Moving Forward
Emma Sheldon
aug 2020
It was 4 p.m. in Kansas City, the time of afternoon where humidity coats the air like a thick layer of mucus and you can fry an egg on the sidewalk. Under the boiling August sun, four miles felt like eight. We gasped for air through screaming lungs as our bodies cried tears of sweat from every orifice. As we neared the home stretch, a low, ominous rumble shook the sky, and a second later, the world stopped burning. Dark storm clouds enveloped us, wiping our shadows from the pavement and sending down pounding sheets of rain. As the water hit our sizzling skin, we laughed and cried in wild, hysterical joy. We looked at each other, awed by the world and its timing and this pain we loved so much. Then, with renewed vigor, we took off down the Ward Parkway hill, our legs fueled by the electricity of being alive.
Before the fall of my senior year, I could barely run a mile. Then, two weeks prior to the start of the cross-country season, my friend Zosia and I began to joke about joining the team.
“Hey Z, maybe we should start running,” I suggested through a mouth full of pizza. For a second, we tried to imagine it—then immediately broke into laughter, settling back into our spots on the couch. Yeah, right.
We couldn’t just snap our fingers and radically change our lifestyle; become those people who go kill six miles to unwind. When I mentioned the idea to my mother, she, too, laughed, having accepted the limits of my capabilities a long time ago. “You don’t like exercise,” she reminded me.
I suspect it was sometime after that moment I realized I needed to do it, for a long list of reasons—none of which included an affinity for running. I knew Zosia’s motives did not stem from a life-long dream of being a cross-country star, either. Despite our severe lack of experience and basic agility, we felt a shared sense of indignation which ultimately made the decision for us. So when I received a text message from Zosia one day saying, “I will if you will,” suddenly, the promise of her companionship seemed bigger than any fear I had.
It was decided. We were going to be runners.
The following three months were sweaty, punishing, breathless, and later, euphoric. Zosia and I went from being sedentary lumps to full-time athletes who ran four miles a day and sported obnoxious, dinosaur-sized Garmin watches to prove it. And to the surprise of both ourselves and our bewildered peers, we found that we really enjoyed it. Although the first two weeks made me feel like I was waging a violent war against my body, I emerged from them mentally and physically awakened. Being in running shape was a bit like stimulants. It came with intense highs and lows which made me feel as if my mind and body had leveled up to their highest performance capacity. I was Mario after eating two super mushrooms. I could climb multiple flights of stairs with childlike ease, eat four peanut butter sandwiches in one sitting, and write for hours without distraction. Zosia and I had discovered our new favorite drug, and together, we reveled in this secret superpower that none of our other friends could understand or take away from us.
We ran together every day—through sprawling, green parks and sun-soaked afternoon streets; under painted, pink skies and misty morning drizzle. In these times I was alone with her, off on some trail, disconnected from everything but my heart rate and the sound of her breathing, life felt simpler. The moving silence seemed to coax our secrets out of their hiding spots. Inhale. I told her I was scared I was becoming as judgmental as my mother. Exhale. She told me she wasn’t religious, but she believed in heaven. Then we wouldn’t talk for a while. Guided by the flow of the landscape, we’d each retreat into our private thoughts. And eventually, when footsteps fell in line and our bodily rhythms synchronized, we no longer needed words to communicate. The things we couldn’t say aloud always found their way to the other.
Running became a sacred, secluded space through which we developed more intimate understandings of one another. I knew that Zosia always needed to take a break at mile three, but wouldn’t stop unless I did first, because she didn’t want to slow me down. She liked to be on my right side and pushed herself the hardest on the last mile. Her pace was intense and unforgiving. It seemed like she was running to punish herself for something. I wondered if she could tell I was doing the same.
I met Zosia in seventh grade. Because she was also half Chinese and a full head shorter than me at the time, I referred to her as my little dumpling. She was different from all my other friends. She wore socks with polar bears on them and watched science documentaries in her free time. Her cute, childlike smile gave her an allure of innocence which made parents fall in love with her instantly, but in reality, was terribly deceiving. Zosia never lost an argument and, if necessary, could destroy enemies in an instant with her formidable wit. She was extremely selective when it came to her friends and didn’t bother to pretend with those who weren’t. I was lucky enough to be one of them—likely due to how similar we were. We’d both grown up with strict Asian parenting and it showed. Neither of us were keen on inviting friends over for dinner, we studied like our lives depended on it, and underneath our obedient, A+ exteriors, we each had something self-destructive building inside of us.
