I Remember You

by Fasnacht

"Now we're far apart/And I don't lie awake at night/But every once in a while/Right out of the blue/I remember you." Jake is a sophomore at college when things go from good to everyone's definition of great. That is, except his own. It takes a mystery man, a horsehair bracelet, and a "hack reporter" to help him see the fine lines between humility and reclusiveness. Challenge fic.

1. Even When I'm Blue

Cause in my dreams she travels with me when I run

And in my dreams she takes my hand

When I make my stand but morning always comes

And I know it's too good to be true

She loves me even when I'm blue

No one can say that I ain't tried

I keep on searching far and wide

And I know she's out there somewhere now

I'm gonna track her down somehow

Even When I'm Blue, Steve Earle

Jake knew it wasn't wise, but he could never talk himself out of it. This was likely the most unwise thing he'd ever done, including all those run ins with Linc Slocum, because no matter what, he kept doing this. At least with Linc he had tried to stop the whole thing a time or two. Schools like this, ones with multimillion dollar track and field complexes didn't take kindly to felons, and neither did his major. And yet, here he was, taking advantage of a door he wasn't supposed to know about to sneak through a service hallway into the complex, and down a flight of back stairs into the locker room. The service hallway was brightly lit, and Jake had to blink three or four times as he adjusted to the light, his sneakers moving along the polished floors. Lemon cleaner filled the air as he let a door shut as softly as possible behind himself. He padded up the stairs, his blue duffel striking against his back. This was easy now, as familiar to his muscle memory as his class schedule, but it hadn't always been that way. He made a mistake once, and ended up in the women's room. Needless to say, he doubled back and took the left door on the stairs, and not the right.

The stairs ended in a hallway, right next to the door that he needed. Jake checked that the coast was clear, and entered the track like he owned the place. He didn't, of course, own the David H. R. P. Melanchthon Track and Field Complex. However, he knew that the best way to pull off getting in here was to act confident and then play dumb if caught, which he hadn't been, not in months over the past school year and this new one.

Dropping his bag on the bench, Jake changed his shoes quickly. Breathing in the silent night, he walked over to toe the line, only faintly able to hear the sounds of life on the busy campus. Jake squared the starting line, turned up his iPod, and took off, watching the eerie glow of his watch glint in the darkness.

He blew out a breath as he hit his stride, and felt his muscles begin to sink into the running, into the motions. He couldn't really describe it beyond a knowing, he'd tried, but nothing ever made sense. His body knew what it was doing, and the chemicals his brain released took his thoughts away from the place he most wanted to be. He couldn't think about home. He couldn't think of Sam. He was tired of wanting to go home, tired of missing her like the cool air that whipped by him, tired of wondering what she was doing in the odd moments when he wasn't busy.

He needed to sweat. He needed to excise her light scent from his skin, the feeling of his wrist encased in her hand when she'd slid the Phantom's bracelet onto his wrist. He needed to breathe, to feel the track under his feet. The track, the seconds ticking by were there with him. It was real, not like the glimpses of a laughing girl he sometimes saw ahead of him, on the track, and in the corner of his eyes. He ran at night, because there was nothing but him out here, not even the stars. If he was lucky, he was able to fool himself that he was just running, and when he stopped, he wouldn't be so alone. His mind did crazy things, and he was able to feel as though he were home, sometimes, and he sometimes felt as though he was beyond it, off on a runner's high where nothing mattered but the next whoosh of air, the next bead of sweat, the next step.

Jake checked his time, realized that he needed to power though the next lap, and threw himself into the hypnotic movements. Still, he could see her beside him, see her there with him. The notion drew him back to the track and to the paths around campus, when he was alone, when he could pretend to outrun the thoughts that swirled inside him when he saw something on campus that made him wonder what Sam would think, or what was going on at home.

