Yearbook Read online

  Anyway, by some miracle I turned out to be pretty good at running long distances (a race in cross-country is three miles). I guess playing basketball in the winter and soccer in the summer has kept me in good shape. I knew I was fast. I didn’t get winded like the other guys did, but I’ve always been sort of average at everything else. I’d avoided cross-country because it’s always been my sister Andrea’s thing, but this year, I figured that she didn’t have a monopoly on the sport.

  It’s been awesome to find out I was good, seriously good, at running. I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised because Andrea is State Championship material and the fastest on the girls’ team, but I was.

  It’s also cool because the girls’ team goes on the trips too, and there are a lot of cute girls on the team. I think that one girl in particular, Michaela Choi, is a lot of fun and very pretty. She’s in my stake and we went to elementary school together. I’ve liked her for a while; I’ve known her forever.

  Anyway, I figured it couldn’t hurt to join the team. Imagine how shocked I was early in the season when I started beating the older guys, and guys on other teams! It was incredible. I started to feel that I was good—I could taste the victory in my mouth and I could tell what I needed to do to catch someone.

  I couldn’t wait for today—the State Championship race—and at the same time I wished that it would never come. The girls’ championship race was first. Michaela was running in it. She isn’t the fastest, but she’s solid and she works really hard. Andrea was standing apart from the rest of the team, as usual. They all respect her, but she doesn’t really make friends. Last year, her junior year, she took second at the State meet and I know not getting first almost killed her. Andrea doesn’t like to take second in anything. I saw Mikey wish her good luck and Andrea respond briefly.

  One of the things that I like about Mikey is that she knows what to do a lot of the time. I did the stupidest thing in English last month. Well, it turned out fine, but it could have been really, really bad. I basically told her, flat out in the middle of class, that I liked her. I don’t know what I was thinking! And what did she do? She smiled at me and somehow that let me know that it was okay. After class, she waited for me, and when we walked down the hall to our lockers, I got up the guts to ask her if she wanted to go to the football game on Friday and get something to eat afterwards. Ever since then, I think we’ve been sort of going out. I like to see her smile the minute she looks at me. I like how she cheers for me when I run and I like cheering for her too. Some of the guys, namely Dave Sherman, give me a hard time about it, but everyone likes Mikey just fine and so I don’t think they really mean much by it. My mom is okay with it because Mikey’s such a good girl. Not in a dorky way, just in a really nice way.

  I saw her standing by herself saying a little prayer and so I didn’t bug her, but I did give her a little wave later. She waved back. She looked really nervous. I know it meant a lot to her to run a good race and not let the team down.

  When I went down toward the bull pen to warm up for the race, I stopped to get some last-minute words of encouragement from Coach Roberts. He is a great guy—the kind of guy you would like to have as your dad, or maybe your uncle.

  “Ethan, are you feeling ready?” Coach asked. “Do you want to talk through the race, or do you feel like you’re clear on what you need to do?”

  “Do you still think I should start fast?” The field was a big one. I didn’t want to get boxed in.

  “I think you should take off fast, but I don’t think you should lead,” Coach said. “One of the things you do best, Ethan, is pick people off as you go along. I’ve told you that before and I think it’s a good strategy for today. There are going to be some guys setting a very, very fast pace. I think your best bet is to maintain contact with that lead pack, but don’t try to lead it. You’ll need to charge them eventually, probably near that big hill partway into the course, and when you do, you can start to pick them off at the end. I know you can do it. If you need to change your race, you’ll have a feel for it as it goes. Trust your race intuition—yours is as good as any I’ve seen, including Andrea’s.” He looked at his watch. “I have to go—the girls are starting. I’ll be cheering for you at the end of the first turn. I think we have a chance of placing in the top three as a team if you all have the races of your lives.” He shook his head. “That would be amazing.”

  Coach jogged away with the coordinated stride of a guy who has been running for a long time. He had given me a lot to think about. I knew that he would never get upset at me no matter how I ran. But, I have to admit, I was still pretty worried.

  So was Mikey. I could almost feel her nervousness as I watched her jogging around to keep warm by the starting line. Her being nervous made me even more stressed. When the starter called out for them to line up, I thought I was going to throw up. When the gun went off, though, all my concern was just for her. Was she going to get blocked in? Was she going to do okay? “Go, Mikey!” I yelled, but I’m sure no one could hear. I wasn’t worried about Andrea. I knew she was going to do great and I would pretty much bet my life savings on that, if I had any savings. And if I believed in betting. You know what I mean.

  I ran over to where the runners would be coming past as they looped through their first mile. According to the plan, Mikey should be somewhere in the top thirty runners, and she should be about fourth on our team. There were hundreds of runners in the race, so I looked for the green and white of her uniform as hard as I could. While I waited, I jumped up and down to keep warm. I’m sure I looked like a loser, but I didn’t care.

  Andrea was in first and she had that expression on her face that meant everyone else had better watch out. There were two girls closing in on her but it almost seemed like Andrea was toying with them. I could tell she was working hard, but she didn’t look half as drained as they did. I didn’t cheer for her because she feels like cheering is a distraction. She flew by.

