California, Brother

5.

I yearned for that Japanese paper and bamboo wall. The one in my mind set up so that when I came at it running, would give out; the frame crashing around me, heaping at my feet as I burst through it. That's what running did for me. It's not always that I was looking to push myself to hit that proverbial wall. The few times I'd done it had left me hunched over, vomiting bile on the side of the road. I would welcome it, welcome the discomfort, if it would give me the serenity I was really after. The moments when my lungs, muscles, and blood flow slammed the thoughts careening away from me back into my body. Caging them with the same mechanical force that was driving me forward. I was looking to become a machine. Free of thought. Free of Eric Westmark and that dream.

River, it's okay. Although the guy had been faceless, sitting on my San Francisco bed, his proportions and build had been uncannily like Eric's—to the point where my mind had no problem substituting him in. He was naked from the waist up, reclining slightly, his hands working to unbutton his jeans. He wore beautiful denim, or maybe it was just he who was beautiful; the fill of his thighs, his waist, the muscles working in his stomach, the soft-looking hair fanning across his chest. I watched him get naked. River, it's okay, you can touch me. I'd wanted to, wanted him to be Eric. Or maybe realized he was Eric because that's something Eric would've said. With that same soft, reassuring tone. River, it's okay. I'd woken up rock-hard, not even having touched the faceless strange. Just from the thought of him potentially being Eric, and I knew I had to run. Exercise. Do something to get his voice out of my head.

I'd gotten dressed in a near panic. I hadn't thought of Eric in that way in over eight years. It was creeping me out. If I strained my ears, I could hear the riff of a whiny guitar and muted drums playing from deep in the belly of the house. Eric was awake. I sneaked out the front door and let the Strava app draw up a five-mile circumference in the shape of a cloud as my running route. I looked over the GPS, sampling street names and familiarizing myself with the biggest roads before I took off. The app lead me away from the forest, deeper into the suburb, which was for the best really. Getting lost in Forest Park was not my idea of decompression. I pushed myself until I could no longer feel the slap of my feet against the concrete. I burst through the paper wall approximately four miles into my run just as Eric's treehouse became visible again over the horizon.

He took me by surprise in the driveway while I was doing burpees. It wasn't that I was weak exactly. I was more prone to impulsivity than other people, and I knew this about myself. Having Eric looking down at me as I flopped to my stomach in a failed pushup didn't feel so much as losing as succumbing to the truth. He stood over me with an amused expression and I suspected he'd glimpsed me from one of the windows before us meeting like this. There was no surprise in seeing me. I squeezed my eyes shut, both to stop the sweat from stinging them and to cut off the playback of the dream. I rolled over onto my back, head falling against the sun warmed concrete, feeling his shadow like a tsunami wave.

The truth.

'That looks...' He was smiling as he crouched down, one knee to the ground, fastening Millie's collar around her neck. 'Militant.'

I could've said something funny. Made the lines in his face deepen. Made him laugh that laugh I loved. Why was it that I always felt this way around him? Like it was some duty of mine to do these things? That because I could, I should?

I rolled back onto my stomach and rose, dusting myself off. 'Are you coming with us to the studio?' he asked.

I couldn't hold his gaze. 'I was thinking of getting some work done, actually.'

'Oh, okay.'

Please don't look at me like that.

'Do you... Would you like Ivy to keep you company?' Seeing me falter once again, he quickly added, 'Only because if you're not used to being alone in that house, I swear it feels like the walls keep expanding outward.'