I rose at dawn on that day.
The sun had not broken across the horizon, but there I was, stating at the rays as they rose out from behind the buildings and signs. It had taken forever to get here. It had taken a lifetime to get my parents to let me even go...but there I was, standing at the starting line...long before anyone would be there. Only a few hours later, the streets would be packed with thousands of people, of all walks of life, all in their forms of running attire: the professionals, the walkers, the couples pushing strollers --all surrounding me at first, but none would be able to hold me back.
On April 15th, at 8:55 AM, Sunday morning, I stoically stood at the front line and stared intently at the grueling course before me: seven point forty-six miles of winding roads, downhill scrambles and uphill climbs. Not a huge deal, I could handle it. I was on the football team...I could do whatever I put my mind to. The lack of proper training, bad shoes and a deformed heart would not stop me.
The canon rang off with a distant "boom", signaling the start of the start and I was off at a quick and steady pace. I was part of a small pack of runners whose stride could never be broken. They held their heads high with the eternal look of victory on their faces. I was a part of that group. An un-official brotherhood of athletes who lived by a code--to do the best they could do with what God gave them and hope that the spaghetti throughout the past few weeks prove to give a carb rush.
I wanted to push on through and take the lead, but we were only on mile two of the race; too early to fire off the afterburners and too early to gloat that I had this race won with very little effort. No, it would be best to coast along with the others and wait for the chance to break the rank and file and burst on through.
The leaders took through the streets leading to Spokane Falls Community College like a leisurely stroll through the park. We prodded up the hill, showing a little pain, some hesitation but from the midpoint of Doomsday Hill I felt a second wind and decided to go for broke. To hell with it, I was going to finish this race or die trying.
I could feel my heart ache as I approached the home stretch. My mouth felt dry and I was so light-headed I might as well had been floating over the street with every step I took. I could see the finish line ahead...like I saw every night when I would dream about running that race…I’d never get to cross the finish line, it was always. Just. One. Step. Away.

"Bloomsday" is a trademark of The Spokane Lilac-Bloomsday Association
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover photo: “The Joy of Running Together” by David Govedare
Written to songs performed by Yanni
 

I could tell you the medical condition I suffer from, but it would be incredibly boring, too clinical and your eyes would glaze over before I finished saying the name. Let's just call it "China Doll Syndrome": He's fragile, so don't touch. No, I wasn't made of glass, but too much strain would cause my heart to go into overdrive and I would fall to the ground in a crumpled heap. The first time this happened was when I was seven years old, trying to play football with some kids.
The ball snapped and I sprinted forward to catch it...and I did! The feeling was monumental as the ball glided into my hands. I tightened my grip around the oblong object and ran ahead. I felt like I was flying; like I was finally a winner! The Seahawks would come out to Reardan and demand that I sign with them!
But, in reality, I was lying on the ground, my lips blue, surrounded by the looks of scared kids and frightened parents...including my own. Just moments before, I was the ruler of the football field, ball in hand, running to the goal line with no one on my tail. The next thing, I have a team of EMTs around me, sticking every form of needle in my skin and a tube down my throat.
A few weeks later, when I ran as fast as heart and lungs would allow, the other kids avoided me. Some were scared, some were mean for some reason. Even the older boys turned their backs on me.
As I got older, some of them stopped ignoring me and went straight into take no prisoners mode: the full-bravado-even though we have no freaking clue what that’s supposed to be when in junior high-mode and I had several days in a row where I would feel every verbal sling and arrow. There were a lot of times where I just wanted them to punch me or pummel me into the ground and just kill me, because I could deal with a final death more than I could with the daily torment.
It got worse my first week of high school when I was pushed down a flight of stairs. Yeah, everyone around said I slipped. Hell, I agreed with them, I did slip, but I had help from a few other people. I came back to school the next week with a heavy brace on my upper body. I looked and walked like a Modern Day Prometheus who had to turn like Robocop, with my entire body as I couldn’t twist around every well. You would think that someone would reach out to help someone in my condition if I dropped my books, but no.
Before you think that I’m just dumping on you, you know, poor me...poor little Patrick Stephenson, boo-hoo for him; I’m not. I’m just saying that there was a time where everything was horrible in my life even though I was handling my own physical afflictions like they didn’t affect me. Again, though, when people see someone in a metal frame or know about their history, they’re treated differently—and people—especially teenagers—don’t look towards the future.
It’s all in the now, my friend.
I still had my brace on when I showed up for football practice. The coach wasn’t going to let me play but I volunteered to be a manager and do whatever I could to help the team. I wanted to be able to maintain plays, maybe assist with scrimmages.
But no, I was the water boy.

I would be at the school before the sunrise, only because I lived a block away. I would trudge along looking like a kid’s badly designed Robotech costume and meet the coach at the storage building next to the field and bring out the equipment that I could before going down to the high school to retrieve the water cooler, fill it with ice and prepare the cups. I did this rain or shine and usually had it completed before the sun came up over the horizon.
