Clomp, clomp, clomp.

This stupid fucking boot. I’m ready to tear it off and throw it through the fancy plate glass window.

The owners of Indigo would probably fire me on the spot, but right now, I can’t see that as a problem. I can’t see anything worse than this awful, clomping boot that catches on everything as I try to maneuver my way through the tables on my first day back to work.

A well-dressed woman sitting at table five gives a frightened little “eep!” as my stupid boot bumps into the leg of her chair. “I’m so sorry,” I mutter and clomp away as fast as I can to pick up a tray of cocktails from the back bar.

“You got that?” the bartender, a big scary German dude named Felix, asks warily.

“I’ve got it,” I snap, yanking the tray out of his hands and making the stemware ring.

“Careful...”

“I said I’ve got it!”

I snap my head up to glare at him and he practically falls over himself to back away from me with his hands raised, mumbling in German.

Shaking my head, I clomp away from him and rush back to my table. A young child—too young to be in such a fancy place—slips from her chair and runs towards me.

Somehow I execute a fancy, one-footed twirl, dancing out of her way with the tray held aloft, but it’s not enough. I can feel the trickling rain of spilled drinks dribbling down my arm. “Goddammit!” I say aloud, and then freeze.

Everyone at the table stares at me like I’d just defecated on the floor. The mother belatedly snatches her wayward child out of my path and I grimly set down the tray of now half empty drinks.

Out of nowhere, Charlie appears, readily smiling and promising fresh drinks. She nods at one of the other wait staff, and then hustles me out of the way.  

“Shit,” I apologize. “I lost my cool.”

Charlie darts a look back at the table. “We’ll comp their drinks, no big deal.” Then she turns back to me, her topknot bobbing like it's just as worried as she is. “Are you okay?”

I swallow down the frustration. My ankle feels fine now, if a little weak, but this morning the doctor told me I’d need another two days in this stupid boot. I’d told Charlie I was fine to come back to work yesterday, confident that I’d have this dumb thing off of me by now. “I feel like a one-woman herd of elephants,” I sigh. “I’m like the loudest thing in here.”

She glances down at my foot and then back up at me. “I noticed you were sort of...stomping,” she says carefully.

“Yeah.”

“But your ankle feels fine?” she prods me. “It’s not hurting you?”

“Why do you ask?”

She shakes her head, pressing her lips together and then smiles brightly. “Listen, Gina. If your ankle isn’t bothering you, then something else is.” Before I can protest, she gestures out to the table, then back to Felix who still looks perturbed. ‘Something is on your mind.”

“I’m fine,” I protest, even as Adam’s warm brown eyes pop into the forefront of my brain.

She cocks her head, sending her topknot bobbing. “If I were speaking as just your friend right now, I’d let you get away with lying to me like that,” she says mildly. “But since I’m currently acting as your boss, I have to tell you that I need you to go home and get your shit together. I need my team running like a well-oiled machine and right now you’re a wrench in the whole thing.”

I open my mouth and then shut it. Hot, embarrassed tears immediately pool in my eyes and I look away, furious with myself for falling apart like this.

But I can’t fucking help it. Ever since Adam left, all I’ve been doing is crying. Just randomly welling up at the most annoying moments.

Like right now.

“I’m fine,” I protest again, wiping away the traitorous tears before they can fall.

Charlie’s face softens and she leans in closer. “Okay, I’m done speaking as your boss right now. Now I’m your friend and I’m worried. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I lie, and then sniffle miserably.

She rests her hand on my shoulder. “Gina, everyone here?” She waves to the front-end as a whole. ‘We like you. Felix? He freaking adores you and you just almost bit his head off. We depend on you and when you’re hurting, we hurt too. We want to help. I want to help.”

I step forward and suddenly we are embracing. It’s the first time I’ve ever hugged Charlie, ever accepted a hug from someone who is just my friend. I would never have been able to do this, even a month ago. Something inside of me has changed fundamentally. “Okay,” I sigh. “I’ll go get my shit together.”

Charlie pulls back and I can see that her eyes are gleaming too. Quickly she wipes at them and then laughs. “And if this is about a guy?”  she teases, not noticing how I stiffen. “Then just hurry up and tell him how you feel, okay? I mean...honestly...” She glances down at my boot again with a mischievous smile. “Anything to get you to stop stomping around like toddler-Frankenstein having a tantrum.”

I burst out laughing and then wipe away the tears that are now flowing freely. I’m making up for a lifetime of unshed tears pretty damn quickly these days. “Okay,” I say again, nodding.

But as I gather my things, I wonder how exactly I’m supposed to do it. It’s easy for Charlie to say it, oh just tell him how you feel, but it’s a whole other thing to actually make it happen.

I have no idea how to even begin.

I clomp out to my car and sit down, viciously yanking the boot off my foot. I’ve been cleared to drive, so I should be grateful for small favors, I guess. In the five-minute drive home, I’m no closer to a solution. My brain feels like it’s buzzing with a zillion thoughts at once. I pull into to my driveway too fast, sending my car jerking as I shift it into park, then whirl around to slam the door shut. What am I supposed to do, call him? “Hey Adam? I know you have a life and shit, but I love you. So now what?”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to work at all.

My silent house is no help either. My mother cleaned it from top to bottom while she was here, and now it doesn’t even smell like my own place any more. I need to get out of here. I need to clear my head, and the only thing that can do that is a run.

The second I think that everything becomes clear. Fuck the doctor’s admonition. My foot is fine. I head up to my bedroom and yank off my work uniform, pulling on my sports bra with a feeling of new resolve. I need a run more than anything right now. I can take it slow. I can just jog a little, maybe once around the Town Park. Maybe the breeze will somehow blow Adam out of my brain again.

Gingerly, I walk back down the stairs and lace up my running shoes at the bottom. My right ankle is still slightly larger than my left, but I don’t care. I grab my keys and open the front door.

And stop.

For a second I wonder if I’ve conjured him out of thin air. If my need to tell him somehow transcended space time and teleported him to my location.

Because why the fuck was Adam on my front lawn?

His face, which up to this moment was a mask of anxiety, suddenly smoothes out into a laugh. “Are you kidding me?” he asks. “You can’t go for a run!”

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I stammer, still not entirely convinced I’m not hallucinating. “How the fuck are you here?”

His tongue flicks out to wet his lips. “I’m here,” he says. “For you.”

I feel like the earth has opened up underneath me but I’m so fucking happy I can fly free of the chasm. “You came back?” I ask. Just to make sure. Just to hear him say it.

He steps forward and I’m moving to him even before he can say anything. I’m on my tiptoes reaching for him and he instantly scoops me off my shaky ankle and into his arms. “I’m not,” he says, raining kisses down all over my face as I wrap my arms around his neck, “running away. Not anymore.”

And then he’s moving, carrying me over the threshold and up the stairs, two at a time.