Chapter 3

Thad arose early the next morning. Despite the long afternoon nap, he had gone to bed early and fallen sound asleep. He figured it was the combination of the stress of the past two days, the long run after the track meet, and the lack of sleep the night before.

Whatever the cause, he felt great this morning and put on his gear for a morning run. As he headed out, he tossed the paper into the kitchen and then headed out for his usual run over the hill course he had devised.

As he ran, he felt great and knew that physically, he was no worse for wear after the track meet and the record times. In fact, as he tackled the hills, he felt wonderful, sprinting up each hill and then running down the other side until he came to the next hill.

Soon enough, he was back to his home after the five-mile run. When he entered the kitchen he saw that it was still before seven. He had remembered when he was running that Tricia practiced her skating on Sunday morning from 6-8am. Thad thought he could get in a shower, grab some coffee and bagels and surprise her at the ice skating rink.

Deciding quickly, Thad put his plan in actions and was in the car headed for the rink, arriving by a quarter past seven.

Tricia was really struggling on the ice this morning and she was becoming increasingly frustrated. No matter how many times she practiced the new jump, she just had not been able to land it properly. She pushed herself up off the ice after her latest fall and rubbed her knee where it had hit the ice. It hurt, but it wasn’t injured.

Just then she heard the door to the arena open and she looked up at the clock, secretly hoping that her time on the ice was up and she could call it a morning, but she realized that she had only been working a bit over an hour.

When she turned to see who had come into the rink, she didn’t see anyone at first, but as she skated around the ice, stretching out after her last failed attempt, she realized that Thad was now sitting in the stands.

She couldn’t suppress the smile that broke out across her face. No matter how bad her morning had been up to that point, it was great now. Part of her worried that she was letting any person, even her best friend, have such an effect on her. But, it felt too good to try and ignore it, so she was just going with the flow.

Then she realized that Thad had a silly smile on his face that probably matched hers. And, it appeared he was holding up a cup of coffee and some bagels. He’d gone to her favorite place, the Atlanta Bread Company for them.

Deciding that maybe a bite of food and a sip of coffee would help her, she stepped off the rink and motioned for Thad to walk over.

“You came to my practice,” she exclaimed when he was near. “And you brought food!”

Tricia leaned forward and stepped between his arms that were carrying coffee and a bagel and hugged him, savoring the feel of his warm body pressed against her skin that was cool from the ice. Then she kissed him softly on the cheek and then reluctantly broke away.

They sat on the end of the bench that ran along the ice and Tricia ate a few bites of bagel and had a few sips of coffee while Thad sat next to her, his arm around her, pulling her close to him. It was a comfortable silence, neither felt the need to fill the silence with idle chat.

Soon enough, Tricia’s coach walked over.

“You ready to try it again?” he asked.

“Just let me do a couple of laps to warm back up, this leg is a bit stiff still after that last fall,” Tricia answered. She leaned over and gave Thad another kiss on the cheek and then stood and headed back out on the ice.

“Ah, young love,” murmured her coach as he watched the two of them.

Later, as Tricia was showering and getting ready to meet Thad, she couldn’t believe how well the rest of her practice had gone. She had nailed the new combination jump four times in a row and she knew that it was because Thad was there to watch her.

Well, she decided then, he will just have to come to the competition in a few weeks!

But as she thought back about it, what had seemed so difficult before, seemed to just flow effortlessly after she had sat with him. She had made the jump on her next try, and then stumbled as she set up for the next one. But after that stumble, she had done it four times in a row and her coach couldn’t believe how flawless they all looked.

In fact the rest of her practice seemed to flow by. She seemed lighter on her feet, faster across the ice and graceful as she twirled her way around the rink.

With a shudder, she realized she had been daydreaming about Thad watching her on the ice and the sensation was quite pleasant.

“Well, time to go thank him for being such great inspiration,” she thought as she toweled dry.

Dressing quickly, she brushed her hair and applied just a touch of makeup, something she almost never did. She couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off her face as she preened in the mirror.

“So, this is what it feels like to be infatuated,” she thought as she opened the door and sucked in a breath when she saw Thad was waiting just outside the dressing room for her.

