Page 50 of Get Me to the Starting Line
“Again?”
I nod, and she studies her notes. The room is not what you’d expect when you think of a massage room. There aren’t tea tree oils everywhere, no soft candles burning or orange bulbs turned down low. It’s a fairly medical room.
The top half of the walls are white and the bottom half a navy blue. The massage table is grey, and Paige’s rolling chair is currently behind her desk with the computer monitor turned off. There are shelves of oils and lotions, but right beside them are posters of the muscular system of the body—and the pressure points.
It’s clean and clinical. The massaging that’s done here is not meant to relax us. Though she does sometimes dim the lights and make it less painful.
Today is not going to be one of those days.
“Go ahead and lie down,” she instructs, though I’m already moving, adjusting my robe so she has access to my legs. I settle my head into the rest, lying flat on my stomach.
I hear Paige move to the wall of lotions and when she comes back, I anticipate the warm feeling of her hands. Instead, the shock of the cold lotion hits me right in the middle of my hamstring.
A hiss escapes my lips at the unexpected temperature. Can I hear Paige smiling? Evil.
Her hands begin kneading my muscles. Hard. I flinch, a grunt I can’t hold back slipping through my lips.
“Oh, sorry, is that too much pressure?” Her sweet voice fills the room. Bullshit.
“No.” I won’t give her the satisfaction. As a bonus, if she can take a little of her anger out on me, maybe that’ll help repair things between her and Leah. I feel a kernel of guilt, like it’s my fault.
“Good.”
And before I know it, she’s digging in harder.
“Fuuuuuuck,” I say through gritted teeth as she works her strong hands, or should I say torture devices? Is she trying to dig her way through the muscle fibres?
“How’s that?”
“P-Perfect.” I think I may cry.
She pulverizes my muscles for a few more moments before speaking again.
“Why are you running with my sister?” She comes right out and asks.
I shouldn’t be surprised at her bluntness. I know it’s something both she and Adam have been working on. Because of their faulty communication skills, they spent two years thinking the other didn’t want to hear from them. They were both too considerate for their own good. A quick conversation could have solved the whole problem. But I can relate.
Conversations like that are hard, and who wants to be outright rejected? I don’t blame them. They barely knew each other, and they had enough proof to confirm their own assumptions.
And when Paige moved here and they were reunited, they danced around each other. Now they’ve learned to communicate better, sometimes to the point of oversharing.
You’d think I would’ve been ready with an answer given I’ve been preparing for this confrontation all day. Though, I didn’t want to discuss it lying prone on a massage table while she pulverizes me with her hands.
I clear my throat and try to get ahold of my stutter. I hate that it’s worse when I’m feeling tense. “W-We bumped into each other o-one day.”
“When?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“Weeks.” She breathes the word and momentarily forgets she’s supposed to be causing me as much pain as possible. Then she snaps back into it, moving to the other leg.
I brace myself for the onslaught. It’s just as bad, if not worse, now that I know what’s coming. My jaw clenches as she works the hamstrings of my other leg.
“You should t-talk to Leah,” I tell her.
“I will.”
The relief that floods me comes as a surprise. I didn’t want to be the reason they were fighting or stopped talking. I know that’s self-centred of me—there’s more to this than simply Leah running with me.