Afterward, as the team would make it to the field to practice, I would try to not cry. I would try to not think about how I couldn’t do what they were doing. I could never get out on the field and throw a touchdown.
I would have settled for being slammed to the ground, if it meant that we would advance the ball. I never had the gall to ask the coach if I could play that year, as I couldn’t, per my medical history and as much as I would have liked to think that if the rest of the starters had been decimated and it was left to the junior varsity and they were missing a man—I still think that coach would scream for someone in the pep band or a cheerleader to suit-up and get out on the gridiron.
So, each day up until the upcoming game, I would move about behind the scenes, grabbing gear I knew that the coaching staff would ask for before they needed it. I never expected a thank you and seldom did I ever get one as coach usually had his mind on other things and if we were being walloped, as we were on the night we played Ritzville that year, his language went into a very deep shade of blue. He never yelled those choice words, but the emotion was there. I just did my very best to get what was needed and to move into the ether when I needed to.
When the games ended, I was usually left to gather everything...and I mean everything. Clipboards, cups, the cooler, someone’s helmet. That part was pretty cool, because I was able to hold onto said helmet and feign innocence on Monday morning when said player would go to the coach and say he misplaced his helmet. Said player would be chastised in front of the whole team and I would look like I wasn’t paying attention—because I didn’t usually care—and I especially didn’t care when it came to Chase Rogers losing his helmet.
No, I didn’t smash it or make it disappear, even though I really wanted to, as that wouldn’t be right. Chase was in my class; he was in a lot of classes with me and was a part of the football team that won a lot of our games. He was not class valedictorian, he wasn’t even the strongest or the toughest dude at Reardan High School but whatever he was, he was high enough in the upper echelon of our school to be my personal bully. No, not in a physical sense, as I was too easy of a target to beat up, but more in a mental or psychological way.
As I said, teenagers can feel lost, alone and anxiety filled. Some of us maybe felt like we didn’t belong in the bodies we were given or maybe we felt that everything would be better if we just flat out vanished or died—who would miss us?
I will say, that I felt like all of that and Chase used it against me by letting me know where my place in the high school pecking order was. A time would come where I would put him in his place, somehow, but until that day I had to endure put down after put down and I could never come up with a retort to any of them. I could now, but a lot of good that does me, right?
So, Chase would have to come to me and ask if I knew where his helmet was and, some days, I would immediately go and get it, bu other times I would meander a bit, and pretend that it took me forever to locate it even though it was sitting in the coach’s office back at the school. Did I sometimes feel like putting a dirty sweat sock in it? No.
Spilling an RC-Cola can filled with chewing tobacco spit?
Maybe.
 

It was raining the night of the homecoming game versus Moses Lake. It was a light and cold drizzle and with the wind that night it just made for a dreary evening. My glasses were either fogged up or splattered with raindrops that I just took them off and placed them in my locker in the school, which would be a problem as I was pretty much blind to things that were more than a few feet from me so I kept close to the team and staff and kept my ears open. I mean, I could see some distance away, but it was like a looking down a tube, or a tunnel, so I took it slow with carting the equipment up to the field.
Forty minutes before game time I was on a mission to find the first aid-kit that had been “misplaced” the week before by someone on the team who had no idea where it would be. I volunteered to search for it but they might as well had asked me to find the invisible man as it was getting dark and without the strong fields lights I was pretty much blind, even with a giant flashlight.
The first aid box was all the way in the back off the shed, in a location it should never have been placed. It was left open with most of the wrapping affected by the cold and the dirt on the floor. It looked like it hadn’t been placed but flung or had a caber toss from the door to the back of the shed. I gathered what I could, secured the shed and ran back to the field, but was stopped when I ran into a cart.
I’m sure it was an epic flip and amazingly the first-aid kit stayed closed as it flung out of my hand. I heard the contents of the cart hit the ground and a frightened chorus of girls screaming. A megaphone and a Pom-Pom flashed by my limited field of vision. I had ran into the cheerleaders. I wasn’t on the ground for long, even though I should have remained there as I, and everyone else around, heard the sound of breaking metal. My brace had been damaged but there was no way in the world I was going to let anyone come and help “poor me”. I was a senior in high school not Kindergarten and since I didn’t feel any any broken bones and my heart was still beating in my chest, I got up and helped to return their stuff back to the cart. Three of the girls carried on while the remaining three stayed to pick the gear up, well, one did while the other two ran towards the other three asking why they weren’t helping. That left only two people: me and Jennifer.
Our school only had six cheerleaders and they were usually appointed for life, well, until graduation. There wasn’t much of a way to get thrown off of the squad, at least not anything I knew about. On the team, it was possible to be thrown off for bad grades, drinking, fighting, getting in trouble with the law. Note I said, possible, just like it was possible that I could have won the lottery, or I could obtain a heart transplant, so, not likely.
