All Her Broken Pieces

Chapter 31

The end is nigh! Sorry to say, but this chapter is the "last" for this book, though there will be an epilogue next week so not completed just yet.

Also warning...sappy af but I'm happy with how it turned out, I hope you are too...Happy reading :)

*Sang*

"Next!"

"I don't think I can do this."

Axel spins around in front of me where we stand in the line to get our numbers pinned on us for today's race, a small frown on his face. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, 26.2 miles doesn't sound so bad when you have months in front of you to tackle them, but maybe I'm not ready for it all at once–" someone's panting, and I'm pretty sure it's not Axel "–and I haven't even been able to pass 22 at home without needing to stop or throw up. I don't think I'm ready. Maybe it was a sign that bad weather postponed the date until now." I stare up at him, looking into his deep brown eyes that normally hold such seriousness, now full of amusement at witnessing my mini freak out.

"Sang, you've been training for this since before I met you months ago, you're ready. If anything you'll have to drag me the last couple of miles since you're the one who talked me into joining you for this torture," he teases me and I glare at him. Where was the super serious team lead who barely spoke when we first met when I needed him?

"Don't blame this on me, you could've said no to training with me." I'm not too proud to pull a pout on him.

"Aw, don't make that face, please?" I pop my lip back in with a grin. "I wanted to do this with you, and we didn't wake up before everyone else for months to give up before this thing even starts. The guys will be waiting at the finish line with snacks and water whenever we make it to the end, and we will make it, you hear me?"

Ugh. "Yeah, I hear you. Still doesn't mean I don't think my feet will fall off before we finish."

He laughs, the happy sound makes me smile against my will. I'm still getting used to him being more free with his emotions, him and Owen both are so much more different now than in the stories I'd been told over the years, even since I first met them. Sure, Axel was charming and kind when I met him in the gym of the Sergeant Jasper, and Owen had being welcoming and polite, but they both held on tightly to their own personal walls and masks with me for quite some time.

According to the others, I'm a miracle worker, because not only is Owen openly affectionate, but Axel now stays home more often and laughs unguardedly instead of lingering at work or inside his own head. Apparently all it took was me getting arrested, and long sessions running outside or on the treadmills every morning to break them out of their "hardass shells" as Gabriel so fondly dubbed them.

The woman handing out our numbered papers calls out again for the next people in line, so Axel and I step up and give our names, having registered for the run long ago.

With a polite smile, she checks us off and we carefully pin numbers 78 and 43 onto either of our shirts, mine the latter one, before heading back to the others. I hear them before I see them.

"Why the fuck couldn't the marathon be at night, Kota?" Gabriel's whine matches the exaggeratedly miserable expression on his face when they come into view.

Kota answers him without even blinking. "Because it lasts for several hours and could be past midnight and hard for the runners to see the path through the trees and such, Gabe."

"Fuck, but did it have to happen at early-as-fuck o'clock?"

At this point, several of the others start to laugh, while Brandon looks at him with an incredulous expression. "Dude, it's 10 o'clock, not exactly the ass crack of dawn. Why are you so tired anyway?"