Running Away From Himself

Alex shoved his feet into a pair of old running shoes and laced them up with a sigh. He didn’t really want to do this, go run with Cassidy, but he knew that he had to. After all, he was the one who pushed for a running partner. After two months of putting off inviting her for a run, she had invited him on a run the last time they saw each other – in Costco, both buying cases of kombucha – and for some unknown reason, he had said yes. He wasn’t sure why he was nervous. He’s a trauma surgeon, and a damn good one. He saves lives on a daily basis. And, sure, Cassidy’s gorgeous, but he’s not looking for a romantic partner. He just wants someone to run with. Besides, she was his patient. She was unconscious on his table while he screwed her leg back together. And she’s a lawyer, he’s a surgeon. They’re both way too busy for each other. Oh – and he suspects she’s gay.

No. He has absolutely no idea why she makes him nervous. He suspects it’s that she’s always so put together, smiling, casually runs five miles, climbs harder routes than he does, and came back way faster from a pretty nasty leg break than anyone ever expected. Her dog is adorable. She’s clearly intelligent. Hell, she bought a fixer-upper and is doing all the work herself. It’s who he wishes he could be, who he hopes people see him as.

He reflects on all of this as he walks the few blocks from his house to Cassidy’s. When he gets there, she’s in the front yard, dressed in her own running clothes, stretching on the ground. Zion is sitting next to her, but wags his tail energetically and bolts over to Alex as soon as he sees him. Alex chuckles, steeling himself to be the sociable, organized, confident surgeon that he needs people to see, and squats to give the hound some belly rubs. Cassidy is in a complete split and bent so far forward that her forehead is touching the ground, a thin strip of white skin appearing between her cropped top and leggings.

“I’d be stuck if I did that,” he says. Cassidy laughs, a warm and genuine sound that makes Alex a little bit more self-conscious about the mask he wears constantly.

“Tons of yoga. A wise surgeon told me once it would help me get my strength back faster after I broke my leg. Of course, I already had a pretty great base, since I’ve been teaching it for almost fifteen years.” She lifts her head and winks with the comment about the wise surgeon, and Alex hopes she doesn’t see him turning pink. “Anyways, I mostly just don’t want to hurt myself again, so I’m making stretching and warming up a priority. ZZ Tops already got a nice long walk in so I don’t complete embarrass myself going from nothing to running.”

“ZZ Tops. I like it. I’m guessing Zion has lots of nicknames?”

“That’s the one I use the most. He also occasionally gets Zsa Zsa Gabor. Sometimes I just call him by other Utah National Parks, but he doesn’t really answer to those. Utah, he does answer to, though.” She unfolds from her deep bend and pulls herself from sitting to standing without using her hands. He suspects she noticed him watching her when she tells him that that’s a physical therapy move she worked on when she was building strength and confidence in her leg. “Anyways, ready to go?” Alex watches as she clips Zion’s leash around her waist, does a quick ankle circle, and then asks him which direction he wants to head.

Alex is slightly overwhelmed by Cassidy, he has been since the day he rounded on her after her surgery. Less in pain and more awake, she had been more conversant than when he met her right before her surgery. They had laughed about her injury, a fall from a bouldering wall at her climbing gym, since it was the same gym he frequented. “I’ve just been waiting for someone to come in with this injury.” He could have kicked himself for saying it, but she had given him a genuine smile and hadn’t seemed offended. He asked her more about what she did, she told him a quick story about a recent trial she had been involved in. They talked about hiking and running and camping and climbing and how she would, in fact, do all of those things again. It was the first time he had wanted to stay and chat with a patient, and he could tell that his residents had been a little bit confused. He couldn’t explain it, there was just something about Cassidy that pulled her into his orbit and he wanted to get to know her.

They talked as they ran, setting off at a comfortable pace that Alex was afraid would be too fast for Cassidy. Instead, she gave no signs of it being too fast, and kept talking as they finished their second mile. Consider me impressed, Alex thought. He supposed he wasn’t surprised, though, since she was lean and strong, and he had read the notes from her physical therapist. They chatted about work, and he found for the first time in a long time that he wasn’t censoring or steeling himself as much as he normally did.

Something about Cassidy made it safe to talk about the horrible, traumatic parts of his job, about seeing bullet-riddled young men, the stomach-turning injuries from car accidents, and strong, athletic type people with horrid injuries from activities that he loved, like rock climbing. She told him the story of a case she had faced as a prosecutor, about a young man whose penis was shot off by a woman whom he had rejected. Alex almost died trying to keep from laughing as she told him about the trial, and was shocked when she told him that he had been working in the emergency department the night the man had come in, she recognized his name from the thousands of pages of medical records she had reviewed.

“Seriously? You remembered the name Alex Hartman for years?”

“I have a weird memory. And it was more that I recognized the name in conjunction with being a trauma surgeon at the same hospital that I went to. I would have gone and looked it up if I still worked there and had access to the case file, honestly.” She gives him a wry, yet slightly shy smile and he sees for the first time that she might also be nervous.

“Why’d you leave?” He blurts out, curious. She looks at her smartwatch and almost barks a laugh, in sharp contrast to her warm, soft laughter.

