The Last Good Thing About This Part of Town

After Andy left, I had to go get ready for my meet. Erika was gonna be here by 8:30 so we could be at the meet across town by 9. I had to rush a little but thankfully I always pack my bag the night before. All I had to do was change into my warm ups, do my hair and get my snacks and water out of the fridge. I got ready just fast enough for me to make some oatmeal and put it in a container so I could eat it on the way. My mom walked down the stairs while I was getting my stuff ready to leave.

“Morning hun” She said, walking into the kitchen to make some coffee.

“Morning” I said

“Is Erika picking you up?” she asked, putting the coffee into the Keurig.

“Yeah. She’ll be here soon. Are you coming to watch us?” I asked jumping up on to sit on the counter.

“Of course! I wouldn't miss your last first meet of the season” She said

“Okay, well we run at 10:30. Then the boys are after us.” I said as I got a text from Erika saying that she was here.

“Gotta go. Erika is here” I told her as I jumped off the counter and jogged over to give her a kiss on the cheek. “See you later”

“Bye sweetie. Good luck, don’t get in your head too much” She said as I walked out the kitchen and headed to the front door.

I grabbed my stuff sitting by the door and ran out and got in Erika’s car.

“Hey boo” I said as I opened the door and hopped into the passenger seat.

“Morning” She said, and immediately pulled out of the driveway.

“So I have some news” I said to her, I felt a really big, dorky smile come across my face.

“Yes?” She asked

“So, Andy and I made it official last night.” I said.

“Wait, I thought it already was?” She said a little confused

“Well so did I but I guess he didn’t since, well we never really had that talk. He brought it up last night when he came over.” I said

“Speaking of which, how was that? It was his first time meeting your mom wasn't it?” She asked, turning onto the main street.

“Really well. I think she really liked him. She only talked to him for like half an hour but he made a really great impression.” I said, smiling at the thought of how amazing he was “But, after that, we went up to my room and watched a movie and, well things got really intense. We started making out like, hardcore and you know, I usually would have taken things all the way, but I don’t know, I just couldn’t.”

“Really? I thought you liked him?” She said

“I do, I really do like a lot!” I exclaimed, “But I think thats why I couldn’t do it. I’m scared” I said

“Wow. You really do like him” She said. I knew this took her by surprise because I always talked to her about how I would hook up with guys and not really think twice about it. Don’t get me wrong I wasn’t a slut or anything but I was having sex with my old boyfriends.

“I really do” I said, and we both started laughing. “And did I tell you he spent the night?”

“What?” She exclaimed, her eyes wide. “I thought you said you didn't sleep with him”

“We didn’t! We almost did but I stopped it and thats when we made things official, but he stayed for a while and we fell asleep.” I confessed. “I had to get him out fast before my mom woke up”

She just laughed and I turned on some music and we jammed out all the way to the meet.

Once we got there, we met up with the team. C-team was about to run and we made our way to the starting line like we always did. It was tradition that everyone on the team find a place at the starting line to cheer on whatever team was running.

Once the gun went off for the start of the first race, Erika and I made our way back to the tent and stayed out of the sun. The guys had a different tent close to ours and I caught Aaron staring over at me. I decided that I needed to talk to him. Maturely, not get in some huge fight and have him run his race pissed and everyone blame me for his bad run. I walked over to the tent and I felt the eyes of the other guys on me, but I didn't really care.

“Aaron, I need to talk to you” I said, nodding my head in a direction away from both tents.

I heard the guys start whispering and I knew what they were saying. Aaron had talked to them and only gave them one sided stories, so they stopped talking to me after we broke up, even though we all used to be really good friends, you can’t break a bond that teammates have.

He got up and walked with me to a spot in front of the table that had snacks and water for our team.

“Whats up?” He asked, obviously annoyed that I was even in his presence.

“Look, I’m sorry for what happened on Monday. It was really stupid but I mean you didn't really give Andy a choice.” I said.

He rolled his eyes “So you pulled me over to lecture me and tell me that I was wrong?”

“No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.” I took a deep breath and said what I was going to say. “I pulled you over because, well I owe you an apology.” He looked a bit surprised at my apology but I kept going before he could say anything. “I shouldn't have said those things to you when you tried to talk to me a few weeks ago. It wasn't right of me to say those thing, and it definitely wasn't cool of me to lead you on for that long, especially since I was only doing it to make Damien jealous. It wasn't fair to you.”

There was a few seconds of silence before he said anything. “It’s okay. And I know I should have just backed off when you started dating him, but I just got jealous.” He said. “I can tell he makes you really happy. Happier than I ever did.”

“He does. I like him a lot.” I regretted saying that but, I don’t know I just couldn't help it. “But hey,” I said, giving him a a slight shoulder shove, “you're an amazing guy. I just wasn't the right girl for you. But you’ll find her, and she’ll appreciate you way more than I ever did. You deserve that”

He just looked at the ground and smiled shyly, “Thanks. I’m glad you decided to talk to me. I kind of missed being friends with you.” He said

“Yeah, I kinda did too. We were really great friends before we started dating weren't we?” I asked, thinking about how close we were before we started dating.

“Yeah, we really were.” He said. I just smiled and gave him a friendly hug.

“Good luck later.” I said.

“You too” He said as he walked back to his tent.

“Well well” I heard Erika say as I walked back to where we had our stuff “I see you and Aaron made up.”

“Well, I felt like I needed to talk to him and make amends for what happened on Monday.”

“It looks like you did more than that”

“Well, we may have also talked about what went down a few weeks ago when I told him that I was going on a date with Andy. I said I was sorry for leading him on and that it didn't work out between us.” I said “We were really great friends before we started dating and we decided that we should try to get back to that.”