Jake liked college. He did. He loved it. It was empowering to be Jake Ely, hardworking student and solid athlete, free from all of the expectations of being taught by his own mother. He'd made friends. He did all the right things. He tried to go to parties, join clubs, learn his sport, go to classes. He smiled, and he tried to be the sort of person who was able to take advantage of every chance that came along to make something of himself. His running was his ticket out of Darton, his ticket to make something of himself. He planned to go back, but a part of him wanted so much, deep inside, to be lauded like Kit was, only to do something better than Kit ever would and go back, go back and be able to say, "I did this for you guys, so that I could come home and be what I needed to be." Jake wanted, more than anything, to prove himself, to himself, to anyone and everyone.

Sometimes, though, it was hard to admit that he was homesick, even after so long of being away. Homesickness hit him as he looked up at the sky towards the West. His heart skipped a bit when he didn't see the stars very well. It freaked him out, sometimes, the sky in the suburbs. He missed the stars, missed living a life where he could take the time to look up, and find them there, blinking down, bright, a shot of clarity in a world full of uncertainty. He did his best though, to fall in line and find value in his circumstances. He tried to see things like Sam would. He tried to look for adventure and color, texture and light, in the world, but he never did find them.

She was those things, and she wasn't there, so sometimes he wondered why he bothered looking for them here, when he knew they were there within her. She helped him to see those things. Jake liked to think that they were good friends, that they balanced each other out. She was home, with Witch, finding her own space and niche in high school as a senior. People liked Sam, liked her vibrancy, her way of sticking her foot in her mouth at exactly the wrong time even when she meant well. People liked her passion for the things she believed in, her drive for equality and justice, how she never let go, never stopped fighting, never lost faith in the things she cared about. People liked those things things about her, when they saw them. People liked her quirky joy, but for Jake, her quirks made his life worth living. He lived his life asking what she would do next, the newest way she'd turn the entire world on its head, leaving him in awe of her.

Jake knew that endorphins were flooding his brain. He could feel his muscles start to really loosen, to the point that the laps nearly became automatic, right down to the turns. And yet, it was as though he was acutely aware of every movement, of the strike of his heel, the spread of his toes within his sneaker. Jake knew that in his heart, he was a long distance runner. He didn't have the panache or the skill of some of his teammates, but man, give him a some grass, give him a gravel road that cut through the mud, give him a dirt path, and he was in his element. It was no surprise then, that he loved cross country. His teammates...

When the iPod again switched songs in the shuffle, he heard a movement from the bleachers. All thought flew from his mind as he stopped, nearly falling. His head whipped up to find an old man staring at him with eagle eyes. He was done for. Less than three years on the team and he was cooked. Maybe he would be going home sooner than later. There was a crook of the man's finger, and he moved to meet the man at the foot of the bleachers.

"Who are you?" The man asked, pushing glasses up his nose. His pants were creased, but he wore them with ease. He stuffed a tissue back into his pocket, and patted it, as though it needed help to stay there.

Jake's tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. His teeth felt like razors in his mouth, clunky and painful. Jake was silent. He could barely breathe. The man took umbrage to that. "Is that who they're admitting now? Dullards who can't even reply to a simple inquiry? Well." He seemed put off. Jake knew he had to find his voice and seal his fate.

"Jake Ely." Jake said, quickly, "My name is Jake Ely." He knew that the man could see every puff of air that left his body, and Jake knew what information could be pulled away from his respiration, information that had little to do with the laps he'd just been running. His heart pounded.

"Harrison Reese. I don't answer to Harrison." The man said, "Do you run for this school, Jacob?" Reese sized him up, and Jake didn't know what to make of this man, one who was sitting here, in the bleachers, for no apparent reason. They were routinely warned about shooters, but Jake didn't get that vibe from this man.

"Yes, sir." Jake replied, "I'm a Sophomore." He blinked up at the man, wondering what was going to happen to him. Jake felt bare in his long sleeved T-shirt. The nights were chilly, now, bracing, but the man, Reese, didn't seem at all bothered by the chill, even though he had previously been sitting fairly high up on the bleachers. Jake knew that, for as nice as they were, bleachers were bleachers.

