Running to Hawaii

Jeremiah is waiting for Susie to meet him. He has one leg propped up on the park bench, and his right hand braced against the thigh of the said leg, his fingers pressing into his skin as though it can reach the muscle underneath. 

Jeremiah didn’t want to get up to run this morning, but Susie never doesn’t want to get up to run, and the thought of her thinking he can’t keep up with her is unbearable. 

Jeremiah and Susie were chosen, long before they met, before they even lived in the same town, before they were even born, to love each other. They are soulmates, twin flames. They will only ever be exactly perfect for eachother. In a thousand lifetimes they have searched for each other, and in this one they have finally, at long last, come together. 

Jeremiah is married to Angela, they have two children and a third one on the way. 

Susie is married to Kevin, she has twin toddlers who look just like their father and not at all like Susie.

Jeremiah sees Susie approaching, noticeable at a long way off by her bright pink jogging set, and neon yellow sneakers. She never wears the same set two days in a row, and for a long time Jeremiah imagined that she had a walk-in closet filled with leggings and sports bras in a neon explosion. Eventually he cracked the code, and so today he would know that it is Wednesday if he had forgot, just by seeing Susie’s bubblegum form bouncing towards him. 

Jeremiah’s favorite is Monday, because yellow makes Susie’s amber eyes sparkle like the inside of a crystal. 

Susie sees Jeremiah stretching at the park bench and she feels a bubble of joy rise in her chest, like carbonation in a soda. The curl of his spine over his leg reminds her of the angularity of young trees growing twisted towards the light, and when he straightens up, he becomes a solid oak, just like that. 

She can see his smile from here, straight white teeth and full pink lips. Susie thinks about Jeremiah’s smiling lips almost as much as Jeremiah thinks about Susie’s yellow jogging set eyes. Almost, but not quite. 

Susie and Jeremiah jog together in the park at 6:45 every day except for Sunday, since Susie’s husband is Christian, and she goes to church with him. Their jog is approximately thirty-six minutes, and they run three point five miles in this time. They have been jogging together since April nineteenth, and it is now October second. They are both resolutely refusing to talk about what they will do when it becomes too cold and snowy to jog. Jeremiah is imagining two gym memberships, fleece lined leggings, hand warmers. Susie is refusing to think further beyond each day.

“Good morning,” she says, stopping a few feet away from her. Her breath makes a tiny puff of white in the air. “How are you doing?”

“Good morning,” Jeremiah replies, imagining what it might feel like to run his hands along her long stick straight ponytail. He imagines it would feel like silk, in reality, the static would shock him, and he would have to pull his hand away. “I’m doing good, trying to loosen these legs, I’m stiff this morning.”

Susie smiles, imagining what it would feel like to place her hand on his hard, muscular legs, to run her hands under the hem of his black running shorts. She imagines he would feel like smooth steel, in reality her hands would be cold, and he would yelp, and step away with a self conscious laugh. 

“They’ll warm up once we get moving!” She says brightly, and jogs in place for a minute. “Ready?”

“Ready!”

Jeremiah and Susie run with exactly two feet of distance between them, so there is absolutely no risk of their elbows brushing. They are always exactly in stride, even though sometimes Jeremiah will try to speed up to tease Susie, she never falls out of step.

“How did the meeting go?” Susie asks.

There is never any time to spare, they have just half an hour to catch each other up on their days before, and share their aspirations for the day ahead.

“It could have been better,” Jeremiah replies, “I don’t think that my client is ready to forgive and forget, which he needs to be preparing for, since there’s no way I’m going to beat his ex wife’s lawyer. An Englishman,” Jeremiah says pointedly, and Susie hides a smile.

Jeremiah is a divorce lawyer, and what she has gathered, not a very good one. He is always telling her some reason that the other lawyer is better, usually revolving around University attended, or in some scenarios, country originated. It is the most endearing thing in the world, she thinks, that he has no idea how terrible he is at his job. Privately, Susie thinks that she could do better at representing his poor clients, even though she went to school to be a dental hygienist. 

“I have faith in you,” she says, because she does, even though she knows he will lose this case as surely as she knows that she loves him more than her husband, more than any other man in the world. She has faith in him because she knows that no matter what happens in the courtroom the day before, he will be waiting for at the park bench the next morning, in his too short black shorts and tight gray spandex shirt that sometimes rides up when he stretches, and shows a strip of darkly haired stomach above the waistband of his shorts. 

“How did Elijah’s appointment go?” Jeremiah asks. 

Susie, who stopped working two years ago when she gave birth to Elijah and Evan, tells Jeremiah the mundane and fascinating details of motherhood, which she had initially assumed Jeremiah would be sick of hearing about from Angela. She learned early on, however, that Angela took six weeks of maternity leave at Jeremiah’s insistence, and has a full time nanny to make up for being a full time business owner of a largely successful boutique. 

