Bears Know Best

Chapter 4: Maybe Not?

I WOKE UP to the sound of my phone's alarm at six forty-five, and dragged myself out of bed. My typical jogging clothes consisted of a pair of black running shorts that were fairly short, and a white short-sleeve, Under Armour compression shirt. I'd been jogging and training in similar clothes for as long as I could remember. I took a moment to put my ponytail a little higher up on my head before heading downstairs.

Mom was eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast, she looked up and her mouth froze for a second. She recovered quickly though and said, "Do you want anything to eat before you go out?"

For a second I wondered what had shocked her, but I knew it was the shirt. It was showing something that I had been trying to ignore since the day I fought with Rachel. I'd already been on edge because of that when she had started in on me about my hair. Since she seemed okay with ignoring what she saw for the moment I replied normally, "No," and held up the Power Bar I had just about finished for her to see, "I don't normally eat a lot before I go out. It makes it harder to run," I added.

I filled a water bottle at the sink with cold water. I was just about to step out of the kitchen area into the hallway when she called back, "Taylor, how long do you think you'll be out?"

"I dunno," I started, "It depends on Alyssa. I usually go out for about an hour or so," I added.

"Okay," she said, before adding, "I'll be here when you get back." She gave an odd pause before adding, "Have a good run!" Her voice sounded stressed about something – I was pretty sure I knew what though.

I briefly debated about going upstairs and putting a different shirt on, but knew from experience that I preferred running in this one. It was already pushing ninety degrees outside when I left the air-conditioning and saw Alyssa just coming out of her front door too. She bent down to tie her shoe laces before looking back up at me. She had a quizzical expression on her face for a second before saying, "You ready?"

"Yep," I told her.

The two of us set off jogging along a sidewalk leading towards a nearby park for about ten minutes side by side. Our pace was slow enough as we jogged that we were able to do some idle chitchat. "It's been a while since I've been out jogging," she admitted to me.

"You said you do aerobics and cycling mainly?" I asked.

"Uh-huh," she said. "My dad, mom, and I do a lot of riding normally," she told me.

"Like mountain bikes?" I asked.

She shook her head, "Road bikes," she paused for a breath, "we ride each weekend usually, and do some races."

"Are you guys good?" I asked.

"Dad used to be what's called a category two racer, but he's slipped back a bit since he wasn't as serious. Mom does it more for fun than anything, but she's won a few races over the years too."

"And you?"

I glanced over and noticed she was kind of flushed, but I didn't know if that was the running or not. "I do pretty well, I've won a few races this season," she said.

"So, I have a feeling you're 'pretty good' at cycling like I'm 'pretty good' at horn," I asked.

She blushed, I could tell this time, and said, "I guess so."

We talked about her cycling for a while, and I learned why I didn't see any cheerleading stuff all over her walls like I would have expected. "I did it through last year, but I hate the cattiness of all of the girls. Plus, the practices and performances took up a lot of my time. I just about made myself insane trying to keep up with everything."