I said very little to Jennifer, although she asked me a few times if I was okay. I only nodded and hastily tried to stack everything back up while trying to not pay attention to the countdown on the scoreboard. We Jenga’d the stuff as best we could, and I then grabbed the kit and the flashlight and continued my run to the other side of the field. Jennifer yelled “thank you” but I didn’t reciprocate.
Coach was too busy with the wind getting his papers messed up to care where I had been and I went into my regular job of setting everything up, but I had to do it slowly due to my sight and a piece of metal that felt like it would stab into my shoulder. I didn’t have the ability to fix it at the time and if sliced into me, I could roll my shoulder up and ask, “Dude, you know how I got this scar?” And make up a crapload story that would receive the complimentary “Cool.” Perhaps.
The game got underway with the wind blowing at full force so every play was obstructed by something flying into the field and while ball and pretty much everything around me went everywhere else I kept my gear down with weights and by having a lot of behind a cart I had knocked onto it’s side, something I would have to thank Jennifer for as my earlier crash landing gave me the idea.
I took a little more time watching her and the other cheerleaders, not that I ever really paid attention to them except at the pep rallies; there wasn’t time but since the wind was causing problems with every play I got to watch them a bit, obstructed by the movement of the team and my involvement with the game, but I could seem their moves; couldn’t hear them due to the shouting and the wind but I thought their work was pretty cool. They had it all together and most of them were nice to talk to or at least acknowledged my existence. No, it wasn’t if I didn’t get one of them to say hi to me then I would have a bad day but it felt heartening to walk down the hall and have them wave, maybe not directly to you, but in the friendly general direction.
“And that’s one reason you don’t have a girlfriend,” I sighed to myself. “One of several.”

Football season continued into the winter and the Reardan Indians triumphed to play in the championship game, the Kingbowl, in Seattle at the Kingdome. I was as pumped as the rest of the team but also felt that it was going to be Hell on wheels, literally, as the bus ride was six-plus hours and I knew one of two things would occur while riding said bus: I would be placed next to members of the football team who I couldn’t stand, like Chase Rogers, who was dating Jennifer at the time; or next to one of the staff members who would not have any interesting conversation and would probably force me to sit on the outside. I could only help for a freaked-out seating arrangement, like maybe sharing my seat with a water cooler or something.
Fortunately, no one was assigned to sit with me so I kind of got my wish. I tried to think of it as a “glass-half-full’ kind of thing, as maybe I just wanted to sit back and listen to my CD player. I didn’t bring 20 or so AA batteries and a case of discs for nothing.
We arrived at our hotel in Tukwilla, Washington and were assigned four to a room. I brought my sleeping bag and pillow—as I assumed, I’d probably not get to sleep in a bed and if I did, it would be just as rock hard as the floor, so no real loss. I was roomed with Chase and two other guys, sophomores, and hoped that this wasn’t an omen for the remainder of the evening.
The team went out to eat at a steakhouse and I took the time to look over the plays while everyone around me talked and kept the obscenities to a low roar. I would raise my eyes ever slightly to the rest of the group at times when I turned the pages and when my food arrived, I ate in silence. No one asked for my opinion, but no one harassed me either. The coaching staff asked me to come with them to take inventory and start organizing the gear for the morning. I thought that it would have been a better idea to do all of that back at the high school. It turned out we were missing several uniforms and helmets. The bus driver sent a call out through the radio to contact the school about the dilemma. It was confirmed that someone would have it that night.
A few hours later, I returned to the hotel room to find it crowded with several other players. I thought of all my stuff had been pilfered or thrown into the pool but there it was, in the far corner. I got my CD player out and put my headphones in as I read a book. I didn’t turn the player on as I was down to the 12 batteries and had forgotten the AC adapter. The guys were going back and forth talking about the girl in the pep band and the cheerleaders.
Two of the guys referred to two of the girls on the squad: Jazeta Daniels and Jennifer, and the things they wanted to do with them. I expected Chase to jump up and kick their asses for talking about Jennifer like that, considering she was his girlfriend. I mean, should one want to hear that some other guy wants to double-team your girlfriend? I had no idea what that meant but considering how much all of the guys laughed about it, I had to assume it was probably something I’d never want to bring up to her.
The guys went back and forth talking about positions, none of them sounded like football. I had to hide my disdain on how they could say things like that, let alone think that way as they were talking to said girls on a daily basis. I wanted to speak up and call them out as small-minded little men who take the precious moment of life and degrade it into a late-night feature on Skinemax. I didn’t have a halo over my head, I knew I wasn’t an angel, but I had to wonder how I could wax poetic to someone and create some work of art and show it to someone. Maybe not as a boyfriend. Maybe as just a friend.
And, as a friend, would it be a good idea to tell Jennifer everything I heard?
 

I never “officially” said anything to Jennifer. Instead, I left a typed-out letter in her locker describing everything that was said during that night near Seattle. There were multiple times where I wanted to delete what I typed and then burn or crumple the paper once I printed it out, but I thought I could never forgive myself if I didn’t tell her what was said. I also thought that it was none of my business. Maybe she liked that kind of thing? Maybe that’s what attracted her to him? The bad boy and the good cheerleader.
