It hurts to realize how unnecessary I am. From what little I’ve let Fiona tell me, school life seems the same as always. Track meets happen. The same flitty people are still flitting about. The same teachers are keeping to their same routines. The same lunchtime activities and rallies and club meetings still take place.
I fell off, but the merry-go-round keeps moving.
Lucy died, but the merry-go-round keeps moving.
Still. As much as thinking this upsets me, I’m starting to see that I need the merry-go-round much more than it needs me, and in the end my choice is to hop back on or get left in the dust.
So I take a deep breath and ask about the one thing that means the most to me.
The one thing I absolutely don’t want to hear about.
“How’s track?”
All her little fidgeting motions stop. She studies me a moment, then says, “We lost to Mount Vernon by six points. They swept the four hundred and won the four-by-four-hundred. It lost us the meet.”
I have a twinge of comfort.
Maybe the merry-go-round at least slowed down with me gone.
The Running Dream, p82
Wendelin Van Draanen
ISBN 978-0-375-86667-8
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