Gray is the Color of a Runner's Ghost

In the end, I trace it all back to my cousin's obsession with the history of literature. My cousin Daisy and I were born one day apart, and a few hours later, her mom died. Daisy and I grew up eating Lucky Charms together on Saturday mornings in front of a repeating cycle of our favorite Scooby Doo episodes. She was the first person I told when I realized that my crush on Fred from the movie meant something more than I was brave enough to admit. So when the casting call was put up for our school's musical production of Romeo and Juliet, I let her drag me along. But there was no way I would be trying out for a part, even as a member of the entourage with no lines.

“Do you want to give it a go, Adam?” asked Mr. Baptiste, the drama instructor and algebra teacher. “Be our potential next Romeo?”

“No way,” I mumbled. I hugged my backpack against my chest and slinked down into the nearest chair.

As I fidgeted in the plush pomegranate-colored seat in the back row of the auditorium, I saw him. His eyes were like luminescent kiwi flesh, and he had the low, husky voice of a chain smoker as he called out to his friend, though he was only a teenager. Did I imagine the smirk he flashed in my direction as he jogged down the middle aisle? I felt my face blaze like a hot star as I cleared my throat and sunk lower into my seat. It was the beginning of ninth grade, when everything somehow felt momentous.

The auditions passed in a blur. Daisy did brilliantly, as always, her voice rising to the high notes of a Broadway star. I waited for Mr. Chain Smoker to take the stage, but he never did. I later found out that he was doing scenery. 

Daisy knew right away when we exited the auditions. 

“Come on, spill the tea,” she said, elbowing me.

I lowered my voice. 

“I don’t think I can ever recover from this one,” I said.

“So do something about it!” said Daisy.

************************************************************

My first interaction with him happened a week later, as I paced the back of the auditorium waiting for Daisy to run through her lines as Juliet. I was used to playing the supporting role to Daisy’s stardom. He took the seat next to mine, and my breath caught in my chest. He nodded at me.

“Sup.”

I opened and closed the zipper of my backpack, rummaging around as if I was going into anaphylaxis and my EpiPen was buried somewhere inside. 

“Yep, I’m just, um. Hi. Hello. I forgot something. Gotta head out.” I got up and fled as I heard him say, “Okay then. Bye, stranger.”

Idiot! I thought. 

October came and went, and I still froze like a stopped clock every time I glimpsed him in the hall. As the air outside grew grayer and my hands started to feel like the inside of a bag of frozen peas every time I stepped out the door, I learned little facts about him. I hoarded these bits of knowledge like a kid with Halloween candy. He liked to sketch during lunchtime, and his favorite thing to read was poetry by Maya Angelou or Sylvia Plath. He always brought the same lunch, a protein bar and a green apple. He was on the track team but hated running. He wore a cross around his neck, tucked into his shirt. His best friend was a junior named Angela who wore a nose ring and dyed her hair a different color every month. But most of his other friends were a group of loud assholes I tried to avoid. One of them once caught me staring at him and said, “Do you need something, Stalker?” 

“Oh yeah, he needs it bad.” The tall, burly guy on the left rocked backward and forward, rolling his eyes back. They all laughed. Except for him. He didn’t look like he’d heard.

************************************************************

His name was Christian. The name bounced around in the cave of my mind at all hours.

Sometimes he talked to me, and I got better at responding in full sentences. Our conversations would go something like this:

Christian: “Are you going to study for the history test?”

Me: “Yes, I am. Yeah. Is that lame?”

Christian: “No, I was actually wondering if maybe you wanted to—”

Me: “I have to pee. Really bad. Later!”

Sometimes they were a little smoother:

Christian: “I saw the Buffy poster in your locker. That show is so underrated.”

Me: “Yeah, totally. Um… Heh.” 

We didn’t have any classes together. 

“Offer to help with scenery!” Daisy told me one Monday afternoon after the final bell had rung. “They need some extra hands now that we are three weeks out from the show!” 

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate my previous artistic work from ten years ago, Smiling Sun over Two-Dimensional House.” 

“Literally, I can’t help you anymore. Chicken. You have everything going for you. You just need to talk to him.” She shook her head and walked away.

I took a big gulp of air and walked into the auditorium, my heart a broken metronome rapping an unsteady beat against my rib cage. I heard his voice before I saw him. I walked backstage on unsteady legs. 

“Hey, a little bird told me you can use some help.” My voice sounded shaky. Christian looked up and his eyes widened.

“Yes! Of course! Here, take a paint brush. You can just put an even coat of silver on everything here.” He gestured towards a pile of arches.  “Don’t worry about getting it perfect. I’ll detail it afterwards.” 

 A warm feeling kindled in my belly. I sat down on the floor and dipped the dry brush in a can of paint.

“We were just playing ‘kiss, kill, or marry,’” said Angela, giving me a warm smile.

“I was told this was strictly a painting activity, but no one mentioned I would need experience as an assassin. I guess I’ll have to update my resume.” I aggressively chewed my watermelon gum, the cloying taste reaching the back of my throat. I coughed as everyone went silent. “Sorry, that was a weird thing to say. I just meant, because of the killing part.”

“Hah. Well, how about this? Ron Weasley, Harley Quinn, and George Washington?” This question came from Christian. It felt like this was a test, but in a subject I didn’t know.