It was a staple in teen movies, and everyone knows that in high school the girls flock to the big man on campus...the big man whose heart was not deformed and who didn’t have physical ailments with his bones and was nearly blind. My girl would have to be in her late 20’s and had maybe grown out of the fleeting looks and macho attitude. There were some nights when I cried that I would never meet her and show her a good time in my limited ways. The other nights were spent with my fists clenched in anger that I couldn’t talk to any of them at school. There was always a reason for never approaching them, for one, I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me or hurt anyone on the day that I would keel over and die. Who wants to tell someone that? It was best to just halve everyone hear about the loss of Stephen to the world in general, so no one else was left to fill that void I would leave.
The fireworks occurred after third period the second day after we returned from winter break. Chase and Jennifer walked down the hallways so happy with each before first period but then it all hit the proverbial fan. I stayed out of sight but I—and everyone else— could hear everything from the the other of the hall. Jennifer kept her voice mellow, but Chase exploded as he tried to deny everything that he said that night. Every sordid detail about he would do with her along with friends and complete strangers. Yes, the other guys in the room made similar comments towards the girls in general but they weren’t dating them, and I didn’t hear how they spoke to those girls in particular.
It helped to be a fly on the wall with headphones on who can read and listen at the same time as Chase did not finger me as the assassin to his relationship. Jennifer stayed calm but I saw how the strain got to her later on in the day as her face was red. Maybe she was crying, maybe she screamed a few choice words in the locker room.
There were a few days where I thought they would pick back up as Chase tried to talk to her, but each time she would ignore him and put up her hands in the “I’m not talking to you” gesture. By the second week of January I felt pretty bad about it. Again, who was I to butt in? There a selfishness to it. Yes, I wanted to talk to her. Yes, I would have loved to hold her hand—if she allowed my to—and to place everything at her feet; to give praise to her like a goddess deserved. I thought she would balk at that as it was another literary crutch: girls didn’t care about poetry or romanticism—unless it was by one particular kind of guy. I looked in the mirror almost every other day and that guy never looked back to me.
But it gnawed at my soul so much that following Friday that I took a deep breath and stopped her while she was on here way to cheerleading practice. I tried to avoid looking like I wasn’t looking at her in eyes and I admitted that what I was going to say was going to be difficult. I also thought that she would think: “Oh, God, this guy is going to try and ask me out.” I just mowed my head and told her that I was in the hotel room at the time and that I was the one who wrote it all up because I couldn’t stand to hear what he said about her. I said I regretted doing it as it wasn’t my business. Time slowed down at that point and I waited for her to scream or to hit me and I would have accepted it as I would have to accept Chase hitting me later on after she would tell him that it was all Stephan’s doing. She reached her hands out and took mine and with the sincerest look in her eyes said: “Thank you.”
 

I avoided looking for Jennifer ever since that Friday. I assumed everything was done. I had performed my good deed and that was all there was to it. No credit asked for and none given. It was better to concentrate on school and to maybe fill out a few college applications and scholarship requests, since I failed to do so earlier that year. I will admit, I did it’s half-heartedly because of my half-heart: again, what did it matter if I was accepted to such-and-such school if I came in white as a ghost and died in a dorm room. The professors would wonder why I never made it to class and my roommate would wonder why I was so lazy.
I was surprised to see Jennifer standing next to my locker. I had to look down the hallway for a free second to see if anyone was hiding behind behind other students, that maybe I was on “Totally Hidden Video” or something. I assumed she had stopped by to tell me that as much as it was honorable to let her know what happened, that she could take care of herself. What I didn’t need was pity from her. Sure, it was close to Valentine’s Day, but I had closed my mind and heart to that day a long time ago when three consecutive V-Day’s received nothing. I mean, nothing. At. All. Valentine’s Day was a terrible thing to expose elementary and junior high students to—as maybe you would receive an obligatory valentine, or you would receive none at all.
Not that I was too bitter about it.
Jennifer thanked me again and then asked if I was doing anything after the upcoming basketball game. I didn’t hav to think too hard—I was doing absolutely nothing. I would go to the game and then go home and to bed. It wasn’t like I was invited to parties or would even know what to do if I was invited to you in the first place. She said it was nothing big, that maybe we could hang out. I said yes without much hesitation, but, I thoughts in my mind that this was some sort of trick. Jennifer wasn’t known for that, but maybe that was just the Jennifer that I had envisioned in my mind and not the flesh and blood one in front of me. The one who said, “I’ll see you then, bye” and then looked back at me every few feet.
I wanted to just dismiss her; dismiss it all as that kind of thing never happened to me. My heart skipped a few beats and my brain told it to knock out off as getting our hopes up would only leave to embarrassment and depression. If anything, it would be a friendly encounter and nothing more, a spend some time with a friend kind of thing.
I went to the game on Friday and I waved to Jennifer when she waved to me but after that, I tried to concentrate on the game but failed to do so. I admit, I watched her more. Not in a ogling sort of way, more like inquisitive; as in she could spend time with anybody, so why me?