Susie tries to not to compare herself to the image she had of Angela, but she can’t help it, seeing herself as a much better mother but a far less successful woman. 

Susie and Jeremiah don't avoid the topic of their spouses. At first it was nearly all they talked about, before they accepted the fact that they were deeply in love, and always would be, and really always had been. They talk to each other about their lives, and since Angela and Kevin are significant parts of their lives, they don’t avoid them.

“It went well,” Susie says, answering Jeremiah’s question. Her voice is slightly higher pitched and breathy as it was at first, as they find their stride. “Apparently he is allergic to oatmeal though, which is what was causing the rash.”

“Emmie was allergic to avocados,” Jeremiah says, “But she grew out of it by the time she was six.”

“I can’t even imagine the twins being six,” Susie laughs, “It’s hard to imagine them ever out of these terrible twos.”

“It’ll happen,” Jeremiah promises, “Time flies by once they turn three, it feels like a heartbeat ago we were so relieved that Damian was out of his bout of terrible two-ness, and now he’s almost a teenager.”

Susie is quiet for a minute, imagining what her boys will look like as teenagers. Probably short and strong and kind eyed, like Kevin. She imagines what she will look too, and Jeremiah. She can’t imagine what life will be like then, and doesn’t want to imagine it. 

“We should wait until your boys are older, and until the new baby is at least five, before we go to Hawaii,” Jeremiah says, “I want them all to really appreciate it, it would be terrible if they couldn’t even remember.”

Susie brightens, “Ooh yes!” She exclaims, “I want to make sure everyone can swim really well, I don’t want to have to be worrying about anyone drowning.”

“You just worry about the sharks,” Jeremiah says, and Susie laughs aloud.

It’s a game that they play when there aren't many updates to share with each other. If it had a name, it would be called “When We Go to Hawaii.” They slip seamlessly into playing it and back out again, and never discuss it. They both know it will never happen, and yet perhaps if they speak about it so confidentially, somehow, by some stroke of unbelievable magic, it will.

“I know Evan would just love to see a dolphin,” Susie says, “We can take them to one of those places where they let kids swim in the water with dolphins in a big cage.”

“Hopefully Emmie will have overcome her fear of fish by then,” Jeremiah says, “Or she will be holding down the beach towel.”

“Oh I bet she will be begging to help the new baby swim. Of course the new baby will be five by then, and probably swimming like a fish.” Susie imagines the new baby, who is currently still inside Angela’s stomach, as a tiny copy of Jeremiah, his black curls and dimples sized down and softened. 

When they play this game, they combine their families into one big one; they imagine their children as siblings, themselves as husband and wife. They imagine themselves running on the beach at sunrise, and there is no distance between them, their shoulders are pressed together and hands tightly intertwined.

Of course Jeremiah and Susie never share these imaginations with the other, but that’s the special thing about soul mates, they don’t have to, they already see the same thing. 

“Imagine Damian sunbathing,” Jeremiah says with a chuckle, “He’ll wear sunglasses and pretend to be asleep but really be ogling every bikini he can spot.”

Susie laughs, because although in reality she has never even seen a picture of Damian, in their game she is his mother, and it is such a sweet and wonderful thought that it feels real.

She is laughing, and glancing sideways at the smiling and running Jeremiah, and she doesn’t notice the stick on the sidewalk in front of her. Her feet fly out from beneath her and her breath wooshes out of her in a rush to escape. 

For a moment she lies there, trying to remember how to breathe, and Jeremiah stares down at her, his heart in his throat with panic, her name on his tongue. There is a tangible, endless moment of hesitation, and then Jeremiah squats down beside her, puts a hand on her shoulder, then on her arm, his other hand touches the back of her hand, runs down her ponytail. There is static in her hair, and he feels the sharp jolt of shock run through his palm.

She gasps, he hears the sound and it sends a shiver down his spine, he lets go of her like she is burning, and she reaches up for him, her hand landing on his thigh. Her palm is cold from the pavement, and he steps back, the surprise making him act before he thinks.

When Susie stands up, Jeremiah cannot meet her eyes.

For a minute they stand there in silence, Jeremiah’s gaze fixed on the torn spots at the knees of her leggings, at the bright red shock of blood blooming above her left one. 

Susie stares at the stick that she tripped over, counting her breaths and refusing to cry.

Finally, Jeremiah says, “In Hawaii, we’ll go running on the beach, and if you fall, I’ll throw myself in front of you.” 

Slowly, Susie looks up at him, meets his tortured eyes. “In Hawaii,” she says, trembling, “The sand will be so white, it’ll be like falling on clouds. You wouldn’t even have to catch me.”

“I will though,” says Jeremiah. “I’ll never let you fall.”

Susie smiles, although her heart is breaking. 

They turn away from each other, fall into step two feet apart, and start to run again, Susie limping slightly, Jeremiah matching her new pace perfectly. 

They turn the corner in the sidewalk, and disappear, and if you saw them from behind, you would never have any idea, none at all.