All Together Now by Matthew Norman

Author:Matthew Norman [Norman, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

And now Cat is running.

She hates the word jogging. Cat is running, dammit. And because she threw her iPhone across a go-cart track two hours ago, she’s running without music, so the only thing competing with her stupid brain is the sound of her own slamming feet.

When Cat runs, she usually starts slowly, easing in for a half mile or so. Today, though, she just bolted, like a starter gun had gone off.

Blair, Robbie, and Wade quit cross-country for good after that freshman season. Cat, though, stuck with it and thrived, lettering the next three years. Nine races out of ten, she was the shortest chick out there, but she could fly.

She cruises along the beach now, gliding over packed sand. She hits Bunting Avenue, which runs parallel to the ocean, and passes more beach mansions. She veers over to the other side of Fenwick Island—the bay side—scaring up shorebirds and annoying vacationing dogs. She stops briefly at the plot of land where her grandma’s house once stood. That house was small and pink, with a little garden that attracted sneaky rabbits. Now, though, because the land was more valuable than the house, a big gray mansion stands before her. A boat named Daze at Sea is parked out front.

Fucking rich people, she thinks, and then doubles back the way she came.

She passes Dairy Queen and runs in the direction of Ocean City, then back toward the beach again. It’s hard to say how far she’s gone for sure—no phone means no distance-tracking app—but she barely slows until she’s on sand again, weaving around towels and umbrellas. Finally, at the edge of the water, she stops.

Sweat drips down her nose. She puts her hands on her knees. Her heart feels like it might burst.

“What if we could run away together?”

Gabrielle said that once to Cat, in bed, in the loungy, dreamy, post-orgasm-y stage of sex when up is down and down is up and nothing particularly matters. Cat rolled onto her stomach and kissed the crook of Gabrielle’s elbow and listened as she lazed through more what-ifs. What if I’d met you when I was younger? What if nobody knew who I was, and I could just do whatever I wanted? What if I just left him? What if it was like this every day?

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