Good things in life were precious, and I’d been too much of a coward to do anything about the gift I’d been given, and it seemed like I was reminded of it every day.

From the moment he’d landed in Durango, Aiden had begun texting me. First with:

Made it.

Then he’d attached a picture of Leo sitting on the floor of the rental car he had for the next two months. Then a picture of him running through the snow at the house in Colorado.

A week passed in the blink of an eye. He sent me at least four text messages a day. Two of which were always of Leo, and the other two were usually something random.

Took your entire Dragonballs collection in case you’re wondering where it is, he’d let me know. I hadn’t even noticed the DVDs were missing.

Leo ate the toe of my runner while I was showering.

How’s your knee?

He sent me bits and pieces every day that tugged at me, only making me miss him more through the haze of sorrow surrounding my thoughts and heart.

After a couple of days of missing just about everyone I loved, I accidentally found the toy I’d bought from Rodrigo’s kids months ago. The small plastic clown had been hidden beneath a stack of papers I’d put in my nightstand. I’d bought it with the intention of putting it in Aiden’s shower as a joke, but I’d forgotten all about it.

It made me cry, these deep, belly tears that had me on the floor with my back to the bed. I cried for Diana who had looked beyond devastated at her boyfriend’s betrayal. I cried for my mom who I couldn’t find it in me to call back. And I cried because I loved someone who might not love me back no matter how badly I might want him to.

At the end of it, I got up to my feet, set that clown on the corner of my desk, and resolved myself to keep going. Because doing otherwise was not an option.

I dug into work with a vengeance; I got back to training even though my motivation had hitched a ride to a different continent. I’d retreated into myself more with this hole left in my heart, focusing on these things to distract me as I waited for the people I loved the most to come back to me.

Unfortunately in the process, I hadn’t been a good friend to Zac. I knew he’d been worried about me; it would have been the same if our shoes had been on opposite feet. I realized he still was worried about me.

Zoning out in the kitchen didn’t help anything, and I really had to dig in to manage to smile for him. “I’m not hungry yet, but thanks, Zac.”

He nodded a little reluctantly but didn’t press the issue as he faced the stove again. “What’d you do today? Eight miles?”

Planting my elbows on the table, I eyeballed his cast. “Yeah, and I did three at marathon pace,” I bragged. He’d run with me enough and cussed alongside me when we’d started adding marathon pacing to our runs. Zac knew it was hell.

As selfish as it made me, my disappointment had reached a level I didn’t know what to do with; the reality harsh and bitter. After everything that Zac and I had been through together, all the times we’d taken turns throwing up after we’d started hitting the seventeen-mile-long, slow, distance runs, the times one of us had had to help partially carry the other once we’d run out of steam thanks to training five days a week, all the aches and pains we’d shared… I was going to have to go on this journey on my own, without my closest companion.

The guy who had lost his favorite thing in the world and had let me force him into training for a marathon.

If that wasn’t friendship, I don’t know what was. It just made me feel more terrible about disappearing on him, even if it had just been because I didn’t want to drag him into the pit I’d fallen into, when now he had something else to contend with on his road to recovery and the rest of his career.

From the choppy sigh that came out of him, I already knew what he was going to say before it actually came out of his mouth.

“I’m so sorry, Vanny.”

And just like the other time he’d apologized for slipping off an icy curb by accident, I said the same thing. “It’s okay. I promise.” Was I slightly brokenhearted? More than slightly. Would I ever tell him that? No.

“It was stupid.”

The urge to rub right between my breasts was overwhelming. “It was an accident. I’m not upset with you.” My voice cracked and I had to swallow. “It’s just been everything. I’m fine, I promise.”

The expression on his face when he turned around said what his mouth didn’t: You’re not okay.

Was anyone ever totally okay though?

I found myself lowering my head to rub the back of my still sweaty neck. “You know you don’t have to stay here with me if you’d rather go back home, right?”

The original plan had been for him to go home right after the marathon, spend some time with his family, and then begin working out with his old college coach. Now? Well, I wasn’t positive, but I did know he was supposed to be moving out and he hadn’t yet.

Zac slanted me a look.

“What?”

“I’m not leavin’ until you do your damn marathon, all right?” he insisted.

“But you don’t have to, okay? I promise you have nothing to feel sorry for. If you change your mind and you want to go—”

“I’m not.”

Since when did we have three stubborn asses living at the house?

“But if you do—”

“I’m not. PawPaw can wait a week. He’ll probably outlive me,” Zac argued.