"That much is plainly evident. Does George know you're here?" George was the first name of the coach, who, Jake did not want to admit, had no idea that Jake was here. Reese seemed to be having a conversation with himself, as his tone and inflections changed rapidly, "No, that's plain. Did you use the back stair? No matter." Reese said, "You made fantastic time."

"Sir?" Jake asked. This was the first time he'd heard that level of praise, if he were totally truthful. His performance was slightly on the better side of average, less than it had ever been in high school, even on his worst day then, and Jake wondered if the man was being kind. Then again, he always ran better alone, on nights like this, when the air was chilly and the hours seemed endless. How had the man known about his routine?

"You might say I'm..." Reese paused carefully, as though he was making fun, "rather knowledgeable. At least I was." Reese stood, and clambered over the bleachers towards the exits. His age was belied by a grace and ease, "Lovely to have met you, Jacob. Do lock up when you're done, hm?"

Later, Jake wondered if perhaps the complex was haunted. He couldn't bring himself to ask, of course, because it would mean telling the story of how it had happened, how he'd met this mystery man. Jake filed it away, one of those secret happenings that boosted his morale on a day he'd needed it and didn't look into it. Reese's declared, "You made good time" rang in his ears when he blew a practice and had to endure the heckling of some teammates, or the quiet disappointment of his coach. He never stayed long in the locker rooms, after he dressed and slid the horse hair bracelet back onto his wrist. Sam had given it to him, to take with him, to remind him of home, and he never took it off.

His teammates were awesome people, but he felt out of place oftentimes, as though he were an old man in room full of boys, even as they all had more collective experiences with things that said society made boys men. It was all junk, anyhow. They saw nothing wrong with running without pants throughout the library, screaming the school chant. Jake wouldn't do it. They thought he was immature, but it all seemed so lame. As long as they could complement each other during meets, what did it matter how they socialized? He made a few friends on the team and that was enough. He kept to himself, even as he knew that all of his teammates thought they knew him well. They saw the limits of what he allowed them to see, things relating to the sport, their training, and surface stuff about school and life here. It was the bare surface of who he was, and Jake was fine with that.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Running privately was his only salvation in a sea of commitments and constraints. He took out his frustration on the track, on the grass, on the dirt. It was easier to control his pace than to control his thoughts toward his roommate. He didn't get along with his roommate and there was no solitude there, ever. The dude smoked pot in their en suite bathroom. Today, Jake had walked into the room and it smelled like a hole in the wall tea shop in the red light district in Amsterdam. It was like his roommate was more concerned with pot and beer and women than academics. His roommate's lifestyle didn't mesh well with Jake's, who was an athlete and a scholar. If he wasn't running, he was reading, and if he wasn't doing that, he was sleeping or eating.

There had been a bit of something that might be close to rain, earlier, and Jake didn't bother to turn on the lights. He wanted to get a few miles in before bed, simple, easy, hamster on a wheel miles. He couldn't sleep anymore. It wasn't overtraining. He knew it wasn't. The weekly lectures on healthy training he heard assured him of that. He knew why he couldn't sleep and it had nothing to do with his sport, nothing to do with the mud that sometimes seeped into shoes. Jake didn't care what got into his shoes, so long as he kept his chip on his body. He spent the nights, staring the ceiling, and at the phone, knowing he should call, but having no idea what he should say. He stared at the horsehair bracelet Sam had slid onto his wrist before he left home, telling him that it would keep him grounded, bring him the luck that she felt it had brought her. He felt alone, and he knew he was. Most of it, all of it, was a jail of his own making because he couldn't really relax without running, couldn't sleep unless he was drifting off, coming down form a high. He reworked his training schedule to allow him time to do that safely and effectively, even as he got the side-eye from the trainers and the coaches.

He was kind and polite, made friends, and on the surface, he knew he looked like a pretty popular guy who had his stuff together, who absolutely loved college and was dedicated to his sport. If they only knew that he was merely a master at putting on a good front. He wasn't an iceman, like his teammates said. He wasn't unflappable and level. Within himself, Jake knew that he had depths he didn't allow people to see. He was good at putting up a facade. If they knew how sensitive he sometimes felt, well...

