings so he couldn't see her trying not to laugh.
"I'm not?"
"You're taking a personal day." She pulled his Blackberry out of her pocket and held it up again for him to see. "I spoke with your assistant, Gwen. We had a very nice chat-"
"You told my assistant I was taking a personal day?"
"Well, it would be inconsiderate of you not to let her know. She might get worried."
"Penny, you can't just-"
"Come on already! Stop being such a slow poke...."
Penny smiled to herself again now as she ran down the sidewalk beside him. She snuck another glance at his face, but her thoughts were interrupted just then by a loud bang - the sound seeming to reverberate in the air for a moment, echoing off concrete sidewalks and the rows of skyscrapers flanking them on all sides. She saw him flinch, and she put out a hand to touch him lightly on the upper arm.
"Car backfiring," she panted in his direction.
His smirk had all but disappeared now. His eyes looked straight ahead, and she could see his jaw muscles clench. She longed to put her arms around him and soothe away his anxiety, but for now she just kept running.
"I don't know, Penny," he said after a moment. "Maybe I'm just more of a treadmill kind of guy these days."
"Well, that's going to be a problem," she replied. She pulled his Blackberry out of her pocket again and looked down at the time. "Those guys are supposed to come by your apartment in about two hours...."
"What guys?" He looked at her suspiciously. "What exactly are all these plans you made?"
"They're coming at 10:30, and then you're taking me to lunch."
"Lunch?" He raised his eyebrows. "Where?"
"You have reservations at Lutece." She felt a renewed burst of energy fill her muscles at the thought.
"Lutece, huh?" He broke into a cautious smile. "How romantic of me. And let me guess. Did I charter a private jet to take us to Hawaii after that?"
Penny laughed out loud. Why hadn't she thought of that? "No, no," she replied. "I'm not that bad."
"So who are these guys coming to my apartment?"
"Huh?" She was still grinning to herself at the thought of lounging next to him on a beach somewhere, baking in the sun. Maybe next weekend....
"At 10:30?" he prompted.
"Oh!" she said. "The treadmill."
"What?"
"I sold it," she explained matter-of-factly. "I put it on Craigslist this morning. You wouldn't believe how fast that thing sold-"
"You did what?" The smile on his face had disappeared again, replaced now by a look of shock.
"I'm a little short on cash these days," she shrugged.
He ran ten paces in silence, blinking rapidly, before he replied in a carefully controlled voice. "Penny, I know you're having some issues. If you need to borrow some money, that's fine. We can do that. But you can't just sell my stuff on Craigslist. That's not-"
"Well, I never said you could keep it forever," she interrupted. She pressed her lips together in a line to keep the laughter bubbling inside her from erupting.
"You- wait, what?"
"Think of it more as a loan," she answered impatiently. "I never said it was a gift. You just assumed because it was Christmas and I put a big red bow on top-"
"Wait." She could almost see the gears turning inside his head as he struggled to follow. "Wait. Penny, are you saying-"
"Try to keep up!" She picked up her pace and pulled ahead of him, looking back over her shoulder as he trailed after her down the sidewalk.
"Wait," he said again, once he'd chased her down. "So you're telling me the treadmill was from you?"
She giggled. "I can't believe you never put that together."
"You bought me a treadmill?"
"Well, I used that gift card from the New York Running Company...."
"The-that-but that was only for a couple hundred-" He slowed his pace and grabbed her elbow to force her to slow down with him. "Wait," he said. "Hold on. Is that why you're in credit card debt? Because you bought me a treadmill?"
She shrugged and looked down at the pavement passing beneath her feet. "You know for such a great runner, you can be really slow sometimes."
His eyes widened in utter bewilderment. "Penny, are you completely out of your mind?"
"You needed a treadmill." She tried to pull her arm out of his grasp, but he held it firmly, bringing her to a complete stop. She put her hands on her hips and sucked the air into her lungs, grateful for the chance to catch her breath.
David opened his mouth to say something else, but the words died on his lips. The bemused expression on his face had changed again. "Come on," he said after a moment. He turned on his heel and started to head back the way they had come. Penny shot out an arm and grabbed his hand to stop him.
"Other way," she protested, tugging at his hand.
He shook his head in silence, and she pulled on his hand again, but he resisted. "No," was all he said.
She knew exactly what had made him stop, of course. She'd managed to distract him up until now, but he'd just looked around himself realized where they were standing:
In the middle of an empty jogging path.
Just inside the entrance to Battery Park.
"Not here," he said, his voice soft but firm. He didn't meet her eyes. He kept his feet rooted to the spot.
Penny turned to face him and took his other hand in hers. "Come with me," she said, trying to lead him a step further down the path.
"No." He shook his head.
"What are you afraid of, David?"
He met her eyes then, and she saw the haunted little boy for just a moment, quickly hidden away again beneath a mask of sarcasm. "Oh, I don't know, Penny. Maybe lying face down on the pavement with a big gaping hole in my chest?"
She'd led him here on purpose, of course. All part of the plan. He'd said the other night that he was a mess - that he didn't know how to clean it up without her. But she knew how. Or at least she had some idea where to begin.
"It's been two years," she said to him. "It's time." She let go of one of his hands and pressed her palm against his chest, just left of his breastbone.
He looked down at her hand. "Other side," he replied. His eyes flicked sideways, toward the spot on the right side his chest where the scarred-over bullet hole lay concealed beneath his shirt.
Penny shook her head. She could feel his heartbeat racing beneath her hand. "This side," she said. "Relax. Deep breaths."
He met her eyes uncertainly.
"Come on," she told him. "You can do this." She reached down and took his hand, squeezing it firmly as she spoke. "You hate treadmills," she said. "This is where you love to run. And I'll be right here next to you, the whole entire time."