Page 118 of Goodbye Days

“Seven miles.”

Seven miles?! I almost died when I had to run a mile for PE. And that was at my own pace, not Judge Edwards’s.

“How far have we gone, sir?”

“Approximately two miles.”

I gasp. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t think I can run seven miles.”

He bends down to meet my gaze in the dim light. His face is uncomfortably close to mine and he speaks with unshrouded menace. “Do you feel like you can’t breathe? Like a rockslide has covered your chest?”

I nod.

“Does your heart ache like it’s tearing in half?”

I nod.

“Does every inch of you hurt? I mean hurt like you want to die?”

I nod.

“Do you feel like being sick all over the ground? Like you want to turn yourself inside out?”

I nod.

He draws even closer. His breath smells like hunger and mouthwash, like he just keeps brushing his teeth without ever eating anything. “Now you understand how I felt when I received the call telling me my son had been killed.” His voice quakes.

But I already know! my brain screams. Because I felt the same when I found out.

He stands back up, straight as a steel beam, while I wait for a coughing fit to pass and try to buy myself a second or two with a story about how Mars once bought a homeless guy lunch and then drew a picture for him to sell or trade for more food later if he got hungry.

“Once, Thurgood—”

“No,” Judge Edwards says, with an I’ve-got-a-better-idea inflection, raising his finger to cut me off. “Oh no. This is not the day for you to tell me who my son was. This is the day for you to understand what you took from me with your recklessness and stupidity and impatience. Now catch your breath and move.”

Every word is agonizing. Injury on top of injury. Stubbing your toe when your feet are frozen. Rubbing off a blister down to raw flesh.

I get my coughing under control, and Judge Edwards sprints away again, with me trailing behind. Each breath sears my lungs. Every protective shell I’ve formed—every bulwark I’ve thrown up—is eroding; melting away; leaving me bare. Emotions I’d tried to bury are beginning to flood out. He knew this would happen.

I’m having trouble lifting each foot off the ground. My toe catches the tiniest crack in the pavement and I go sprawling, abrading away the skin on my knees and palms. I lie there, stunned by the sudden jolt that knocked what little wind I had out of me. My eyes well up with tears as I struggle to stand.

I hear footfalls as Judge Edwards lopes back to me. “Are you injured?” he asks, in a tone suggesting he’s mostly concerned about my being healthy enough for him to keep breaking.

I shake my head but don’t speak because of the sobs massed on the borders of my vocal cords, waiting to spill.

I stand on rickety legs. The air is cold and sharp on my newly exposed nerve endings. Suddenly, nausea overwhelms me. I make it the few steps to the edge of the path before yakking last night’s dinner onto the ground. It goes out through my nose and the whole world smells like puke.

Well, Dr. Mendez, I’m doing great on the humility front. And you can’t be more honest than puking in front of someone. And I’m sure listening more than I’m talking.

When I turn to Judge Edwards, he hands me a water bottle. “Drink,” he says. He sounds ever so slightly sympathetic. I drink, swishing the water around in my mouth.

I hand him the bottle. “Okay,” I say, hearing the fatal resignation in my own voice. “Let’s go.” Maybe I can run myself to death. In fact, looking at the dense, tangled woods on either side, it’s not entirely implausible that he brought me out here to kill me anyway. Joining Sauce Crew would improve my life right now.

“I think that will do.” He starts walking in the direction from which we came. I expect him to start running, but he doesn’t.

I limp after him, tamping down my pain and queasiness.

Dawn is breaking, a luminous rose-orange silk ribbon over the black ranks of trees, but it’s still cold and dark on the path, and between us we are as mute as the friend and son we came to honor.