“We only planned for five miles and we’re already at three, I don’t know if we have enough time for me to tell you that story. But essentially it was burnout. I was exhausted, I was dreading trials, and I was constantly on the verge of a breakdown. I was my office’s domestic violence and sex crimes prosecutor. I loved it, until I didn’t, and I got offered a partnership and a boatload of money at just the right time. I went to a firm, ran their criminal defense division, was promised it would be mostly white collar, ended up defending a ton of scumbags for rape and cocaine. The number of sex scandals we were covering up was appalling. Then, of course, I fell off a rock wall, broke my leg, had surgery, and the time off recovering from that made me realize how miserable I was all the time. So I paid cash for my house, quit my job, got a fantastic buyout, focused on healing, and have started freelancing and ghost writing.” Cassidy’s voice is harder now, she sounds exhausted and older than her thirty-five years. “I think I was burnt out for a lot longer than I realized.”

Alex stops running almost mid-stride and stares at Cassidy. After a few strides, she realizes that he’s not with her anymore and she stops and turns around. He realizes that his mouth is hanging open, and she chuckles gently and takes a few steps back to him. “Too much? Sorry about that. I’ve been working on being more open and honest, but I’ll have to tell my therapist she did too good of a job.”

“No, it’s okay, I just don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone be that brutally honest about shit like burnout. I work in a burnout heavy profession, we both do, and no one talks about it like that. They just warn you that burnout is bad and encourage you to, well, not burn out.”

“Oh, I’ve been there, it’s why I talk about it now. All through law school, every training I ever went to as a public defender and prosecutor and private attorney, capital certification training, it’s all ‘don’t burn out, do yoga, turn the email ding off on your phone,’ but nothing useful. No one ever tells you to talk to a therapist the first time you cross-examine a child victim instead of running six miles and then drinking two bottles of wine. No one ever tells you that a trial a month for years will try to kill you. No one ever tells you how to recover when you do burn out. So I’ve made it my life mission to not hide it.”

Alex suddenly realizes why Cassidy makes him so nervous. She’s intensely honest, and right now she’s being intensely honest about exactly what he’s been fighting.

“Look, do you ever feel like nobody really knows you? Like, the real you?”

Alex listens to the sound of his feet pounding the pavement for a few beats, thinking about the question and realizing that he knows the feeling that Cassidy is describing.

“I hate makeup and heels. I’d rather wear leggings than suits. I’m happiest when I’m outside, preferably in the woods or on a mountain. As much as I loved trials, I actually hate courthouses. My favorite office ever was my office as a prosecutor because I could open the window and get fresh air. I, like, love bluegrass music. I make my own kombucha. I steep fresh lavender and mint for tea. Hot yoga is one of my favorite workouts. I hate caffeine and quit drinking years ago. I wanted to be an Olympic diver when I was a kid and may have actually made it if I hadn’t gotten hurt in high school. I have a dozen tattoos. Nobody that I ever worked with knew any of that. No. They all knew the Cassidy that runs five miles a day despite working 60- to 80-hour weeks, all in dresses and skirts, with an appalling collection of black heels and blazers, never looking anything less than perfect. I’m sure they all assumed that I’m straight because I never talked about my personal life. And if we’re being completely honest, I hated that Cassidy.”

For the first time in four miles, they run in companionable silence. Alex is deep in thought, and he suspects that Cassidy might be, too. After a few minutes, he breaks the silence. “I’ve never really thought about what exactly my colleagues don’t know about me, but they definitely don’t know me. I’m pretty sure the first time any of them found out that I climb was, well, when you fell.”

Cassidy stares at him while she runs, and he feels uncomfortably seen. He wonders what she’s thinking, if she sees how much he’s struggling. “I spend hours at the hospital. Some weeks I sleep there more than I sleep at my own house. I thought I knew my residents better than I know myself, but now I’m questioning that. I love my job. I love being a surgeon. I love teaching.”

“There’s definitely a ‘but’ there.”

“But. I’m exhausted. I barely have time to run. I can’t remember the last time I went camping. I haven’t had a decent relationship - girlfriend or otherwise - since medical school. All of my friends are doctors and we’re all too busy to have time for each other.”

Cassidy lets out a soft, gentle laugh. “You sound like me from a year ago.”

“So what do I do?”

“Well, I don’t recommend falling off a rock wall and breaking your leg in five places.”

They finish their run in silence, Alex once again deep in thought. He looks over at Cassidy, grateful for her openness. They turn onto her street, Zion trotting happily along, and she takes off sprinting and laughing, her ponytail sticking to her sweaty neck. Alex takes it up a gear and chases after her, catching her and Zion at the very last second. Cassidy collapses onto her lawn, with Zion and Alex collapsing on top of her. They lay in a sweaty, sticky, furry pile, and Alex realizes how much he's missed any companionship that isn’t at the hospital.

“This was great,” Cassidy tells him, panting. “You pushed me way harder than I push myself, so it was nice to keep up with the pace for so long.”

“You pushed me way harder than I could have possibly pushed you. I can’t even tell you how important it was to hear everything you had to say about burn out.” She pulls herself off the ground, extending a hand to Alex and pulling him up.

“Keep running with me. And let’s plan a climbing session. Something tells me that you’ll be okay, Doc. But seriously, just don’t do what I did – I had a great surgeon, but it still sucked.”