She came up to where I sat after performing a dance with the other cheerleaders during halftime. She sat down next to me and had her glasses on, something she normally didn’t wear, especially at games but there she was. I had to smile a bit as she asked questions like, how they looked during the performance and if they picked the right song; apparently, she didn’t like the hip-hop songs the others chose but she performed them as a team player. When halftime was over, she rejoined the other girls on the sideline of the game.
I waited on the hallway after the game and tried to look like I wasn’t waiting for anyone, but it was hard to do that when no one was around to talk and the rest got he hallway was blocked by a security gate. Jennifer stepped out of the gym in jeans, a sweater and a kind of heavy jacket. I tried to make some small talk about the game but gave up as I didn’t really like basketball. Never liked trying to play it or any derivative of it. Football was game, even if it didn’t like me. She commented that the game meant little to her as it was more of an excuse to learn the cheers and dance moves that could one day get her on the stage somewhere in New York or Hollywood.
I told her I’d love to see her on stage, and she held her bag out to me. I took it as she took a few steps back and moved her body in a complicated dance maneuver with fast moving feet; with some type of pivot and what looked like a back-breaking—if I ever tried to do it—twist.
She did it all with a smile on her face, like it was no big deal, but I had to clap and and say that it was second most exquisite thing I had seen that night.
“The first one being you.”
 

We took everything slow for two weeks. We said hello to each other and met for a few moments at each other’s lockers. We were different classes so our only time to meet was at lunch and after school. Still, for the most part we looked like a tutoring session at times when we were together as we had out books out. A few times I would sit on the bleachers after school and work on math as she had cheer practice which sometimes required running around the gym, up the stairs to the balcony and down the other side of the gym. I always thought the stairs were a death trap and that someday, someone would take a fall. It would be an epic fall, but that last step would hurt like Hell.
On one day, I decided to run with her. The cheer coach wasn’t in the gym and I was feeling incredibly stupid so I ran a bit with her, or I should say I jogged a bit behind her as I didn’t want her to slow her pace—and if Mrs. Humphrey, the coach, walked in it would like I was doing my own thing. Mrs. Humphery did not walk in, but Chase, Dustin and Curtis did. I tried to ignore them from the other side of the gym, but I could see them out of the corner of my left eye as we entered the stairwell. I felt like I had to stop running and just not proceed. Maybe shout to Jennifer to stop because of Chase but what good would it do? I thought that maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t care about me and just wanted to talk to her? I couldn’t stop her from doing so but I didn’t think she cared to. I slowed my pace and she descended the other staircase without me.
I walked down the stairs to see Jennifer stopped with Chase talking with her. I didn’t make eye contact with anyone until Jen looked back to me. At that moment, something clicked in. Chase’s brain. I don’t think it was that I ratted him out but that she was with me and for some reason that caused his face to turn red.
Jennifer told him to back off and waved me on to join her. Now, I was bigger than Chase, but he had the body strength that I only dreamed of and thought of actually having to fight him terrified me. Sure, I had thought of knocking his block off in the past, maybe also using a roundhouse kick followed by a hadouken and a judo chop (I could at least dream about it, right?). I attempted to walk by, but Chase shoved me out of the way. I didn’t go down, but it did hurt. I continued moving and tried to jog again but Chase ran ahead of me and taunted me.
About how I was pathetic, or something along those lines.
About how much of a pussy I was; or something to that effect.
He then pushed me again and I pushed him back.
Jennifer yelled for him to stop. He yelled something back at her. I didn’t hear what he said but I lunged at him and punched him in the chest. He then threw a fist at my face.
I countered by grappling him and wrapping my arm around his neck. There wasn’t a Geneva convention at Reardan High School, so in my mind, anything went at that moment. I couldn’t outrun any of them and I couldn’t last them in some drawn-out grudge match, but I could use a variation of a sleeper hold.
I held onto him for almost a minute, saying only one thing: “Apologize” He tried to motion to Dustin and Curtis, but they stayed back as Mrs. Humphrey had entered the gym.
At that moment, it felt like I was watching myself from a distance, like a recording of the incident.
My grip on Chase loosened and he scampered away as Jennifer screamed my name. I was blue in the face again and crashed to the gym floor.
 

I used to have this dream: I would rise at the sun, looking down a road that stretched out forever in both directions. One way was dark and cloudy while the other was not sunny and filled with rainbows, but it was inviting. I’d calmly walk down the road and meet up with a young woman with long brown hair...I could never see her face and her voice was always drowned out by the sound of my own breathing. She would always take off running and I would do my best to run after her and just as she would be within touching distance before...she’d appear several feet ahead, like a skip in time.
I would usually wake up at that moment but that time it was different. She turned around and walked back to me, her face still obstructed by her hair which blew wildly in a wind that seemingly only affected her. She would look like she was floating in the air. The young woman then touched down and took my hand and we ran together until I grew old. She remained young though, until I looked harder and saw it wasn’t her, but someone else, maybe a daughter, mine; and several other children behind her.