One Wednesday in the middle of the season, we were running endurance training during practice. It was a timed workout: eight times up the hill on the two-minute. Zosia and I had been maintaining a steady pace until the seventh hill. Completely out of gas, we trudged up the steep, residential street like slugs. Never have I been more aware of my own physical limitations than on that unholy hill. As we ascended, something explosive bubbled up inside of me—a pulsing, full-body rage that radiated heat off my skin. I was making sounds I didn’t recognize, as every suppressed feeling from the past two years rose like bile in my throat. Each gasp for breath, an inaudible scream. Together, Zosia and I touched the center of our pain and then kept running, despite every force working against us. And when we finally stopped and our heart rates slowed, for a moment, everything would be clearer. We felt relief in the stillness, rather than fear.
During that final year, our lives became fiercely intertwined in a new way. Our decision to run solidified the fact that we’d both outgrown our lives in KC. Living in anticipation of our mothers’ criticism made us feel small, as did the way most of our relationships and conversations there seemed to follow a repetitive course. We needed something new and freeing in our lives to combat the suffocation, because the longer we lived the same routine with the same thirty people, the more we felt the urge to rip someone’s ponytail off.
On Halloween, we went to a party dressed up as the Team Rocket villains from Pokémon (slutty edition™) because we felt more powerful together. In white, glow-in-the-dark fishnet stockings, tall, platform boots, and neon pink eyeliner, we looked like intergalactic angels. That night, we dressed for no one but each other, and as a result, we were untouchable—our glossy, vinyl boots deflecting every seething look aimed our way. We ended up leaving early because we were unimpressed, apathetic, and hungry. As is true of most holidays, the night failed to meet our expectations—so we left in search of chicken nuggets and more meaningful landscapes.
Of all the things we did, I felt that our greatest rebellion against our hometown identities took place in the moments we were alone. Talking to Zosia was the most thrilling adventure I’d ever taken. I swore she came from somewhere far away; she was unpredictable, genuine, fearless. She confronted people who mistreated me and regularly asked to read my writing. She breathed life into me no matter what we were doing: running, drunk in a basement bathroom talking shit about the people on the other side of the door, or sitting in the car at night, trying to stall going home.
Later that year, on the night of our last high school prom, Zosia and I had a sleepover with five of our closest friends. We ate pizza in the kitchen until we had to call it a night at 3 a.m. because none of us could physically stay awake any longer. As we yawned and stumbled our way up the stairs, Zosia suggested that we all get ready for bed in Cath’s room. We made our way up to the attic and immediately went to raid her giant drawer of pajamas. It was during that dazed blur of limbs and fuzzy pants when I realized that something felt off. Later, when we were brushing our teeth, I went to use the sink and caught a glimpse of Zosia’s face in the mirror. Her usually pink, glowy cheeks had turned a startling, cold white. I met her eyes and recognized a look of fear in them I’d only seen a few times before—in the car, pulling into her driveway.
I looked at her with quiet, calm concern, keeping my movements subtle in order to avoid catching the others’ attention. I let my wide eyes ask the unspoken questions: are you okay? But unlike our usual silences, this time she felt far away. She averted her gaze quickly, knowing that another second would have revealed too much. Then, toothbrush still in hand, she left.
I stood there, immobilized. I could always reach her, but that night she was a ghost, slipping through my fingers like a whisper. I knew how to be there for her by listening, by being the only one of our friends who understood what it was like to be raised by a Chinese mother; by matching the pace of her strides. However, I’d never seen her like this—completely unraveled, defenseless. I had no idea what my next move should be. I felt afraid. If I went to her now, I knew we wouldn’t be able to go back.
I found her downstairs. I heard a noise coming from the lower bedroom, so I tiptoed inside. Everything was dark except for a sliver of light that shone through the crack of a locked door. I moved closer, immediately recognizing her small, black combat boots sitting beside it. A bath was running, which, at first, made it difficult to hear her. A few soft coughs carried over the sound of rushing water, followed by muffled sobs. And then once, twice, three times, four, she heaved, taking away all of the day’s pain and flushing it down the toilet. It seemed to go on forever, until the bathwater stopped. It was over. She was clean now.
I began to feel claustrophobic in the darkness. My heart flew out of my throat and across the room as the weight of the moment settled over me and I realized how unprepared I was for what would come next. But when the door finally opened and she emerged in a big tee shirt, she didn’t seem at all surprised to find me waiting there. She looked weary, but she also looked relieved.
“Sorry, I had to shower,” she said. Her hair was dry.
“Let’s sleep in here tonight,” I offered gently, at a loss for other words.
I wasn’t sure if an hour had gone by or just ten minutes.
We were lying on separate twin beds, scared to breathe. The air was charged with our joint anxiety. It wasn’t shock that ate at me, but guilt—for never asking her if she wanted to talk about it out of fear of overstepping. Now, that seemed so stupid. I think I’d known about her disorder for longer than I realized, the same way she knew that I sometimes took pills to make it easier to be a person I could be proud of. These were the things we never talked about; the things that filled our voids but also made them so much bigger. Although when we were together we pretended these parts of us weren’t real, we had always felt their silent, aching presence in our friendship.
