White Cloud

9- Talk To Me

**Last week was finals week so i know that this is a few days late, sorry 'bout that**

On Friday, about nothing has changed. Dylan still isn't talking to me, I'm still not talking to my dad, Lionel is still afraid of losing his job so we haven't spoken. And after Wednesday night with Vincent, I haven't spoken to him either. I don't know if I'm going to speak to him again anyway.

And just like always, I'm preparing for my morning jog. I'm wearing the usual—sports bra, shorts, and running shoes—with my long hair up in a ponytail and today, in an effort to inspire me a little, I'm going to take my phone and listen to music as I run.

I don't play the music just yet but I have my ear buds tossed over my shoulder so that when I get down to the beach, I'll be ready to put them in, press play, and start my jog. By the pool, I stop my dogs because I need to get pumped. I didn't get much sleep last night for some reason and I'm feeling tired. I think that it's just the family stress, really, that's keeping me up at night.

No matter what though, my limbs feel heavy and I really don't want to run but I think that if I do, it'll wake me up a little bit. With not very many people at the pool, I turn to my dogs and decide that they will pump me up.

"Okay," I tell them, putting just one ear bud in so that I can listen to music while I talk to my dogs. Sure, I probably look crazy to the very few people at the pool and to the lifeguard on duty, who just so happens to be Vincent, but oh well. I need to get pumped. "Talk to me, boys."

Both of my large dogs start to bark at me, their tails start wagging wildly and Ronny is eyeballing the pool because he so badly wants to jump in. He knows that it's against the rules though, so he stays with me and barks like I ask him to because he's such a good dog.

"Alright," I hold a hand up to them that kind of tells them that they can stop now and they do, they both stop barking. "Give me some paw."

I hold both of my hands out to my dogs and they both hit one palm each with their paw like a high five. The song playing in my ear buds is very upbeat so after we share motivating high fives, I start mouthing the words of the songs to my dogs because I think that it's hilarious to sing to my dogs. I dramatically reach out to them as I subtly dance near the side of the pool with my two excited dogs.

"Okay. We've got this. We're superstars," I decide, putting the other ear bud in my ear. I wonder if I'm being rude by not saying hello to Vincent or at least waving since we did talk that one time. I don't wave though because he's busy doing his job and I'm sure that he thinks that I'm trash since I was friends with Lionel. So I just walk my dogs away from the pool and onto the beach before we start jogging to the beat of my exercise playlist.

I don't make it all the way to the ice cream shop before I decide to stop for our break because I'm too tired to do the full jog today. But I do need something to drink so after I stop jogging, I don't let my dogs off of their leashes because I need to find some sort of restaurant or store to sell me something cold to drink.

There's mostly just hotels around here though and I can't just go into a random hotel with two large dogs and ask for something to drink. Feeling drained, I decide that I'll just walk the rest of the way down the beach to the ice cream stand to get my smoothie and let my dogs play on the beach like they always do.

"Hey!" I hear somebody shout from over my ear buds and I ignore it, assuming that it's not aimed at me, until there's a girl with purple hair standing right in front of me. The dog walker girl who, I'm assuming, likes to hang out on this beach for some reason. "It's you again."

I pause my music and take my ear buds out, putting them over my shoulder so that they don't get tangled. "Hello again."

"You jog the same route every day?" She wonders.