So the Season's Changed Your Face

Two Years Later

“I just-” I panted. “Don’t understand why-” I clutched the stitch in my side. “We have to run the mile.”

Mike, who was also panting, turned his head and smiled. “The school district hates us.”

“The feeling is mutual,” I huffed, checking my watch. “We’re making good time, though.”

“Please tell me this is the last lap,” Mike said. “I don’t think I could run another.”

“Yeah,” I answered, unable to speak a complete sentence. My lungs were collapsing on me. “This is inhumane.”

For the rest of the lap, Mike and I ran side by side without speaking to each other. All I could hear was my blood pulsing in my ears and the loud thud of my feet on gravel. Mr. Disney, my Phys Ed teacher, was no more than fifty feet away. I put on a burst of speed and left Mike literally in the dust. I sprinted past Mr. Disney and subsequently skid to a halt to hear my time.

“You’re improving, Vivi,” he said. “Nine minutes, thirty-six seconds.”

I waited for Mike to finish, who was only a few seconds behind me. “You know,” he said, after taking a long drink from the drinking fountain. “If it were up to me, I would walk that mile.”

“If it were up to me, we wouldn’t have to run the mile,” I responded, bending over and placing my hands on my knees.

Mike gave me a little shove, and I lost balance, though I did not topple over as he had intended. “God dammit, Mike, stop!” I whined. “I’m too tired for this.”

He gave me a second shove.

“You are seriously the worst person on the face of the planet, Mike,” I said, plopping down on the cement to take a much needed and well deserved rest.

“Can we at least sit in the shade?” Mike asked, sweat dripping from his brow. “It’s too hot.”

“But I’m so comfortable,” I said. “Just…move to the left.”

Mike took a step to the right. “The other left, asshole.”

“I know what you’re doing,” he said, resolutely standing out of the way of the sun. “There is literally a patch of shade twenty feet away.”

I put both of my arms up in the air. “Help me up.”

“I never thought I would meet someone lazier than me,” Mike said, though he grabbed a hold of my arms and hoisted me up. “I just didn’t think it was possible for anyone to be lazier than me.”

“Mike, just admit it,” I said, wiping debris off of my shorts, “We were made for each other.”

Mike pulled a disgusted face. “Good lord, I hope not.”

We both began to laugh, but soon stopped due to the stitches in our sides. “Everything hurts.” He moaned, kneading his knuckles into his back.

“Well maybe if you didn’t run like such an asswipe-”

“I have flat feet and you know that!” Mike exclaimed loudly, shoving me sideways. “I can’t help that I run like an asswipe.”

We sat down in the shade, where I immediately started plucking grass while Mike lied down and tried to get comfortable. I had made a sizeable grass pile on Mike’s stomach when Mr. Disney blew his whistle, signaling that it was time to go back to the locker rooms to change.

I stood and once again brushed dirt from my shorts. Mike lazily raised his arms. “Your turn,” he said, smiling cheekily.

Without comment, I pulled him up, the pile of grass raining from his shirt. “You know,” he started, as we made our way back to campus with our classmates, “You’re probably responsible for half of the dead patches of grass out here.”

“Probably,” I said, shrugging. We were silent until we reached the locker rooms. “Hey, don’t bolt off like you did last time.”

“Hey, don’t take so long like you did last time,” he mocked, sticking his tongue out at me. “Does it really take you that long to undress and redress?”

“Yes, Mike,” I said. “It really does take that long.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “I’ll be at your locker, then.”

We took our separate ways. I approached my gym locker and began to undress, making a mental note to grab my gym clothes before I left for the weekend.

“Vivi!” a voice cried. It was my friend Marcy, who was my Physics lab partner. “We’re going to Subway for lunch. Wanna come?”

“I go to Taco Bell with Mike on Fridays,” I said, trying to look apologetic, which was surprisingly difficult, seeing as I was taking off my shirt.

“You go to Taco Bell with Mike every day,” Marcy said pointedly. “Aren’t you sick of eating bad burritos?”

Truthfully, I was, but I didn’t go to Taco Bell with Mike for the food. “No, I love Taco Bell,” I lied. “How about a rain check?”

Marcy sighed. “Next week, Vivi. We’ll get you next week.”


“Aren’t you kind of getting tired of Taco Bell?” Mike asked as we walked back to his car.

“Why? Are you?” I looked at him over the roof of the car. “I thought you liked Taco Bell.”

“I thought you liked Taco Bell,” he answered. He climbed into his car and reached over the console to unlock the passenger side door. “Personally, I’m not a fan of imitation Mexican food.”

“Maybe we should find another place to grab lunch then,” I suggested. “Why torture ourselves?”

Mike shrugged. “Do you have any suggestions?”

“Not really,” I admitted, buckling myself in. “I’d say Subway, but I don’t really like Subway.”

Mike was centimeters from putting the key in the ignition when he stopped what he was doing and stared incredulously at me. “You don’t like Subway? How the fuck can you not like Subway?”

“Not a sandwich person, I guess,” I said. “I mean, that’s why I keep blowing Marcy off. She and her friends love Subway. It’s like they worship Subway.”

“Is that really why?” Mike asked, trying to pass it off as a flippant comment.

I looked at him, tongue in cheek. “What are you implying, Carden?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he said quickly. “Maybe you just don’t like Marcy much.”

I raised my eyebrows at him but said nothing for a few moments. “Yeah, that’s definitely not why I don’t go to Subway with her and her friends.”

“So it’s just your dislike of sandwiches?”

“Why else would I avoid going to a sandwich shop?” I asked, my suspicion rising. “Your interest in my not going to lunch with Marcy is very unsettling.”

“It just seems like there’s more than one reason,” he said without looking at me; he was focused on the lunch-rush traffic.

I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so I changed the subject. “What are you doing tonight? Practice?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I left Jodie,” he said, as if what he had to say was unimportant. Luckily for both of us, I was not driving because if I had been, I would have crashed the car into a telephone pole.

“What?!” I asked loudly. “When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I could have sworn I told you,” he mused.

“Well, you fucking didn’t,” I said. “What happened, Mike?”

Mike shrugged. “I got bored.”

“You got bored?” I asked, disbelief hanging heavy from my tongue.

He shrugged again. “I don’t know. We just weren’t making music I liked anymore.”

“Mike, you wrote the majority of the music,” I reminded him.

He pursed his lips and shrugged a third time. “Time for a change, I guess.”