  Where was Mikey? There she was. I furiously counted the runners ahead of her—she was in sixth place! Oh, man, Michaela, I thought, I hope you didn’t start out too fast. “You’re doing great!” I yelled as she ran past. I wasn’t sure if she heard me. She’s pretty focused when she races, which is how I am too.

  Jake Clark, our team captain, ran over to me. “Hey, Ethan, we’re meeting in the bull pen now. It’s time to warm up.”

  I had to leave the course and get ready because our race would begin the minute the girls finished. The starting line was in a different place from the finish line, so we wouldn’t get to see who won. So, that was it. I wondered how it would turn out. I was worried about Mikey, but I have to admit that now I was even more worried about myself and about the guys’ team. This was my first State race and a lot of people were counting on me. I didn’t want to let the other guys down. They’d been great all year, totally welcoming me even though most of them had been running together since middle school.

  I waved to my parents standing on the sidelines as I headed over to the bull pen. They got divorced three years ago, but they have been doing pretty good at talking and getting along recently. My dad was a high-school basketball star and I’m actually pretty surprised and happy that he gets into my running so much. He lives in Portland, but he still makes it to the big meets.

  Andrea won’t talk to either of them before or after a race, though, so they end up standing around my starting line a lot. That’s another one of her rules, like the “no cheering during the race” rule. She has a lot of rules.

  I thought about what Mikey had done before her race, so I bowed my head and said a little prayer too, asking that I could do my best and not be disappointed in the results. I looked up and noticed a couple of the guys staring at me but I didn’t care. Andrea, who hasn’t been into any church-type stuff since the divorce, would have rolled her eyes at me. Jake waved me over and he gave us all a little speech about running our best for the team and for ourselves. I don’t really remember much about it, but Jake is a good
guy and a good runner and we all respect him. Then we all yelled, “Go Lakeview!” and headed out to the starting line to warm up.

  Across the field and behind a fence was the track where the runners finish. A voice from the loudspeaker announced the girls as they crossed the line. Our team yelled out for Andrea, who won the whole thing—and I do mean the whole thing. She took State. It was expected, though—Andrea has been winning everything all year and getting about as much enjoyment out of it as she does out of anything in her life, which is not much lately. Still, I was relieved to see that long reddish braid of hers bobbing in the lead, and I was glad to hear her name called first. I’ve been feeling lately that all it’s going to take is one misstep and Andrea is going to snap.

  I listened to the announcer as he listed everybody else’s names. Another of our girls finished in third.

  “Crossing the line in seventh is Michaela Choi, from Lakeview High!”

  Michaela had taken seventh! She must be so excited, I thought. That’s the highest she’s ever finished. I craned my neck around, but the track was shielded from our view by its fence, bleachers, and trees. She’d be on the All-State team now. That was awesome!

  But I couldn’t think about Mikey anymore. Or even Andrea’s big win. I had to think about my own race and what I had to do. I was happy for both of them, but I knew I couldn’t think about how well they’d done, or I wouldn’t be able to do anything myself. It might sound selfish, but it’s true.

  I wish I could describe exactly how it feels to stand on the starting line of a big race. I’ve heard people describe the taste in your mouth as being metallic, and I think that part is true, but I don’t agree with the description of butterflies in your stomach. I feel like the metallic taste in my mouth comes from the huge, solid, metal weight sitting there in my gut, making me feel heavy and worried right when I need to feel light and unconcerned.

  The other guys seemed nervous too. Even Dave, who is a senior and who has run at State all four years, wasn’t making any jokes. I couldn’t stop looking at the other guys and worrying that I would let them down. It’s been great to be the fastest runner on the team, but all of a sudden there on that starting line, I realized what that meant. They were all pulling for me as Ethan the individual, sure, but they also needed me to race well if we were going to stand a chance of placing as a team. If I messed up, I would be disappointed in myself, but I would have also let the whole team down too. Dave, Jake, all the rest of the guys—they were my friends, and I wanted us all to do the best we could as a team. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that we could do this. That I could do this.

  When the gun went off, I started out fast. It was almost as though I had to do it. I didn’t even think about the advice Coach gave me; I didn’t think about how Michaela had started out fast too. I could just feel what I needed to do. That doesn’t happen to me very often. I usually have to strategize and calculate, but once in a while I just run.

  Like now. The lead pack was starting to break away from me—not far, but away. I had to make a move. I moved in right behind them and kept my eyes on their heads, on their feet, on them. I could feel that we were going fast. I could feel that I was running hard, that I was hurting, but I wasn’t hurting too much. Not yet.

  We came around the bend of the curve that marked the first mile. I knew Coach was probably standing there somewhere, yelling advice, but I didn’t spare the time to glance to the side for him. The pace was too fast to blink. I knew that if I lost focus, I would lose them.

  The interesting thing about cross-country, even the State race where there is a bigger than normal crowd, is that there is a lot of the race that you run alone. The start and the finish have big crowds and so do some parts of the race. But most of it is in the middle, when it’s just you and the other runners crossing the terrain with a few observers and some officials to make sure you’re not cutting corners.