Jake had run about three miles when he heard the thunk of one set of overhead lights. He stopped, rooted in place, when the next set lit up in quick succession. He was done for, this time. This time, his coach would see him, here, and he would be brought up on charges of B&E or something. Jake peered up, towards the box that held the system. He exhaled when he saw it was the same older man that he'd seen before. He was glad to known that Reese wasn't a figment of his imagination, or worse yet, a delusion created by a cracking mind. Jake twisted the bracelet on his wrist when he heard Reese say over the speaker, "Office. Now."

Jake took one last look around the complex, and wondered how on earth he was going to tell Mom about getting tossed out. She always said that he was her good child. It showed what she knew. He'd always had a wild side, and it had finally bit him in the behind. Jake made his way to the office, hoping and praying that he could explain. Reese was sitting in Coach Parker's chair. When Jake walked in, he was muttering and trying to raise the chair. He ignored Jake, who stood in the door, "You would think with all of the money, they would have acquired a decent chair." Reese said. Jake did not reply. Instead he looked down at the score sheets on the desk. His name was highlighted across them.

Jake swallowed. "Mr. Reese, why did you...?" Jake did not understand who this man was, why he was sitting in the coach's office, why he was digging through score sheets and picking Jake out of all of the people on the teams. He wasn't the best, but he wasn't the worst. He did not deserve this kind of attention, so he knew that this scrutiny was because of his frowned upon behavior. "You don't listen, do you?" Reese said, "Sit."

Jake sat. Reese spoke, and Jake listened. Jake did not take in the surroundings. He focused on the graying man in front of him, whose collared shirt was rumpled. There was a spot of mustard on the collar that Jake found funny amid the terror of being reported. "Would you care to explain the discrepancies I see?"

Jake swallowed thickly, "Reese, it started because I needed to make better time. I changed to doing some stuff at night. I shouldn't be in here without permission." He didn't know what else to say. The facts were unalterable and clear. "I mean no harm to the facility."

"What are you talking about?" Reese said, "You think I care about who runs in here? What do you think the place is for? I don't want it sitting empty, a shrine to that president's efficacy. He charmed some old man into signing away half of his money to put into this thing." Reese shoved some papers at Jake, "I want to know why you run so well when you're alone, and then your form and performance is all over the place at other times."

How did this man know all of that? "Sir, I am not sure..." Jake twisted the horsehair bracelet on his wrist, wishing with all his might that had something to say that could explain. Reese was on the motion like a flash.

"Nervous?" Reese said, smirking. "I've seen you run alone off the tack, too. I thought maybe you're not suited to cross country, but it appears that you merely come in here for the thrill of it." Jake stopped twisting the horsehair bracelet Sam had entrusted him with while he was away from home. She said it would help him, with what he didn't know, but the bracelet never left his wrist except in labs, during meets, and when he was getting wet. The horsehair bracelet that had been comfortable and roomy over Sam's slimmer wrist had slid over their joined hands and onto his wrist like it had been made for him. "Is that a religious object, or are you just trying to look pretty for the ladies?"

"Neither, Reese." Jake replied, unwilling to tell Reese that he simply ran better when alone, though he did not know why. It simply was a fact. "You...don't intend to call security?" Jake needed to clarify. Heady relief was coursing through him.

Reese looked affronted. "You're sure you have no idea why your times are all over the place?" Reese looked down at the papers, picked up a few, and studied them. After a agonizing moment, "Well, I don't know what you're doing at night, but you can be damn sure I'm going to figure it out. Do it again."

"What?" Jake asked, shooting to his feet as Reese made his way to the door. "Reese?"

"We're going to put you through the paces. I'll be taking charge..." Reese marched right through the main door, which led Jake to think that he was faculty. "This time, I'm going to have a better view."

