Anna

Sand coats my eyes as I blink them open. The clock reads six thirty a.m.

Why am I awake this early?

Buzz, buzz.

Oh, right, someone is buzzing to get into the building. But it must be a mistake. No one comes to see me this early.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

Mistake or not, they aren’t going away. I stretch and get out of bed, yawning as I make my way to the door. My head aches from the emotions of last night.

Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz.

Sheesh, someone is impatient. Annoyed, I press the button that allows me to talk to whoever is in the front room. I planned to call in sick and stay in bed all day long. “Who is it?”

“It’s me. Ready for our run?” Wes’s deep voice fills the speaker.

“Wes?”

“Yes. Can you buzz me in?”

“I don’t remember saying we would start running today.” In fact, I was kind of hoping he might forget about it altogether.

“No time like the present.” He sounds way too cheerful for this early hour.

“Sorry, I can’t make it today.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not dressed yet.”

“Pretty sure you can change that.”

Sigh. “Wes…” I complain.

“Please just buzz me in.”

Fine. “Okay, let yourself in. I have to change.”

I press the button that unlocks the entrance to the building and head to the bathroom. The image that greets me in the mirror is not pretty. My eyes are swollen, my hair is a tangled mess, and the bags under my eyes are so dark, they look like bruises.

I pee, brush my teeth, untangle my hair, and splash cold water on my face. The cold water feels soothing on my puffy eyelids, so I do it a couple of more times.

The door to the apartment opens and clicks shut, telling me Wes is here.

Wes is here. The day after I had an actual breakdown.

I cringe with embarrassment and cover my face with my hands again. I’m not sure how I can face him.

When I got home last night, Charlie’s harsh words ringing in my ears, I climbed in the shower, fully clothed, to wash my shame and guilt away. Except it didn’t work. Of course it didn’t work. I wanted to feel numb. So, I turned the knob to cold, hoping the frigid water could block out everything else.

It was working, too. All I could feel was the cold. Not my shame or sadness. The cold water and numbness consumed me, so all I could do was shiver. Maybe I was still crying though. I must’ve been because that was how Wes found me. Crying and shivering and numb, fully clothed, and wet in the shower.

Ugh. How mortifying.

Heaviness weighs my limbs as I walk into my room and hunt for some clothes suitable for running. Leggings and a book T-shirt will have to do. I glance in the mirror before I go to greet my visitor.

My eyes are still a bit puffy, but other than that, I just look tired. And I am; it’s early. This is as good as I’m going to get at this point, so I swallow down my embarrassment and leave the comfort of my bedroom.

Wes is studying the contents of my fridge.

“Hungry?”

He spins at my voice, smiling eyes meeting mine. “Sorry, I thought I’d make you a fruit smoothie since I woke you up. But that requires fruit.” He points to the mostly empty shelves with a wry smile.

I guess my eating habits have some room for improvement. “Yeah, I need to go grocery shopping.”

He closes the fridge and approaches me. I wrap my arms around myself, bracing for him to bring up last night.

He doesn’t though. He just eyes my outfit and says, “You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

My body remembers this. The way my feet pound, the rhythm of my breaths, the stretch of my hamstrings, the burn of my muscles working.

It feels…good.

So what if I’m completely out of breath? And slow. And sweating like a pig.

It feels really good.

We used to run together all the time in high school. It’s almost as if we’re back in time. Our steps sync up like they used to, as if our bodies remember this familiar cadence.

Wes’s holding back, letting me set the pace, just like he said. We run in comfortable silence, no need for words, like old times.

When we loop back to my apartment, my shaky legs give out, and I collapse on the patch of grass in front of the building, panting so hard I might pass out. Wes towers over me, barely winded, and beams.

“You did it!” he exclaims as if I’d run a marathon instead of barely one mile.

The accomplishment does feel bigger than the meager distance we ran.

I beam back at him. “I did. Sorry I slowed you down.”

He shrugs this off. “I have to jump in the shower and head to work. Can you still help me later?”

“Tonight?” I narrow my eyes at him in disbelief. I’m sure this is just a ploy to get me out of my house and keep an eye on me.

“Yes, I really need your help.” His blue-gray eyes shine with sincerity.

Welp, there goes my plans to drown in a bowl of ice cream with a good book later. I just can’t say no to Wesley Scott.

“Okay.”