“Well, I still don’t like him. He was a dick to Andy and I really like him and he didn’t deserve what Aaron did.” She said as she started to get her stuff ready to warm up.

“Well, he didn’t really do anything to him if you think about it” I said, also getting my stuff ready after I noticed she was.

She just laughed “Well true. Andy took him out, but still, it was the intention”

“Well all three of us were really good friends before, I hope you could forgive him too.” I said

“Whatever, I'll think about it. You ready? We need to get the rest of the girls and start warming up.” She said.

“Yeah.” I said. This is why Erika was chosen as captain this year. Rather than just being the best runner, she was also the best leader in terms of making sure we warm up on time and that were on the line 10 minutes before we started. I was chosen as a captain too since I was a senior and have been on varsity since I was a freshman, so technically we were co-captains, but I made Erika take the reigns on leadership.

We called all the varsity girls and we did our warm up and made sure we were on the starting line 10 minutes before the start of our race. We did one stride out to our coaches and they stopped us and talked to us before we started.

“Okay girls, its finally here. The first one of the season. We’ve been working real hard to get you guys here. You’ve been looking really good the past few weeks, and I know you’re just going to get better as the season goes on. So today lets just show everyone that we’re here, and were a force to be reckoned with this season. Lets do this ladies.” We put our hands in the middle and did our chant and we walked back to the finish line hand in hand like we always did. It became a tradition that started my freshman year by one of the upperclassman on the team.

We were all lined up and the starter was standing in the middle of the start, signaling that he was ready to start the race. I was way in the zone. This was my last first race that I would ever have. I made a promise to myself that I would give every race my all this year and when the starter said “Runners to your mark” I took a deep breath and silenced everyone out and listened for the sound of the gun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You did so good honey!” My mom came up to me after I crossed the finish line. She gave me a hug and I weakly hugged her back because I was still trying to catch my breath from the 400 meter sprint I did at the end of the 3 mile race so this girl wouldn't catch me.

As usual, I came in second for my team, about 20 seconds behind Erika, who got first overall, putting me in 5th place overall. I was proud of myself and my team, the next three runners, the ones who actually scored came in within about 5 seconds from each other, not too far behind me.

“Thanks mom” I said once I caught my breath.

“I haven’t seen you come in that close to Erika since you were a sophomore.” She said.

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been trying really hard to stay with her for the first two miles. You know she always picks it up her last mile and I’m more of a first half kind of runner so I try to stay as close to her as I can.” I said, still a little short of breath.

“Well I’m proud of you. I gotta go though, I’m having brunch with one of my students parents because she said she can’t make any meetings during the week” She rolled her eyes and gave me another hug. “I’m glad I made it for your race”

“Bye. I’ll see you at home.” I said. I barely took two steps before Erika found me and hugged me.

“Oh my god! You did so good! What is with you this season?” She asked

“I don’t know, I guess I just want a really good senior season.” I said

“Well, keep that up. The announcers are talking about us possibly taking state this year.” She said excitedly.

“No way! Really?”

“Yeah! And I mean, we could totally do it. And if you keep improving each week, we could be one and two at state.” She said

“You think so?” I asked, thinking about it and smiling.

“Totally! I’ll help you. We could start pushing it a little more on LSD days and if you just step up your pace a little on hard workouts, we would be unstoppable” She said, a smile creeping across her face.

I thought about it for a second. Ending my cross country career with a team state title and as a runner up individually? That sounds like something I only dreamed of my freshman year. But now, I actually had the opportunity to do it.

I smiled at her putting my hand up for a high five “Lets do it.” I said.

Her smile widened and she brought her hand up to meet mine “Yes” She exclaimed.

We walked together back to the tent hand in hand. The boys were already at the line and we quickly changed our shoes, put on sweats and headed over to the starting line. Once we got there, the gun just went off and our boys were at the head of the pack, like usual. Our boys team had taken state the past 3 years and were expected to win again this year, so Erika and I never really watched the boy race except for the start since we were expected to.

The race was over and awards were given out, they boys got first, like always, Aaron got second overall and got a medal. The girls team got also got first and Erika and I were also given medals for top 10. It was the first 1st place title we’ve gotten since my sophomore season. We always ended up second or third so we were really happy and so were our coaches.

Erika and I were almost at her car and I heard someone calling my name. I turned around and it was Aaron “Hey, I didn't talk to you after your race! You did really good! You too Erika!” He said looking over at her. She just rolled her eyes slightly and gave him a passive aggressive thanks and got in the drivers side.

“Thanks, you did really awesome too! And don’t worry about her, she’s good at holding grudges” I said reassuringly.

“It’s cool, don’t worry about it. Anyway, I came over cause some of the team is gonna hang out tonight at Jacobs house. Did you guys wanna come?” He asked. Jacob was one of the guys on the boys varsity team.

“Oh well, we were gonna go catch my boyfriends band play tonight.” I said, kind of regretting that i said boyfriend instead of calling him Andy. But it was kind of nice to say. His face looked a little disappointed but he just shrugged it off.

“Oh cool, well have a good time tonight.” He said and turned around and walked back towards the rest of the guys.

“You too!” I yelled back at him. I knew he still liked me but, we talked about just being friends and he was still acting like he had a chance with me, and it made me uncomfortable. I got in the car and Erika asked what he came over here for.

“Well to say good job and invite us over to Jacobs later. I guess a bunch of the team is going over later tonight.

“Oh okay. I thought he was going to pronounce his love for you again.” She said

“Shut up.” I said, pushing her and laughing. “Anyway were going to my boyfriends show” I said with a grin.

I was excited for tonight. I haven’t been to a concert in forever and I was really looking forward to a night out with Andy and Erika.