Jake didn't know what he had just signed himself up for, but he knew that he had just made a commitment to something new and something bigger. Reese was obviously serious, and Jake knew that for tonight, he had better roll with whatever was going on. A little time to work on things without worrying about being caught was worth it. Jake bent towards the bench to take off his iPod, and remove the Phantom's bracelet. It was standard procedure at practice. Both were left in his locker. It was the only time, other than in labs and showers that he removed the bracelet. Reese, though, shook his head. "No deviations. Go." The bracelet stayed on his wrist, as it would for every other practice with Reese.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Such was the start of something incredible. Reese was a grueling taskmaster, but Jake saw improvements. He surmised that Reese was a former athlete himself. Jake knew that he should feel bad for working with Reese, but he just couldn't, not when his improvements meant that he was helping his team more and more. Jake consistently improved upon the times coach Parker was used to seeing in practice. Something inside of Jake shifted, and for the first time, the coach smiled at him when he left, though maybe the smile was really just the absence of scowl. The next weeks were amazingly steady, and Jake felt like he was really growing.

Then, it all went to hell. The papers started, first tiny blurbs, then calls for comments on sports stories, and then stories about him. He ignored them and went about his business, earning the respect of his teammates, even if they did josh him about refusing to speak to anyone when they themselves spoke to reporters who wanted to talk to them. Jake didn't feel he had time for that kind of stuff. It felt dishonest, and it felt self-important. He was a member of a team, and he was happy to let others speak for that team. The reporters only wanted to talk with him because...well, he didn't quite buy their reasoning, or their sensationalistic spins about his improvements, or their pleas to understand just who was Jake Ely.

Even though most of his training was off-road, he still snuck into the track to run. Sometimes, not all of the time, but sometimes, the gate was unlocked and the lights were on, saving him the trouble of hopping a fence and fiddling with the system. Sometimes, Reese would be there. He would time Jake, occasionally, but mostly, he'd just sit in the bleachers doing paperwork. Jake often wondered what he was up to, when he was just sitting. He felt a certain kinship with the man, who was always around. Maybe he was alone, too.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Reese was an enigma. The things the man knew about cross country blew Jake's mind, and Jake had been running the sport for years. Jake's sophomore year was radically impacted by the man, who had no problem ripping a Pop-Tart out Jake's hands and lecturing him about clean eating, yanking a bottle of chocolate milk out of his bag, and asking him to run stairs until he could feel his body doing stairs in his sleep. Reese was right. Long amounts of on the track would do him no good in real meets, other than improve endurance. In cross country, there were hills and mud and grass. You did more than turn left and you had more to consider than just your PRs. Cross country was a sport and an art. There was a beauty in meeting the land where it was at rather than bending it to your will to run around like hamsters on wheels. Jake stopped meeting Reese at the track and started listening to the emails that sometimes showed up in his inbox about great places to run around campus, only to discover that it wasn't his fellow teammates sharing the information, not even the Senior guy who had been his buddy Freshman year. He'd only been running at the track because the laps were repetitive. No. He'd run there because he'd needed the thrill of being somewhere he wasn't supposed to really be, after years of backing up Sam as she did her thing.

Jake loved cross country. So there were times that he'd had more blisters than Jesus when he was barefoot in the desert being tempted by Satan, so what? He loved the feeling he got when he ran up an incline only to come down again. He wasn't close to his team, but he respected them as people and as athletes. He loved cross country, and he was glad that Harrison Reese had shown him the simple joy of pushing yourself to your limits in the gym and the mud when apathy had all but overtaken him in those months. During those months with Reese, Jake found a recommitment to his sport within himself, one that didn't just come from wanting to be someone, but one that came from wondering what he already was. He found new joy in seeing the sunburn on his skin, the tan-line on his wrist from where the bracelet lived permanently now, on shoveling massive amounts of pasta into his face. It was the small things that got him through, like learning to saw "screw it" and keep the bracelet on at all times, no matter how odd it might seem to his teammates, boys who didn't change their socks or sorted their cereals. He had no idea that it was the small things that were going to rock his world so violently.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Reese showed up in the dining hall one night. Jake watched carefully as Reese took some soup. Jake did not know what the procedure would be. Did he acknowledge the man outside of their meetings on the field? Did he bring up his recent cross country meet? Did he say thank you?

