Love,

Phoebe

I click send and log off. Bed is calling me. After all, it is ten hours later in Serfopoula and that means I haven’t slept in, like, thirty-six hours. And I have to go to the Academy with Damian at seven-thirty to fill out paperwork and finalize my class schedule.

The only good thing about this whole catastrophe so far is Damian says the track coach is world class and so is the team. And tryouts are tomorrow after school. At least I’ll get a good year of training in to prep me for the USC team.

Barely dragging up the energy to change out of my traveling clothes, I pull on a clean T-shirt and a pair of smiley face boxers and collapse onto my bed. At least the bed is comfy—all white and just soft enough. Still, I think I’m going to dream about green sea slugs and shimmering stepsisters tonight.

When my alarm clock goes off at six I’m tempted to fling it against the wall. I’m suffering serious jet lag in the form of whole-body muscle weakness and a headache that makes brain freeze feel like a pinprick. Tugging the white fluffy comforter up over my head to muffle the deafening alarm, I consider my two options.

Either I stay in bed, shut out the outside world, and hope that by the time seven-thirty rolls around—when I have to meet Damian— all my pain has faded away.

Or . . . I can toss off the covers, pull on my sneakers, and go for a good long run that might not erase the jet lag, but will at least replace this sluggish feeling with familiar physical exhaustion.

To snooze or not to snooze?

From beneath the covers I hear my room door burst open and smack against the wall.

“Turn that awful thing off!” Stella shouts.

Flopping a corner of the comforter back, I force one eye open and squint at her. I don’t say anything at first—partly because I’m surprised that she could hear my alarm all the way down in the slimy dungeon I’ve pictured her sleeping in and partly because I’m trying not to laugh. She looks like a pint of mint chocolate chip exploded on her face.

“Did you fall asleep in a bowl of pistachio pudding?”

She scowls and jabs her finger at the still-blaring clock.

Nothing happens.

“Aargh!”

I smile. Maybe I can get Stella grounded for the entire year—at least then I’d be safe.

If her face weren’t covered in green I know she would be turning red.

When she stomps in my direction, I fling my arm out and smack the top of the clock. I don’t want her getting any of the green goop on my fluffy white comforter. “Forget it,” I say, sitting up and swinging my legs out of bed. “I’m getting up anyway.”

For a moment she looks like she wants to continue her attack, but then turns and stomps back to her room.

My brain is waking up—no turning back now.

I grab a pair of track pants, a T-shirt, and a pair of white socks out of the dresser, pull them on in a matter of seconds, splash some water on my face in the bathroom, lace up my sneakers, and am heading out the door when the snoozing alarm clock starts blaring again. Smiling at the thought of Stella having to hunt it out from under my bed, I start down the path to the dock where we arrived last night. Where there’s water there must be a beach.

The dock is in a little lagoon, nicely protected from the open sea, with rocky cliffs on one side and a narrow strip of sand on the other. Even though I’m not going to push my worn-out body too hard, I sit on the dock and do ten minutes of stretches. Pulling a hamstring is the last thing I need.

The sun is just starting to rise and casts a pale pink over everything. I take deep, filling breaths as I reach for my toes, taking in the salty clean smell of the sea. A different smell from the California beaches I’m used to. Purer, maybe.

I twist my upper body to the one side, going for that extra oblique stretch, and notice a cluster of little white buildings on top of the cliffs. Bathed in the early morning twilight, it looks just as pink as the rest of the island. That must be the village. It seems so strange that there are people that live up there in that little village, a world away from L.A., with whole lives that go on whether I’m here to see them or not. I guess that’s true of everywhere—the cars you pass on the freeway, the towns you fly over at thirty thousand feet, and those little white buildings. Suddenly, L.A. feels even farther away.

Surrounded by pink and silence, except for gently lapping waves, I embrace the inner and outer peace. Leaving the dock for the thin strip of sand, I kick into a moderate run. If my entire year here were just like this moment then things might not be so bad. But I know that this feeling only exists when I run. It’s why I run. That, and to feel closer to Dad.

As the sand squishes beneath my Nikes, I lose myself in the memory of our early-morning training runs. When Dad was training in the off-season we would run almost every morning. Almost always on Santa Monica beach. We would park near the pier, run the three miles down to Marina del Rey, and then race back to the pier for ice cream. If I beat him, I got a double scoop.

I don’t even realize I’m crying until I taste my tears. Not slowing my pace, I wipe at my eyes. Why was I even thinking about Dad? Usually I don’t think about anything when I run. I’m too focused on the sensation of running.

Clearing my mind, I notice the burning in my quads. How long have I been running? The world around me is no longer bathed in pink. A quick glance over my shoulder confirms my suspicion. The dock is nowhere in sight and the sun has cleared the horizon.

I need to get back.

Dropping to a walk, I’m about to turn around and head back when I notice another person running on the beach. He’s less than two hundred yards away from me, close enough for me to appreciate the loose, easy movement of his gait. I can tell his body is made for running, and somehow I know that his soul lives for it. I guess I recognize a kindred spirit.