I collapsed to the ground in a weeping heap but then looked at a younger version of myself in a heavy jacket, still standing with the young woman. He nodded to me and opened the jacket to reveal a blood red running suit. I nodded back to him as all of the children hugged me and waved goodbye.
The young woman, who now looked like Jennifer, took his hand and they—as a group—ran away, past the older and depressed me and into the light. To heaven, or the future? At the time, I didn’t know.
I stood up and looked at my hands, withered and old; I had no idea if the rest of me looked similar. The darkness started to overtake, and I tried to run away from it, but unlike before, I could feel every beat of my heart and the pain that each step took on my ankles.
Crack!
I felt my leg give out, but I continued on, even as the darkness enveloped me. I was not going to lie still and die, even if I had to drag my literally broken body through whatever time I had left in my life.
“Please wake up, Stephen.”

I woke up a week later. Since my heart had stopped four times since I arrived, they had me under for a while. I wanted to make a quick joke about feeling like I was dead, but I was afraid that the nurses wouldn’t approve of morbid humor in the ICU.
My parents rushed to the hospital as soon as they were notified that my eyes were open. There voices and faces were as loud and clear as Charlie Brown’s teacher for a few minutes and then it all came into focus. I didn’t ask where I was, because the tube down my throat made it kind of impossible to say anything at all. They went over what had happened and how Chase’s parents were upset at their son and that he had spent a few days in therapy over what happened. He hadn’t apologized for what happened, of course.
The three of us sat in the room in silence for a few more minutes before my mom left the room crying. Dad followed her out and I looked to the window, but the blinds were closed. I closed my eyes and I guess I fell back to sleep.
It was early March and I spent many days staring out of the now open window of my hospital room. I could only see the sky, as my head was pretty much immobilized—along with my left arm and right leg. My dream was kind of accurate: I had some significant damage to my body; so much that Steve Austin could have walked in and said there was no way to rebuild me. The doctors, in their forever positive manner of speaking told me that I would probably never be able to effectively use my left arm and if I did it would be very limited and with the dangers of shattering every bone in my arm. I had to laugh at that and think if that was case, I should go for the world record and include every other bone in my body, including the hammer, anvil and stirrup.
Jennifer had not yet come to visit. I had kind of hoped she wouldn’t have as she would have had to see me hooked up to everything—which I still was, except that I could breathe on my own and had that god-awful breathing tube removed.
I told my parents about what happened and why. They never heard the entire story of why it had happened, and it shocked them. No, not that I was injured, it was that I had a girlfriend. “Had” was the key word in my head as a week later, and she had yet come to see me. I had her phone number but my voice was so raspy that she probably couldn’t hear me without me going hoarse in less than two minutes, so I didn’t call.
“Perhaps its for the best,” I thought to myself. I mean. This was what I didn’t want someone to ever see. I didn’t want anyone else to feel a commitment to me and then see me like this: feeble and lying in the road...like a certain bad dream.
But we never got to do those things that couples do. We never went out on date into town; like a restaurant or a movie. Sure, we spent time in the woods; yes, we spent time with each other just talking. I guess ours was better than what was in books or movies, but it was over, for as far as I knew as I turned my head to the window once again. I could feel the sunset and wondered if there was a hint of warmth out there to go against the coldness of my room.
A hand knocked on the door and it creaked open. I didn’t turn as it was probably a nurse or doctor wanting to observe and take my vitals. It had become such a routine that we pretty much did it in silence. There were multiple footsteps, so I assumed they were having another round of medical students take a look at me. I sighed and flipped over and I nearly had another heart attack then and there as Jennifer stood with Jazeta and Andrea.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better, now that I see you.”

I could go home in late March. Not that is was much of a difference from being in the hospital. Well, no one was waking me up in the middle of the night and machines weren’t beeping and blaring every other hour form some reason; and I was in my own room, but it still felt like a prison cell. Jennifer come over when’s he was allowed to and got to know my parents...perhaps a bit too well as they talked about all of the thingsI used to do before “that day”. I never told them o stop and I never scowled but she could see that being reminded that I used to be able to run all the way to the butte and back in my bare feet was kind of upsetting.
She tried to raise my spirits by telling me I had the biggest heart and the strongest character of anyone she ever knew, and she would slap me if I tried to deny it, so I yielded to her, she was right of course. We would walk around the block near the house and I would try my hardest to not look like I was winded or in any pain and if she saw any, she never told me.
I hadn’t set foot in the high school for over a month and I wasn’t looking forward to going back, to walk into any door and have people gawk at me; whisper they thought I died; or look at Chase to see if he would have a mental breakdown. Some of that did happen, but for the most part, I was left alone by everyone except the teachers and the cheerleaders and I didn’t mind that at all.
