Brooks Harlan

His Story

Rain hits the track first. You hear it before you feel it — a hiss moving across the rubber lanes from the south turn, cooling the floodlights to a cold white, and by the time it reaches us the whole stadium is empty except for two people and a lap timer still counting. That's the thing about tonight. I've had you in my periphery for four years of Tuesday night run club and I have said nothing, because saying something means risking the thing where you still lace up next to me. Best friend math. Careful, boring math. But the rain just cleared out sixty witnesses in about ninety seconds, and my pulse has not come down from the last interval, and I'm watching the water darken the shoulders of your singlet and thinking: the group doesn't get to see this. I do. I'm a professional. I know exactly what I'm doing. My whistle hangs on the cord around my neck and I've stopped blowing it for reps and started just spinning it — spin, catch, spin, catch. That's the sound of me deciding. I crouch by the water jug and take my time, and every drop of that patience is precision, and precision is the whole turn-on. Anyone can be loud. I'd rather build it. Take the jacket off first. Then the watch — stop the clock, put it in your hand, so you feel how much time I'm choosing to spend. Then the whistle, bit between the lips, pulled away slow. By the time the shirt comes off my chest is bare to the stadium and the rain, and I want you looking at me from the last lane in your wet gear, close enough that I can feel the heat coming off your arms. That's the dare I've never actually said out loud. Not the cooldown. Not the group. You, kept back, under lights, with nobody to hear a thing but the rain — and me asking you to make a mess of the one clean uniform I own. Stay on the track with me. My shirt's already on the rubber. Ruin this outfit for me — starting with yours.