My day is perfectly uneventful at One More Chapter, and since I’m working with Lana, I’m able to avoid any questions from Christy or Desirae. More than once, I find myself replaying the run-in with Charlie and can’t stop the tears from falling. If Lana notices me blowing my nose or wiping tears, she doesn’t say anything.

This makes me schedule an appointment with Katie, my therapist. She was my favorite of the therapists I’d seen in the past. I need all the help I can get to feel better about my life. I’m sick of being a basket case, living in the past.

I need to find my new normal, as Wes said.

After work, I head home and change into some old clothes I’ve used to paint. I don’t know exactly what Wes needs help with, but I figure it can get messy. I’m debating on which frozen meal to warm up when the buzzer sounds.

“Hello?”

“Hey, you ready?” It’s Wes.

“Oh, sure. I was just about to eat.”

“I was going to feed you as payment for your labor.”

Well, that simplifies things. “Okay, I’ll be right down.”

After we eat dinner with John and Reanell, who thankfully don’t ask any questions about yesterday, Wes brings me into the garage. He has a couple of projects started, but he bypasses those and brings me to what looks like a bookshelf. It has a contemporary feel with clean lines and light-colored wood.

“This is beautiful, Wes. I love it.”

“Thank you.” He flashes me his crooked grin. “I need your help finishing it.”

“Are you sure about this? Because I’m afraid I’ll just ruin it. I’m not good with power tools.”

He chuckles. “Don’t worry; you can do this. I need you to sand it down, so it can be painted.” He hands me some work gloves, safety glasses, and sandpaper.

“Go against the grain, like this.” He shows me how to rub small circles against the grain. It looks easy enough.

“Okay, I think I can manage that without messing up. But how will I know when it’s done?”

“I’ll keep an eye on your progress at first, but the goal is to get a uniform texture. Once you get rid of the majority of imperfections with this grit, I’ll give you a different sandpaper to smooth everything down, so it’s ready to be stained.”

“Grit?” I blink, clueless.

He smirks. “Just do the same thing everywhere, and I’ll tell you when you’re done.”

“Okay.” I put on the gloves and glasses and get to work.

This is a perfect job because I don’t have to think too much, but I also have to pay enough attention that I can’t let any dark thoughts pull me in. I find a rhythm and cover each shelf, section by section.

Wes busies himself at the work table, measuring pieces of wood and making pencil marks where they need to be cut. After thirty minutes passes, he comes to check my progress, trailing his fingers over the finish.

“Nice job. Can you give me a hand over here? I need to make some cuts, and I need a second pair of hands.”

I see what he means right away, and I feel guilty for doubting his need for help. I don’t do anything major, just stabilize the wood and catch the ends that fall off, but I can see this would be a lot trickier if he did it by himself.

He hands me another piece of sandpaper; it has a different coarseness to it. “Okay, now, do the whole thing again with this one.”

I nod and start at the top, working my way methodically across each shelf. By the time I’m done, I look up to see that he made a chair out of the pieces of wood we just cut.

“Wow! You work fast!”

“Thanks to you. If you weren’t here, I’d still be sanding.”

I smile. “I’m glad I can help.”

“It’s getting pretty late. Are you ready to go home?”

I stifle a yawn. “Yeah, this slave driver showed up at the break of dawn and made me go running with him.”

“You need your rest because the slave driver will be back tomorrow morning.”

My jaw drops open. “Wes, I’m going to be so sore! I can’t run two days in a row.”

“This girl I used to know ran every single day. Rain or shine.”

I glare at him.

“We’ll go slow, I promise. But you know the best way to cure soreness is by stretching and exercising.”

“Slave. Driver.”

When I’m finally home, the thought of drowning in my sorrows doesn’t appeal quite as much as a warm shower and sleep. My body feels different tonight, my legs tired from running this morning and my arms tired from sanding the bookshelf tonight. I stretch, feeling muscles I haven’t felt in years.

I turn on my e-reader, thinking I’ll at least read one chapter to quiet my mind and help me sleep. But my eyes are closing by the time I get to the bottom of the first page. I give up on reading and let sleep in, wondering what tomorrow will bring.

Surely, Wes was kidding about running together every day.

I grudgingly admit to myself how much he helped me today. If it wasn’t for him, I’d have likely stayed in my bed all day long. Instead, he was there for me, keeping me busy and making me feel needed. I complained about him being a slave driver, but maybe that’s just what I need. Someone to push me outside of my self-absorbed bubble.

I kinda hope he wasn’t kidding about running every day.