“I would definitely kill Ron Weasley, but he’s just so punchable sometimes. Plus, he’s already escaped death so many times that his karma has to have run out. Kill Harley Quinn, because I’ve always wanted to go head-to-head with the Joker in a duel… I guess I would marry George Washington, because that would make history very interesting.” 

Angela chuckled. “That was very specific. It’s like you’ve thought this through before.” A couple of the other kids gave me nods of approval.

“You’re cool,” said a boy with a mustache, who I was pretty sure was a senior. “You should hang with us this weekend. We’re going to the mall.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I looked over at Christian. He was looking down, his face black as he worked on the finishing touches of a large cardboard moon. My stomach sank. 

As we wrapped up an hour later, I saw Christian lacing up his running shoes. “Are you going running now?” I asked. “You’ll freeze your butt off.” 

“Gotta train.” Christina flexed his left bicep, facing sideways like Rosie the Riveter. “We can do it!” His arm was Spartan, muscle on bone. He looked miserable.

“Let me come with you!” I said. It came out of my mouth before I could stop myself, like I was playing a video game and my response was predestined. Something in me felt like maybe he needed me.

Christian nodded. “Thanks. I could use the company.” 

We exited through a side door and ran in silence for fifteen minutes on the track behind the school. My lungs burned from the cold air. The sky was the color of dryer lint. It felt like my heart would explode out in a shower of splintered bone. The only sound was the thump thump of our feet hitting the frozen ground. I finally sank to the floor, my sore muscles pulsating like radioactive tree sap. It felt like I couldn’t get enough air. 

“You okay?” he called. 

“Yup! Just taking a break!” I tried not to reveal how out of breath I was. 

I watched him circle past one time, two times, ten, thirteen. His face was marble; his eyes were empty like a billowing curtain.

An hour went by. It was dark outside. By then, my sweat had dried and I had the chills.

“Hey!” I called. 

He didn’t look like he had heard me.

“Hey, I think we should head home! It’s late!”

“One more lap,” he muttered as he passed. 

He did three more laps, then sat beside me and scooped up his bag. He took a long drink of water and sat still.

“Can I tell you something?” He didn’t turn to me as he spoke, just stared straight ahead.

“Sure.” 

“Sometimes it feels like I can’t stop.” He picked at his fingernail as he said it, and a drop of crimson blood trickled out. 

“What do you mean?” I said. I wanted to inch closer to him, to hold his thin shoulders in a tight hug.

“Like I can’t stop running. I’m so tired, but it feels like if I stop… These thoughts will catch up with me.” He gripped his hair. “Every day I wake up, and it’s the same thing. It feels like it will never end.”

“I’m… Sorry. That sounds hard.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“It just feels like if I disappeared one day, no one would really care. It’s like there is this gray cloud over me and it will never go away. I’m hungry and tired. But I’m afraid to eat. I’ve never said that out loud before. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” His laugh sounded empty. “I guess I have nothing to lose.” 

“I would care if you were gone! You’re… You’re just something else. It would make a difference to me if you disappeared.”

For the first time in this conversation, he turned to me. “Why? You don’t even know me.”

“I don’t. But I’d like to know you better. I think you’re really cool. I’ve thought that for a while.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Can I kiss you?” he said. 

For a second, it felt like I was a figurine on the inside of a snow globe that was being turned upside-down. But it didn’t feel like how I had expected it to feel. I had pictured this moment so many times, but now that it was here I just wanted to vomit into the nearest garbage can. It was like I was all alone in the world, alone with someone else’s trauma. 

“I’m sorry,” I said. I stood up. “I don’t… Like you that way. I have to go.” My breath caught it my throat as I ran away, leaving him crumpled on the ground like a puppet. 

************************************************************

I was relieved not to see him at school the next day. 

And the day after that, I started to get worried.

But he returned that Friday, looking normal in his plaid jacket and black pants. 

I didn’t come back to help with the set for the play, and the production of Romeo and Juliet came and went. Daisy killed it. 

“What ever happened with your crush on the artist boy?” she asked on the car ride home.

“Shhh!” I hissed.

“After all my hard work to set you up, you bailed.” She rolled her eyes. “Typical.” 

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. What are you, the shtetl matchmaker? This is 2016.”

Mid-April brought the scent of dirt and hope through the classroom window as I watched Christian running on the track outside. He had lost some weight, and his cheekbones were knife-sharp. I told myself it was none of my business and turned back to my notebook, which had some haphazard notes about Charles Darwin.

************************************************************

The funeral was five months later in a local church. Christian had died of a heart attack while out on a run. I didn’t plan to go, but on that morning I found that my feet had brought me to a pew in the very back of the church.

“He died doing what he loved most,” his sister choked out at the funeral. “He was so talented. No one could have predicted this would happen to him. But I feel his presence here, watching over us.”

I left as soon as I could. Next thing I knew, I was behind the school, looking out at the empty track. There was a shrine there for Christian. 

“I’m sorry!” I said. “I didn’t know how to help you.” But even I wondered if that was true. The sun burned the back of my neck. In my peripheral vision, I saw a gray blur. I turned around. 

“Hello?” I called. I felt a chill down my spine. I saw a flash of gray again. “Is someone here?” The only answer was an unseasonably cool breeze that rushed through my hair.