The Good Hurt

This story is by a good friend of mine, Andrew Swerlick. He started writing it sophomore year in our intermediate fiction class, but it's changed a lot since then.

You're cold, bitterly cold. You didn't think before you left. This weather needs gloves and a hat, long pants, maybe even a ski mask. The high today was 35, and now its nearly midnight, dark and bitterly cold. There's a slight wind, the kind that doesn't bite and scream, but the kind that holds the cold up against you like the hands of someone too long outside. The wind muffles everything but the slip slap of your feet on the pavement. You try to concentrate on your breathing. In. . . Out. . . . Mouth wide on the in, narrow to an O on the out. An O like a kiss you remember your old coach once said. . . No.... Don't think about kissing. Don't think about her and about them and about the way she closed her eyes as he kissed her neck, and ran his fingers over her shoulders and across her bare back. Don't think about how you bent down and picked up a rock, how the rock felt cold and hard and dry in your hands and how you let it fly without even thinking and how it smashed up against the window and how it rang out before the glass shards came crashing down. How her eyes snapped open and went from fear to the shock of recognition, to sadness and a sort of animal panic as she pushed him away and stood there in only her bra and underwear, staring at you, you staring back, but only for an instant, because that's all you could stand before you turned and ran back to your car, the wind muffling everything but the slip slap of your feet on the pavement.

Push that away and concentrate on your breathing. Control it like you couldn't then because you were nearly cursing, nearly shouting, nearly crying. In and out. Steady and calm. Concentrate on your form, straighten up your back, straighten out your fingers and find the rhythm. Slip slap. In and out. When the anger surfaces again push it down into the pavement. Run faster, leaving a little bit behind every time you slam down onto the sidewalk. Slip slap, slip slap, slip slap. The wind muffles everything, the cold numbs you.

You think about the message that was on your machine when you got home. How you played it while you pulled on your shorts, put on your running shoes, and pulled over your dry fit shirt.

"Oh god, oh god, I'm so sorry. Please call me I'm sorry, I didn't mean for this--Oh God."

You didn't call her. Instead you went out to seek refuge in the slip slap, in the bitter cold, in the wind that muffles everything, in the good hurt that leaves it all behind on the pavement. Will you call her? What will she say? . . . Hello? . . . I should have told you? . . . It was a mistake, I'm sorry? . . . I don't love you anymore? . . . I still love you? What will you say? Nothing? Everything? Will you cry, will you hang up, will you ask why, does it matter why? What can she say?

A horn blares and you stop. You realize you nearly ran a light. You step back onto the curb. A few cars stream past. You wait for the change, concentrating on your breathing. In . . . Out. . . You look around, and you realize where you are--realize that two streets up, on the same side of the road, is the turn off to her neighborhood. You nearly turn back, you nearly go home, but it's at least five miles back that way, and if you cut through, through the backstreets, past her house, and out again onto the main road, it's only two. You concentrate on your breathing and realize how labored it is, how cold you are and how the wind is picking up. These are your roads, and you've run this route a thousand times. The light changes and you dash across the street, finding rhythm again, tightening your form, concentrating on your breath.

You turn down her street. You pass her house and you glance to the side before you accelerate. It's two miles to home and you're sprinting, but you'll hold this pace even if it means breaking your heart. The hurt comes, the good hurt, the lactic acid that makes your legs scream to give in, but you don't. The wall comes and you push through it and you shatter it again and again and again. Every time the pain peaks, every time it crescendos, every time you are sure that you can't go on, you accelerate and the slip slap goes faster and the pain goes away for long enough before it comes back. You're spiraling down. You can't hold forever, but it's only half a mile now and you can hold for half a mile. You can hold for a quarter of a mile. And for a hundred yards. And for the last ten steps to your doorway.

You burst in through the door, doubled over and breathing hard. The phone is ringing, and just as you realize it, the answering machine kicks in. It's her. And you're standing there. Standing there with her voice playing, her voice begging "please, please, call me back, dear God, I'm sorry, God I love you, I'm sorry." You're not cold anymore. The house is hot and smothering. You're sweating, breathing hard, you're wheezing. Your legs and the backs of your eyes and your chest they all hurt, they hurt bad. You are paying now. This is the cost, but it is worth it, and you will not call her back. You will bend down and unplug the phone. You will stand back up and you will turn off the light. You will find that spot where it hurts so good, and you'll ride it for as long as you can.