Jake smiled as Reese walked by and said, "Oh, so you do eat food that didn't come from a factory. How very novel." The man had paused at Jake's table. The dining hall was nearly deserted. There was a woman from Jake's lit class eating a small supper, and a few others milling about. "You need new flats. Bring them on Tuesday."

Before Jake could reply, the man walked away, after leaving a copy of the local paper on the table when he picked up his tray, like some kind of spy in a bad novel. Jake looked at the sports headline that the paper had been folded to display, scowled. He turned and tossed in the recycling. Why did people think he would, or even should care, when he made the papers? Everyone looked foolish in the photos, and these reporters didn't know anything about him. He made sure of the latter fact. Jake bit into his salad, knowing that he would have to make the time to get new racing flats. His spare pair was quickly becoming the better pair. Wait. How did West know he needed new flats? Had he been somewhere that Jake was wearing them? Who was this Harrison Reese?

Jake couldn't answer that question. Group workouts and runs became something he was looking forward to, something he understood to be beneficial. His course load was crazy, and Coach Parker changed the schedule, switching the days for team runs and resistance runs. Timed and charted runs grew more intensive, more challenging. Jake loved every bit of it. He finally understood why he was running. He wasn't running away from something, he was running towards something. That realization helped him to shift his thinking and he stopped worrying about annoying reporters and silly news articles that didn't mean anything. How could tiny slips of paper mean anything?

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Weeks later, Jake wished that he was he was still flying under the radar. He was called by Coach Parker to come to his office. Jake made sure his hands weren't shaking as he let himself into the office. Had Reese finally told Parker that he'd been taking the man's tips? "Ely!" Parker said, "I've got great news for you!"

Somehow, this did not feel like great news. Jake skirted around the chair, taking the seat that was offered to him. The office was the same that Reese had questioned him in months ago. Jake felt so different now. Sure, he was nervous, but he was also more confident. He knew who he was as an athlete. no matter what season or sport he was competing in at the time. Some of the questions that had plagued his first year on the team were slowly being answered.

"I have to say, Jake, that I am enormously proud of your improvements this season. Your Freshman year was rough, but you're coming into your own." Parker said. His style was so much different from Reese's that Jake nearly smiled. He passed a square of paper at Jake, and a chill went down Jake's spine. He hated seeing the headlines about himself, and they kept coming in, no matter how many times he refused to return phone calls and said, "No Comment." Parker passed him another clipping, and then five or six more. He had not been raised to draw attention to himself, to be boastful, and this felt horrible, like he was conceited. There was always room to improve, room to grow. "You've been getting some coverage, as you know."

Jake took the pages and looked at them with barely hidden distaste. The papers had loved the story of a freshman making "massive" improvements in his second year. Jake refused to speak to reporters, even the ones that asked repeatedly. "Yes, sir."

An expression crossed his coach's face. Jake felt it like a death blow. "I'm afraid that I can no longer allow you to refuse to speak to the media. A reporter is going to be meeting you after the next meet. You will give them your story. They have pushed very hard for a meeting, and it will take place." Parker softened after a moment, "I know you're a modest man, Jacob, but there is no modesty in being a recluse."

Jake knew that his coach was simply tired of answering questions and wanted to capitalize on everything he possibly could to garner more support and funding. Jake knew that he was a pawn and that he had no choice. He complied, giving his consent without asking for details. He was only a runner. He wasn't that special, and he hoped that he would be able to make this hack of a reporter see that.

This is a personal challenge for me. I'm aiming to write a story under 20k words. Let's see if I can do it. So much here is left open to interpretation, though more will be clear in the next chapter. Any guesses who the "hack of a reporter" might be? As always, I welcome comments, reviews, PMs, and any questions or concerns. I'll update by midweek!

P.S. I almost made this a celebration of Regina Spektor because of Edit. I cut so much out of this that it's scary. Would you believe I was ever the editor of a college paper for two years?