Thad was actually starting to wonder if he would regret agreeing to wait on Tricia. He didn’t think she would take very long to get ready; she had never seemed like a high maintenance type girl. Oh, she was always beautiful, but in that clean natural way that some women are just blessed with. She was never one for makeup and messing with her hair. And she was just as often in jeans and a t-shirt as she was in a dress.

But just then the door opened and a goddess stepped into his vision.

The light from the dressing room spilled out into the dim hallway, silhouetting her in the doorway. It was eerie how similar it looked to when he saw her standing by the fence at the meet just a day and a half ago.

And the smile on her face, it was glorious. It was breathtaking, stunning. And it took a moment for Thad to regain his composure and get his brain to work when she stopped right in front of him.

Thad smiled and stood staring, unable to tear his gaze away from her eyes that were bright and sparkling, even in the dim light.

They stood there for at least a few minutes, or so it seemed to Thad, just staring into one another’s eyes until she grabbed his arm and turned him toward the door.

“Come on and feed me so I will have energy to do what I want to do to you right now,” Tricia said huskily.

Not one to argue, Thad sped them out the door and into his car.

Lunch was one of those meals that anyone who has ever been in love will remember fondly. It was that meal when you smile a lot and stare into the other person’s eyes and talk about everything and nothing, all at the same time. And hours later, when the restaurant is empty and you are the only two people left in the place, you realize that you need to move to somewhere more intimate.

And that is exactly where Thad and Tricia found themselves when they left the Five and Ten restaurant late that afternoon. It was around three o’clock in the afternoon and they were stuffed and without even thinking about it, he reached over and pulled Tricia to him. She smiled even wider and snuggled into his side as they walked down the street to where he had parked his car.

Thad walked her up to her side of the car and then opened the door for her. Just before she got in, she gave Thad a quick kiss on the cheek. Then with a smile, she slid into the front seat and Thad closed her door before heading around to his side of the car.

“So shall I drop you at home?” Thad asked, secretly hoping that this day wasn’t over yet.

“I do need to get some studying done, and my house is going to be crazy with my brother and sisters running around. If I call my mom, can we study at your house?” she asked, her voice hopeful.

“I’m sure my mother wouldn’t mind,” Thad replied, knowing that his mother would be thrilled and eventually she was going to set him down and ask him about his ‘relationship’ with Tricia.

His mom hadn’t really paid attention to his other girlfriends because she knew, just as Thad had, that they weren’t serious. Sure, she had talked to him about sex and the dangers, but she was very open to the fact that her son was maturing and in her mind, as she had told him, sex was just a part of being human.

But while she had let him grow and explore as he grew up, she also knew, that Tricia was something different.

However, the smile that lit up Tricia’s face when he agreed to her plan more than compensated for any future grilling that he might have to undergo from his mother.

Tricia pulled out her iPhone and called her mom.

Thad tried to ignore the conversation and give her as much privacy as he could, but there is only so much you can do when you are in a car.

“Hey Mom!” Thad heard Tricia say. “Yes, I just had lunch with Thad and I’m heading over to his house to study for that Biology test.”

There was a pause, then “No! Mom! I can’t believe you would think that. Of course I wouldn’t!”

Another long pause occurred followed by, “He’s sitting right here, he drove to the restaurant.”

Then finally, “I’ll call you when I get to my car. Bye!”

Looking embarrassed, Tricia hung up her phone and then exclaimed, “Parents!”

“Yeah, I know. I hate to ask this, but will you call my mom and let her know we are coming. I’d call her, but she’ll just yell at me for driving and talking on the phone.”

“Done,” Tricia said as she pressed the call button on her phone. “Your mother is way cooler than mine anyway.”

Thad wasn’t so sure about that but he smiled and nodded.

“Hey Ellen,” Tricia enthused into the phone, “Guess where your wonderful son took me for lunch!”

Thad groaned and prepared for the worst, when Tricia suddenly exclaimed, “What? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Thad looked over in concern and saw Tricia frowning and concentrating on the call. He started to ask what was wrong, but Tricia motioned for him to keep driving and be quiet.