So, my first day back wasn’t too bad except for when I stepped into the gym and everything flooded back to me. The anger and fear off the situation felt overwhelming and I sat down on the bleachers and laid my head in my right hand as it was still hard to raise my left. The spot where I almost died yet again and here, I was here again, thinking of the hopelessness of my situation: living was always going to be a fight and my heart was like a time bomb with a screwed-up timer that jumped around. One day it would explode again.
“You okay?” Jennifer asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s just that-”
“I know,” she replied as she sat next to me and took my mind.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I’m not a strong person.”
“You held Chase in a headlock, didn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t want to do that again.”
“You don’t have to, in fact, one day I’ll do it for you. Can you teach me how after practice?”
“You really want to know?”
“No. I just want you to hold onto me, with the same feeling you had about me on that day.”
“Of course.”
She got up and took a step backwards. “Hang out here, if you want, during practice.”
“Okay.”
Cheer practice either went by quickly or I had zoned out as the next thing I knew Jennifer stood in front of me in her street clothes and with a large box.
“I wanted to give this to you a few days ago, but not in front of your parents. Not sure what they’d think.”
“You don’t have to get me anything.”
“I know. You’re still going to open it though.” She handed the box over and I opened it.
She bought me a pair of running shoes.
“I know what we can do with these.”
We walked out of the high school without our backpacks—as we had stuffed them in our lockers,
I laced the shoes up and took a deep breath.
“I’m not going to walk this,” I said.
“Just pace yourself.”
“Maybe a jog,” I replied as I bent my knees and heard a tell tale crack—-I was not in shape to do anything like this at all, even if I was ‘normal’.
“Take it easy,” Jennifer replied.
“Yeah, easy,” I replied as I took off in a light run with my left arm kind of hanging in the breeze.
Jennifer caught up to me simply by walking and took held my hand as I slowed down. It was a noble effort.
“You get extra credit for trying.”
“I want to do more than just walk, Jen.”
“You will, one day. Maybe we could get matching motorcycles. Tear up the highway?”
“I’d like that. I would like something else too.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you know how to dance?”
“Yes, why?”
“Can you teach me? Prom’s coming up. I’ll wear these.”
“These are running shoes, not dress shoes.”
“We could go in running gear.”
“We would stand out. Should we match for that too?”
“Of course,” I replied.
And for a few moments, there was nary a pain felt in my body.

The thought of Prom terrified me because the last time I danced was in eighth grade and that was the “Virginia Reel” and I seriously doubted I remembered how to square dance and if I did, it wouldn’t have helped. My parents were absolutely thrilled that I was going to my Senior Prom. I wanted to share their enthusiasm, but I didn’t want it to look like I was too ecstatic. Yes, I really liked Jennifer, we really like each other, I mean, but Prom wasn’t something that was on our required list of things to do, due to the cost of it all. My mom insisted on allowing Jennifer to buy whatever dress she wanted, I was worried that would drive her away but she took it graciously and wanted to coordinate out colors and what better way to do that than to pick the dress ahead of time and to make notes on what I would need to get.
I even went out and got a white corsage with an array of small, red flowers that matched her dress. I bought that flower without feeling any anxiety and I was even able to dress myself, even with a still rather limp left arm. We drove into downtown Spokane the following Saturday and stepped into the Davenport Hotel fort the Bi-County Prom.
Since our school was small, we combined with three others in the surrounding counties. This was a good and bad thing, the good thing being that there were so many other people and not just the sixty-eight or so form Reardan who would show up. The bad thing was that there were so many other people who you didn’t know and who couldn’t care less about you. Fortunately, the lights were low and the music was loud.
We decided to have our pictures taken before going to the ballroom. The pictures were on the upper floor, over-looking the dance itself. I wanted to think the pictures would look great. I mean, I knew she’d look wonderful in them, I just hoped I wouldn’t mess them up.
The dance had a few fast songs that we tried to move with but couldn’t really. They weren’t line or step dances so we couldn’t dance to them—but neither could anyone else, until a country song came on. Jen got me to stand with her to do the “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” and I wasn’t too bad, but my left arm kind of dangled a bit. The slow dances were the best though as I was able to be close to her without anyone saying some comment like “get a room” even though we never did anything like that in front of anyone.
Every song blurred into another and all I thought about was how I always wanted to be near here, for as long as I had. No one wants to think somber thoughts at such a happy time, but Jennifer looked at me and asked what was wrong.
“Nothing, just looking at how beautiful you look.”
“Thank you. You know, we should do more than just dance around in circles.”
“What do you have in mind?”

“I will play fair, play smart, and give it my all!”
We entered the LaserQuest arena in our tuxedo and red dress. We stayed at each other’s sides with my white shirt casting a strange glow in the black lights. Laser lights flashed past us and we simply laughed at how bad we were at first, but we quickly became a team, spinning around in circles to take out targets as techno music blared around us.
I worked up a heavy sweat and was sure I had ruined my dress shirt while only Jennifer’s hair was affected by all the action and even then, she still looked great.
We played two games before leaving the armory building that housed the three-storied arena. I had a little more feeling in my left arm, and I was able to place it on Jennifer’s shoulders and proudly proclaimed to anyone who was on Second avenue on that night:
“I love this girl!”