  Most of the race is the feeling of solitude and of listening to your own breathing and feeling your own pain and your own speed. It is becoming more acquainted with yourself with every step. It is thinking furiously and it is also not thinking at all. You are so alone with yourself that you don’t have to frame words in your mind while you’re thinking—you just know what you need to do by instinct.

  When three guys broke from the first pack near the hill, I didn’t think, I have to go with them. I just went, but I had thought it somewhere deep inside without words. When I started running the hill and I passed two of them, I didn’t think, Two down, one to go. I just ran as hard as I could for as long as I could to the finish line. I crossed in second place, just a few steps behind the first runner, who outran me at the end with a killer sprint.

  It comes as a shock to interact with people again after a race like that, to say “thanks” for the cups of Gatorade the volunteers are handing out, to turn and accept congratulations from runners behind you, to hear your coach yelling your name excitedly. But there is a great moment where it all slides back into focus and you feel all the excitement and adrenaline electrify you and you scream and yell and grab your teammates and hoist your medal and smile, smile, smile.

  They took pictures of us, because the boys’ team won the whole thing. I’ve never seen a group of happier guys. Dave Sherman grabbed me in the world’s biggest bear hug and swung me around and I was laughing so hard I wasn’t even embarrassed. We kept slapping each other on the back and giving each other high fives and posing for pictures with our parents.

  The girls’ team was doing the same thing because they had placed in the top three. Their celebration was different: they were squealing and crying the way girls do. Coach had tears in his eyes, even when we dumped the cooler of Gatorade on him. We all felt like a million bucks. I kept saying, “Thank you, thank you,” in my mind. I felt that prayer of gratitude running through me, like electricity.

  My parents were freaking out, and they took about a million pictures of Andrea and me once she’d turned up. She hadn’t been celebrating with the rest of the girls. I didn’t know where she’d been. There were some newspaper photographers snapping pictures too. I heard one of them say, “Now if the brother had won first place too that would have been an even better story,” but even that didn’t make me come back to earth.

  I kept catching Mikey’s eye and smiling at her, but I didn’t get a chance to actually talk to her until we were on the bus, going home.

  On the bus, sitting there with the guys, I looked up and saw Andrea sitting alone and I realized that she never has that moment where it all slides back into focus. She stays in the mind-set of being alone and driven and running flat-out the whole time. She is one of the most beautiful girls in our school, according to all the other guys, but she doesn’t seem to notice. I decided to break one of her rules. I was going to talk to her, even if it was just for a minute. It was her senior year, her last race, and the last time we would ride the bus back together from a cross-country meet.

  She had earphones in and it took her a minute to notice me standing there. “Ethan,” she said flatly. Her trophy was on the seat next to her and all of a sudden I felt sad to see it. She had surrounded it in sweatshirts to keep it protected and it was her only company.

  She pulled out her earphones, but she didn’t move over for me to sit down. “Andrea,” I said, “congratulations.”

  “You too,” she said. “That was a great race.” She almost said something else, but then stopped. Then, “Don’t forget—Mom only left the one car at the school, so we need to drive home together.” She put her earphones back in.

  “Okay,” I said, hurt by her dismissal. I wished we could have sat and talked about everything that had happened, compared notes on our races, but there’s a coldness in Andrea that I can’t seem to get past. In spite of myself, though, I patted her on the shoulder on my way back to my seat.

  I plopped back down next to Dave Sherman, who was regaling the back of the bus with his version of “Eye of the Tiger,” which I have to admit, i
s pretty funny. Legend has it that when they were both sophomores, Dave got Andrea to laugh once on a bus trip. That alone is a reason to like the guy. He’s in our ward and it’s so weird to think that he’ll be going on a mission soon. That means my turn is coming up too.

  It was getting dark, and we still had a while to drive. The traffic was rough. The coaches were being pretty lenient since this was the last meet of the season, and they let us pick the music to play on the bus’s ancient tape deck and they didn’t get mad if the guys sat with the girls or vice versa. I think they figured a little freedom wouldn’t kill us or, more importantly, them.

  I noticed Mikey sitting with her friend Jana a few rows ahead of me. At first, I thought about different ways to play it cool, but I suddenly decided I didn’t care. I guess I was still feeling confident after my race which had gone better than expected. I stood and walked up the aisle. “Hey, Jana, could I trade you seats for a little while?”

  “It depends,” said Jana. “Who are you sitting with?” She craned her neck around and saw David, who was currently gorging himself on Cheese Puffs. “Oh, great. David!”

  She had a point. But Mikey smiled up at me and I knew I couldn’t let this opportunity pass. “Come on, Jana. Just for a few minutes.”

  “Since you are the second-fastest runner in the state, I guess I can cut you some slack,” Jana said. She headed toward the back and David hoisted the Cheese Puffs in her direction, grinning with his orange teeth.

  After she had gone, I slid into the seat next to Mikey and ignored the interested stares of some freshmen junior-varsity runners who had come along to cheer at the race. “Hey, I’ve been wanting to talk to you, but it’s been kind of—well, it’s been happening really fast.”