“What do you want us to do?” Tricia asked. There was again a long pause and then she replied into the phone, “Alright. Thad is going to drop me off at the rink and then we’ll meet you at the hotel this evening around seven.”

Thad slowed the car and pulled into the parking lot of a Presbyterian church. “What’s going on?” he asked, suddenly worried.

Tricia frowned, “Your mother has it all under control,” she answered. “But she wants to meet us for dinner at Hotel Indigo. So, just drop me at the rink, I’m going to head home and change and I’ll meet you there for dinner.”

“You’re going to have to tell me eventually, though,” Thad stated as he pulled the car back onto the road and toward to ice rink.

That sooner appeared even more quickly than Thad anticipated as they pulled into the lot of the ice rink. There were several television vans parks around the parking lot and as they pulled into the lot, people started spilling out of the vans and aiming television cameras at their car.

“Shit,” Tricia muttered under her breath.

“Errr, is this what my mother was warning you about?” Thad asked quietly, his hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles were turning white.

“Well, she was hoping that she could tell you, but yes, it is. Apparently the story of your world record setting time was picked up by the mainstream media and now she is getting requests from all sorts of media to give interviews. Apparently, some of the morning television shows are offering serious money.”

Thad paused. It was one thing for the local media to be interested in a story about a freak boy who had a good night and ran really fast, but now it really was turning into a freak show.

“I’m so sorry Tricia,” Thad mumbled and tried to put the car in reverse, backing out of the parking lot. His only thought was to get Tricia home. They hadn’t bothered her the other night, but now apparently she was fair game to the press sharks.

“Stop, what are you doing? Stop!” she exclaimed.

“I’m taking you home,” Thad replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“No!” exclaimed Tricia. “Take me to my car now.”

Thad did stop the car, but he was shaking with anger. Messing with him was one thing, but messing with Tricia was out of bounds. He was the freak; she was just a perfect woman. There was nothing that was freakish about Tricia.

“Thad, calm down,” Tricia said softly. “I’m ok with this. I perform in front of thousands of people every few weeks; I can deal with the press. If anything, this exposure will be good for my career.”

That gave Thad pause. Was she hanging out with him just because he was a freak and she needed the publicity?

“Thad, just breathe,” Tricia said softly, reaching over to gently stroke his hair. “I need you to just breathe. Look at me,” she said.

“You are a wonderful person and I was interested in you long before you ran some race really fast.

“And I have never felt so happy and as free as I have with you over the past twenty-four hours.”

She gently grasped his chin and forced him to look at her.

Thad let her turn his head and he looked into her bright blue eyes. He knew he could never refuse her anything. Not when he looked into her eyes.

“Just tell me why,” he said softly, “Why are you hanging out with me?”

Tricia almost laughed, but she knew instinctively that if she laughed, she would never she Thad again, at least not the way that she wanted to see him.

Tricia was not experienced with men, she had only dated a few boys in her life and they were all disasters. From the captain of the football team to the cool pretty boy of the high school, she had always had the choice of the school elite. But Thad had never been part of the school hierarchy.

But now she knew why she wanted Thad. It wasn’t anything that had happened. It wasn’t that he could run fast, it was simply that she knew him. And she knew that Thad would always put her first, no matter what.

It was in that moment that Tricia realized that she loved him. It was too soon to know if she was in love with him, but she loved him, and would love him to the end of her life. “Clichés be damned,” she thought, she would be no less of a friend to Thad on the day of her death as she was right now.

“Thad, look,” she said quietly, “We can run away from this, or we can face it head on. I prefer to face my problems head first; it was something that my Dad taught me before he died.”

Thad took a deep breath and slowly relaxed his hands on the steering wheel. He saw Tricia’s car on the other side of the parking lot and the crowd of reporters between them and her car.

And then it started to happen again, time slowed as he put the car into gear and pressed on the accelerator, concentrating on the far side of the parking lot.

“Get out of the car. I’ll meet you at the hotel.” Thad barked.

Tricia nodded numbly and opened the door, fumbling with her keys and finally getting into her car.

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