 

Thank you, honorable guests, parents, and fellow graduates.
My name is Jennifer Steadman and even though an event such as this demands that I speak of bright futures and noble endeavors I felt it in my heart that this day I must honor someone who helped me when I, or we, needed it the most. So, I will digress from what little speech that I have to say the following:
On Sunday, May 7th, we arrived in downtown Spokane for the 1995 Lilac-Bloomsday Run. We were ready, we had been practicing, even though I was sure that it wasn’t very healthy for him.
However, how could I say “no” to his final wish?
He brought a lot of meaning to my life, meaning
His name was Patrick Stephenson, and we all called him Stephen, which he preferred over Patrick. I met him when I was a freshman. Of course, by saying “met him” I mean that I saw him in the hallways and never gave him a second thought until I was a sophomore and I saw how others treated him, which was badly. Of course, I wasn’t involved in anything with him so I thought what could I do and why would I want to bother?
As a junior, life got a bit more complicated with worries about grades, memorizing cheerleading moves and making bad decisions with life in general. Stephen showed me one of those bad decisions and as much as I fleet like wanting to tell him off, to say ‘how dare you’, he was right. I had made a mistake in life and he helped me find another path.
I felt alone walking down that path for a few weeks. I had ostracized myself from my former circle of acquaintances and locked the proverbial door to life. I didn’t want to break out of it but then I had an epiphany, or maybe I felt my heart grow larger towards someone who risked his life, because it was, china-doll-like as he put it. I stepped out and went to talk to him and he was uneasy at first. I wish I looked as frightened as I was so we could match. It took a few days to let him know I was serious and that it wasn’t some cruel joke.
Some time later, he tried to defend me at school and it nearly cost him him life. I was an emotional wreck, and nothing made me feel better; not even the words from my friends could bring me up. I felt like it was all my fault and I figured he wouldn’t want to see me. However, when I talked to his parents for the first time that dragged me into their house and treated me as their son had and told me on how depressed he was while recovering.
I asked Andrea and Jazz to drive me to Spokane and they stayed for who know how long as I stayed with him at the hospital.
When he left the hospital, I could see he was in pain, but he didn’t want to show it. His left arm was broken and hung limp at his side so he could no longer drive. He offered to teach me, but I thought it was me safer if we walked places, but he insisted, so I eventually got my license but didn’t say anything so could keep walking, especially since I had bought him a new pair of sneakers.
Stephen told me that he always wanted to run in Bloomsday. Run being the key word,, but I assured him that we could walk it and go for the slowest time record if we had to as long as we crossed the finish line together.
“No matter what?” He asked.
I agreed: No matter what.
Soon came Prom, and his parents once again made sure that if there was anything I needed, they would get it. I didn’t want go take them up on their offer but I had to think that the Stephensons had to be the most giving people in Reardan. The dance was at The Davenport Hotel and it was wonderful night, but not for the pictures and dancing in the dark, but for where we went to later. We played later tag in our formal attire. If you can imagine us in Prom regalia with large vests and guns. I thought maybe I’ll have my wedding reception there: where the bouquet is a rapid-fire blast of eight shots and the next one to get married is the one’s whose gun doesn’t flash that it was shot by “RHSgirlz”.
It was that night that he told me, and everyone on second avenue at the time, that he loved me,
There was a part of me who wished that I had told him parents or had said no to signing up and going to the race. I could have flagged a race official and said we couldn’t continue due to health reasons but no, we walked for a majority of the course, talking about the things we wanted to do. Stephen stated he wanted to teach or, at the very lest, learn how to program a computer.
We decided to try to jog the last mile of the of the course and after. A few minutes, Stephen fell to the street. I had seen it happen before and I tried to keep him from falling completely down but he went down anyway. I tired to move him but couldn’t. The other racers crowded around us. I could hear Stephen groan as he tried to lift his body up. Someone came up us and told him not to move and that help would come.
Stephen whispered something to me and held his right arm up. I didn’t hear him with all of the yelling, but I immediately grabbed his arm and helped to lift him up. He took off running and I raced to catch up to him and I mean, I literally had to run to catch up to him and grab onto his right hand.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” I asked.
“I’m going to do this.”
“We’ll do it together.”
We approached the clock at the finish line, and I could see he was straining but he just squeezed my hand harder. We crossed the line and I think that at that moment, he felt relief from life as he lowered himself down to his knees, lied down and passed away.
I kneeled next to him, trying to comprehend my feelings and to cry either tears of joy or sadness. They were both and as medical teams rushed to our location I stayed on the ground a few feet away as they worked on him, but he gone, at least in that form, but I’ve always felt him around me, keeping me safe and watching over the strange things I do. I don’t know exactly what I will do with my life. Maybe I will dance on the stage, or maybe I’ll be a noble teacher. Whatever I do, I will always remember you. I dedicate this day to my friend, my love.
To Stephen, Ise o erotas tis zois mou.