See You at the Finish Line (Run, Love, Repeat #1)

18. Paige

It’s Sunday. I’m supposed to be curled up in bed with a book and my coffee. That was my plan. It’s my plan every Sunday and has been for two years ever since my weekends no longer involved long runs. It’s the day I let myself completely veg out and do nothing. I pick out two to three books I may want to read so I have some options, and the only time I get up is to pee and replenish my food. It’s wonderful.

I was really looking forward to it after the workweek from hell. Make that weeks. Not because I don’t love the job. I do—I love the job so much that I’m pretty sure the universe is punishing me for something I did in a previous life. Dangling this opportunity in front of me and then throwing him in my path.

Instead of relaxing, my legs are in the air as a sweaty man presses me into a mat, stretching me much farther than I thought possible. Finding myself in a hot yoga class was definitely not on my itinerary for a relaxing Sunday.

Why am I here? My sister decided that on Sundays we would do something together even though we’re a country apart. She’s picked out activities for the foreseeable future for us to do at the same time every week. So far we’ve had pedicures, picnics, and in a big surprise I wasn’t expecting, we played pickleball.

If I wasn’t currently being forced into a pretzel, I’d be impressed at the level of organizational skill it takes to plan international bonding experiences.

“There you go. Do you feel that?” the instructor says as he defies all laws of gravity to help me get into this position.

“Mm-hmm,” I say, beads of sweat dripping down my forehead and back. I hate that I’ll have to tell Leah I like it. I actually like hot yoga. When you live in the desert, hot yoga is just yoga outside, but with the rain and the cold starting to creep in, this class feels like home. It’s nice to feel that dry heat suffocate me.

Maybe I need more therapy. I make a mental note to bring it up to Jane at our next session.

We finish the class with a meditation exercise. I think the series of deep oms is going to feel stupid, but the sound resonates in my soul and brings unexpected tears to my eyes. I wipe them away before anyone can see.

As we leave the hot room, thanking the instructor as we go, we’re handed an ice-cold face cloth that feels heavenly against my flushed skin. I sit outside the classroom, eyes closed, and breathe in the cool air, feeling like I did when I was a kid and my mom finally let us inside and into the air conditioning after playing soccer outside in the mid-July Utah summers.

A chill runs up my spine as I think of her handing me a popsicle, and the tears that fell earlier are followed by a few more .

“You okay?” a quiet voice asks from beside me. I open my eyes to see a woman around my age. Her round face looks genuinely concerned, sweaty forehead plastered with pieces of bone-straight black hair that have escaped her messy bun.

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting to feel emotional,” I tell her honestly, surprising myself.

“I know what you mean. I’ve been coming here for years and I’m still surprised at how ...” She trails off and slumps beside me. I know what she means. Everything. How everything I feel right now. A little too open and vulnerable for my liking.

“Yeah,” I say, mirroring her movements.

“Are you new to the gym?” she asks.

“I’m new to Vancouver.”

“Oh, welcome! I was born and raised here, but my parents moved from China after they got married.”

I chuckle at her burst of brightness. “Thanks. China is farther than Utah, so I bet their adjustment was a little different than mine.”

She laughs. “Just a little. I’m Shay.”

“Paige.” I take her hand and give it a shake.

“Will I see you next Sunday?”

“Are you the yoga welcoming committee?” I ask, my stomach sinking a bit thinking maybe she does this with everyone.

“No, just looking for a yoga buddy who struggles as much as I do.” She laughs and stands up, giving me a small wave. “It was nice to meet you.”

“You too. And yes, I’ll be here next week.” I hadn’t been planning on it. Hopefully it doesn’t wreck any of Leah’s future Sunday plans. I tried to tell her that yoga is the sort of thing people do as a regular activity, but she was convinced once would be enough and we could move on to other hobbies.

I’ve lost track of how many hobbies she has, but even with my constant harassment, running has never been, and will never be, one of them. Maybe if it was, I wouldn’t have given it up. But that’s not on her, that’s on me.

My phone buzzes in my pocket bringing a smile to my face as I pull it out. Thinking of, it’s the devil herself.

I answer the phone as usual, without any sort of greeting. “You sadist.”

“Gross, I do not get horny and turned on thinking you’re suffering.”

“You sure about that?”

“You don’t even sound like you’re suffering!”

I sigh.

“I knew it! You loved it!”

At least I didn’t have to admit it first. “I kind of did.”

I make my way back to the locker room, realizing next time I’ll need to bring a change of clothes and pick up some toiletries so I can shower. I’m soaked in sweat, and my damp clothes are making me cold.

“It was kind of great in a weird way,” she admits.

“Right? Like who knew we were detoxifying all these years in the summer? And I think I may have made a friend.”

“That’s great, Paige! What do you mean, ‘ you think’?”

“I had a two-minute conversation with her at the end of class, and I know her name.”

“That’s definitely a start.”

We chat about the class and the different poses we learned. I put the phone down so I can throw my sweater on, and when I pick it back up, she’s still prattling on about how adorable my nephew is, like I don’t know from the fifty pictures she sends of him every day.

I’ll never complain about it. I miss them like crazy, and he already looks bigger even though I’ve only been gone a couple of weeks.

I get an email notification on my phone while she’s in the middle of trying to talk and breastfeed at the same time, which apparently is distracting for baby Levi now that he’s three months old and all grown up. I pull the phone away and put her on speaker, grateful I’m in my car in the parking lot when I read what comes through.

A few keywords stick in my brain.