From the beginning, these afflictions had been the invisible forces that bound us in our commitment to running together. Without ever voicing it, we each understood the role that running played in the other’s life—an escape from the toxic desires that constantly took hold of us. For me, running provided feelings of euphoria and self-worth that I had, for a while, only known to come from a prescription pill bottle. When Zosia ran, it was her way of pushing her body to its extreme limits so that she wouldn’t feel the urge to later, at home.
I crawled out of bed and felt my way toward her in the dark. I slipped under the cold sheets and pulled her close to me. I expected her stiffness; we both had a slight aversion to physical touch, but she melted into me immediately. I wanted my warmth to fill up all of the emptiness inside her. She never let people touch her hair, but tonight, I knew I was allowed. I ran my fingers through the length of it until all the tangles were gone, letting her know she was safe. And then, knowing no one else could hear, we surrendered to each other, setting our shame free in the tiny space between us. I-am-always-right mothers. Self-hatred. Bingeing. Little orange pills. When we were done talking, we lay still. Her shallow breathing slowly steadied, and I fell asleep to that reassuring sound.
A few months later, I drove out to the middle of Missouri to stay at a friend’s lake house. It was late July, but the sun was surprisingly gentle. The glittering
blue water and wistful breeze made the scene feel altogether unreal. I came with Zosia and Cath, along with some of our guy friends. There were no parents in sight. We’d decided to stay for a night seeing as this was one of the last times we’d all be together before we left for college. That day, we swam. When we got tired, we crowded onto a large, party-sized floatie and reminisced about our lives which would soon no longer include each other. We grilled enough hot dogs to feed a football team and afterwards, exercised our adult freedom by cutting watermelon into slices that were so monstrously large they seemed sinful.
After it got dark, we sat outside on the dock and played our favorite drinking games. The night was sweetened by preemptive nostalgia, making it feel like we were characters in a 90s high school movie. Later, we went back inside, and at some point I found myself snuggling on a bed with Cath. She was being her usual drunken, sentimental self, which, tonight, entailed her going on a tangent about how we all needed to stay friends in college. I nodded my head lazily, only half listening. Her next words came out of nowhere, startling me back into consciousness.
“What?” I replied, bewildered.
“You know it’s true,” she said, drawing out every syllable dramatically.
My “what” was not a question of what had been said, but rather my exclamation of disbelief in response to it. Nevertheless, she repeated herself.
“You are in love with Z,” she said for the second time. “You guys both are, I can tell.”
This time, I laughed. She was so off-base. Then we went downstairs, because I was beginning to feel claustrophobic in that room.
***
I spent the rest of the night in a pensive, dreamlike trance, imagining that Zosia and I were white water rafting in the Costa Rican rapids. We always talked about wanting to do it together, even though we knew that it was more of a fantasy than an intention.
Over the course of the past year, my feelings for her had grown increasingly muddled. I knew I loved her in a consuming, chaotic way that felt larger than the other relationships in my life. But I never thought I was ‘in love’—at least in the way Cath had suggested. Unlike the many trails we’d traversed that year, this one felt utterly aimless.
It was no secret that our friendship carried romantic undertones, those which seemed to make guys think they could approach us at parties and bring up a threesome. We’d laugh it off, call it an innocent joke, because we had always classified our love affair as a platonic flirtation between best friends. At least I had. I did not think about girls that way, and to my knowledge, neither did she. So, although Cath’s words stirred something repressed inside of me, I was far too flustered and in denial at the time to let those feelings take shape.
***
There’s a corny cross country slogan that goes, “Our sport is your sport’s punishment.” It’s true. In my opinion, distance running is total misery 80% of the time, and during the other 20%, you’re still in pain, but at some point, the endorphins and all the other good feelings eclipse it, and that is the most overwhelming, addictive sensation because it comes directly from the pain.
***
Now that I am far away from home and the boundaries it imposed, I wouldn’t say I am less confused, but I no longer believe my confusion invalidates me. Here’s what I know:
1. I’m straight.
2. Catherine was right about everything.
For a while, I struggled to understand how these two things could simultaneously be true. I never wanted to admit my feelings because they felt fraudulent—like I was trying to encroach on some domain I had no right to be
in. My desire lacked definition, so I refused to let it be real.
***
Zosia just recently ran her first half marathon in Maine. I called her immediately afterwards to congratulate her. She admitted she only ran half of it and walked the rest, but I could tell she felt proud—no matter how imperfect her race was.
***
I once read that we aren’t just attracted to the things we love about another person, but it can also be that our pain is attracted to their pain. In that year of running, recovery, and relapse, I wonder if, somewhere along the way, my pain fell in love with Zosia’s pain. Maybe our pain was so right together that it didn’t care how we identified ourselves. Maybe what we had was so inexplicably intense because, just like the joy we felt in running, it came from the pain.