Can't Stand You

Knowing When to Duck

Edited (6/30/20)

I could have stayed sprawled on the grass for the rest of the afternoon. Even with the sun beating down on me, laying down felt like heaven after that run and then having to carry Harrison for part of his run. My legs felt like jelly and my back still ached. Eventually, I was going to have to get up, but I was milking every minute I could to stay on the grass. The end came too  soon. 

Harrison nudged me with his toe. "Coach is calling us to come in," he said looking down at me worried before looking back up to the weight room. I wanted to tell Harrison he could let Coach know that he could shove it in some very interesting places, but I decided it was best not to unleash my foul mouth on the poor boy.

Pushing myself up, I stood up gingerly and stretched my back. I clenched my jaw at the achiness and took a few steps. Harrison followed close behind me as I grabbed my phone off the bleachers and started towards the weight room. The walk was short, but my legs felt like lead pipes shuffling along. I pulled open the door and felt very thankful that the weight room was air conditioned. The cool air blasted me in the face and I had no complaints as it was welcome to my sticky skin. Every head turned towards us when Harrison and I stumbled inside. I wanted to give them all a piece of my mind for leaving the two of us to run the mile by ourselves. Not very team like in my opinion.

To further sour my mood, Russ just had to open his mouth. "Nice for you two to join us," Coach quipped from the corner.

My lips tightened in to a line. I knew I had to be careful with what I was going to say. If my mouth got going, there was no telling what was going to come out. My patience was worn thin on top of the fact that I was overheated and physically hurting. I had no desire to run another mile and I had a feeling that one wrong comment could lead to that.

"We're here now," I finally replied shortly.

"While you guys were screwing around on the track, we've been working and lifting," he said writing on his clipboard, not bothering to look at me while he was talking to me.

"And?" I snapped. The word came flying out before I could catch it.

"And you better get working!" he barked.

I didn't say anything back and walked over to the single weights where some of the other guys were. They were doing shoulder presses, so I grabbed two 25 pound weights and began following along. Harrison came beside me and looked over the large arrangement of dumbbells. 

"Grab two 10 pounders," I instructed him. His skinny, twig like arms gave the impression he did not lift much. He obediently did what I said and began copying my motion. Once Harrison started doing something, all the guys went back to working out.

I looked over my shoulder at Coach Russ. When I realized he was busy writing on his stupid clipboard, I put down one weight to pull out my phone. It was 3:30. Only 30 more minutes until we were done for today, but it still felt like an eternity to get through.

For the remainder of the lifting session, I did the lift that Russ had handed out to everyone before we got there. I stayed away from Miles and he didn't bother coming over to talk to me, so I didn't pay any attention to him. I could see him glance over a few times, but I ignored him. By the end of the 30 minutes, I was physically done. I could barely stagger around the gym at this point without falling over. Coach dismissed us, only saying he expected us at the field before 9:30 tomorrow morning. The last thing I wanted to do tomorrow was to do what we did today all over again.

Harrison and I dragged our feet all the way back to the dorm. 

"Can you carry me?" Harrison whined.