Disclaimer: The Vampire Academy universe belongs to Richelle Mead. This story and it's main characters belong to me.
Authors Note: If you have any suggestions or advice, please review and tell me. I'm always looking to improve, and I would love your feedback.
"Holy-mother-of-shit" I declared, jerking upright, startled out of a deep sleep by someone firmly shaking my shoulder.
"Chill, Meg," Missy said, "It's just me. Get dressed; we're going for a run."
"What, why?" I murmured, rubbing the last bit of sleep from my eyes.
"Gilbert asked me to get you up for a run this morning," she explained.
"You know Gil?" I asked, rather shocked. It had never dawned on me that my best friend might know my elusive roomie.
"Of course, he's my running buddy," she remarked as she slipped on her sneakers.
Now this was interesting. Gil and I told each other everything, and I do mean everything. I've sat through more monologues on the comparative merits of different high protein diet plans than I care to recall, among other, and if you can believe it, less interesting topics. So I found it more than just a little odd that he had never mentioned, not even in passing, that he ran every morning with my roommate. It didn't matter to me who he ran with, as long as it wasn't me, which unfortunately, this morning, it was. However, one of the few reasons that Gil would keep an acquaintance secret in the past was romantic interest. He seemed to be of the impression that I was too innocent to know that he dated, a lot, so he tried to protect his poor naïve little friend from hearing about his extracurricular activities. I understood pretty well though, and I planned to tease him mercilessly about my suspicions later.
The sun was still up when we met Gil at the track. He was chuckling at something, and when I inquired as to what, he was very happy to explain.
"It's you," he said. "You know how in those ridiculously inaccurate teen vampire books we're all supposed to sparkle, well I've never noticed it before since I only see you at night, but you do. You're so pale that, from a distance, you actually sparkle in sunlight!" I stuck my tongue out at this, but sadly, I didn't doubt what he said. Most Dhampirs were pretty tan from all that time spent outdoors, even if the majority of it is at night. I however am paler than most Moroi even, and they're supernaturally pasty. It's the curse of the redhead.
Cutting to the chase, I asked, "Why exactly have you dragged me out of bed in the wee small hours of the evening to run around in circles?"
"Because you're out of shape" Gil said. I must have looked pretty annoyed at this, because he continued. "Don't get mad at me for telling the truth. You practically get out of breath walking across campus." While this was a bit of an exaggeration, I caught his drift. Begrudgingly, I nodded to indicate that he was right. Any other time I might have put up a bit more of a fight, but it was too early to argue. Actually, Gil was probably counting on that. He was fully aware that I am by no means an evening person, and had stumbled years ago upon the valuable fact that I'm too tired to be stubborn any time before eight o'clock. He won a lot of arguments through the skilled use of that little tidbit of information.
That morning, I ran until I wanted to hurl. It seemed like we were out there for hours, but when I checked my phone at the end of it, I was shocked to learn that we had only been running for a half hour or so. I drank some water, and then flopped down on the grass, watching the sunset. Not surprisingly, I hadn't seen many, since watching a sunset means waking up at the crack of dusk. Missy headed back to the dorms, and I waved goodbye. After bidding adieu to his running buddy, Gill walked over and plopped down next to me.
"For a first day, you actually didn't do terribly," he said.
"Wow, high praise," I said with an eye-roll.
"You know what I mean," Gilbert continued, smirking. "I'd have thought you'd be in much worse shape considering how effectively you avoid exercise. You have pretty decent stamina though."
"Just full of hidden talents," I quipped.
"Seriously though, you are the laziest couch potato I've ever met. How were you able to keep up with us?" he asked.
"Swimming," I answered. Gil looked puzzled. "If we'd done this later in the year I probably would have died," I went on, "but I'm actually fairly fit at the moment. I swim a lot of laps in the summer, and we've only been back a few weeks. I've not yet had time to become one with the couch again."
"Well this is one for the history books," Gil teased. "Meg Harrison willingly participating in physical activity. I never thought I'd see the day."
I punched him lightly in the arm at this, but I couldn't really blame him for being surprised.
"Why don't you continue doing laps during the year though? We do have a pool here." Gil asked.
"Wait, what?" I responded, genuinely shocked.
Laughing, he said, "Yeah, there's an Olympic sized indoor pool on campus. You might know that if you ever set foot in the fitness center."
The fitness center was a big ugly building by the Dhampir dorms, open for student use. Gilbert was completely right in assuming I had never been inside. With this new intel, however, I was considering changing that. Swimming was one of the few, if not the only, forms of exercise I enjoyed. If there really was a pool on campus, this getting in shape business might not be as bad as I had originally thought.