Staff 5k Charity Race.

Mandatory.

Adam Ashford.

“Damn it,” I accidentally whisper out loud.

Like a dog who can hear their human eating food from the other room, my sister doesn’t miss it, even over the sound of Levi crying. “What? What happened?”

There’s no use trying to hide it from her. I learned a long time ago that Leah is relentless in making me tell her things I don’t want to. She sees my boundaries as an obstacle course .

“Apparently I have to run a 5k.”

“You have to? Who says you have to?” I smile at her momma-bear tone. But this isn’t a battle she can fight for me.

“The company I’m trying to ... fit in with.”

“You’re not fitting in? Is Adam giving you trouble?”

“No, Leah, he’s not.” I sigh.

“You don’t have to say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re tired of talking to me.”

“I’m tired of talking about him.”

Adam Ashford.

It’s been a long few weeks of pretending I don’t care. I called Leah when I got home from my first day to rant and rave and recite the speeches I had prepared. I was going to yell at him, tell him all the things I had ever thought. I would 100 percent lose the job, but that was okay because I wasn’t staying in Vancouver a single second longer.

She listened while I threw my life away because a boy didn’t remember me. But then I calmed down and began to act like the twenty-eight-year-old I am, deciding maybe the cold shoulder would be a better option.

I could completely ignore him and in that way, my anger would be appeased. And then it came to me. He doesn’t remember me, so I don’t care. Well, I pretend I don’t care. Like, “Oh, people forget people all the time. It’s not like you were important to me anyway, so it’s totally fine. An understandable and reasonable thing.”

Fake it till you make it, right? If I can pretend I don’t care, maybe, eventually, I won’t.

Watching his confusion that first morning, sensing the wariness in him, and then treating him like everyone else was the cherry on top I wasn’t expecting. He hates it. Which makes me think that maybe he didn’t actually forget me and is just such an asshole that he wants me to think he did.

Or seeing me jogged his terrible memory and he’s now remembering the connection we had. Or maybe the runner’s high was so intense that I made it all up in my head. But that kiss. What he said after. I couldn’t have made it up.

It doesn’t matter, though, because my plan is working. It’s getting easier to actually not care about him. To move on.

Lying to myself is getting easier too.

It’s exhausting to pretend I don’t care if he’s there—to treat him like a colleague, unbothered and pleasant rather than stomach-full-of-butterflies nervous whenever he walks into a room.

And now he emails me. Technically, he emailed the staff, but now I have his email address in my inbox.

An email about a 5k. Did he not hear me tell Julien that I don’t run anymore? I mentally kick myself. Adam did not plan an entire staff charity race to spite me because I said I don’t run anymore. God, I need to stop thinking I’m the centre of that man’s universe. He didn’t even remember my name.

“You still there?” Leah asks. I’ve been quiet for too long and so is the other end of the phone.

“Did you get Levi to settle down?” I ask quietly.

“Don’t change the subject. And yes, he’s down now.”

“I’m still here.” I sigh, knowing she’s not going to let this go.

“Don’t be difficult.”

“Now who sounds like Mom?”

“Stop avoiding, Paige.”

I hate it when she’s right. “What’s there to avoid? I have to run a 5k with the staff.”

“You haven’t been running, though.” Her concern bleeds through in every word.

“I’m aware.”

“Don’t be snippy,” she snips.

I sigh again.

“Don’t sigh.”

Instead, I inhale, thinking how much I love my sister and do not want to punch her. “Go boss Levi around.”

“I already did, that’s why he’s full and asleep.”

“Because you told him to?”

“Yes,” she says plainly.

“You have a superpower.”

“I know.” The line is quiet. “Paige, maybe this is a good thing. This is what you’ve been working towards in therapy—finding the bits of yourself you’ve lost.”

“It’s supposed to be on my own timeline.”

“This could be a sign from the universe nudging you in the right direction.”

Fuck the universe. “Or it’s just Ashford being an asshole. ”

“That is entirely plausible as well,” she agrees. She lets the conversation drop, knowing I’m at my limit with Adam. “How was your first date with that hockey player?”

“Nate,” I remind her. “It was good. He seems nice.”

“He’d better be nice.”

“He is.” Thinking of Nate makes me feel strangely guilty. I’m pretending I don’t know the reason why.

“Paige,” Leah says, her voice serious.

“Yeah?”

“Do the race.”

The whole drive home I think of ways to get out of it. Could I get a doctor’s note? I’d have to get a doctor first, which I’ve learned is kind of hard in this country.

Could I speak with Maxim? I don’t want to ruin my chances of keeping the job. Demitri would be the better bet on that front. Maybe I can sabotage the race so it gets cancelled. Except it’s for charity. Ugh, I’m going to hell.

Q greets me when I get home, full of energy and excitement for her nice long walk. She’s happy here. She loves the cooler weather—that traitor. She’s been forcing me to get out of the apartment more often, always wanting to go to the dog park or for a walk around the neighbourhood.

Her big shaggy legs bounce with happiness as people coo and aww at her. She gets so many pets that she’s wiped out from the attention when we arrive home. Q doesn’t even put up a fuss when I have to clean her paws off from the muddy puddles she’s stepped into .

I get a mug of tea ready and climb into bed even though it’s only two in the afternoon. I'm snug in my blankets when I notice I left my closet door open.

With a sigh, I get out of bed and glimpse the only box I left unpacked peeking out from behind the junk that’s already starting to accumulate.

The words JUST IN CASE written in small block letters along the side stand out, taunting me.