The next day when they met up for a bike ride, Reggie could immediately tell that things weren't just going to go back to normal. Twister didn't seem mad or anything but he definitely wasn't his usual, jokey, light-hearted self. He put on music as soon as they started and they barely talked the whole ride. Things were way weird between them. And it didn't stop. It went on for the next two months.

Reggie was at a point where she dreaded going to meet up with him. She knew it was going to be uncomfortable and she knew she had made it that way. They still talked; it wasn't like he was completely ignoring her. But their conversations were strained and limited. They mostly just talked about training stuff. They didn't goof off and have fun anymore. Even Otto and Sam had noticed a difference (even though he tried to hide it) but when they asked him about it, he just told them he was tired from training.

They had two weeks until the race and she was more than ready for it to be over. She didn't know how she was going to handle the 7 hour road trip with him. She wished she hadn't told her dad that he didn't need to come. It was true; it would be stupid for him to take off work and drive all that way, waiting probably 13 hours to see her cross a finish line. But she didn't know how she was going to handle all that time with Twister.

She stood by her car at the beginning of the trail, waiting for Twister. Waiting a while for Twister, actually. She checked her watch to see that he was 15 minutes late for their run. He had always been reliable with showing up for training and she knew he wouldn't just blow her off. She grabbed her phone out of the center console and called him.

"Hello?" he sounded groggy.

"Hey, where are you?"

He paused and then said, "Crap! My alarm didn't go off. Just give me ten minutes."

"Are you sure? You can skip if you want to."

"No, it's fine. I'll be quick."

"Okay, bye."

"Later," he hung up, obviously scrambling to get ready.

Fifteen minutes later, he showed up, quickly hopping out of his car. "I'm really sorry about that."

"It's fine. Don't worry about it. Do you need to warm up or anything?"

"No, lets just go." She could tell he was in a bad mood.

"Okay," she said, turning on the music starting her stopwatch as they began to run.

She noticed him wincing in pain a few times and she was pretty sure his knee was bothering him but he kept pushing through it. She wanted to say something but she could tell that he probably wasn't in the mood to hear it. Four and a half miles in, he stopped.

"Go ahead," he told her.

But she stopped too. "Is it your knee?"

"It's fine." She could tell he was lying.

"Did you ice it yesterday?"

"No," he said and the way he said it made her feel like she had been nagging him about it rather than asking a simple question. "And I forgot my knee brace."

"Okay, well we can just take it easy for the rest of the run."

"No. We already got a late start because of me. I don't want to make you late for work. You just go ahead."

"No," she said stubbornly.

"Seriously. Just go."

She could tell he was becoming more irritated with her but she wouldn't budge. "We're in this together."

"Are we? Because lately it feels like we're not even really friends anymore."

That one hit hard. "How could you say that?"

"You wanna know why I started all this in the first place? To spend more time with you. Ever since you started at the paper, we'd stopped hanging out, just the two of us. And I missed that," he was still out of breath but he continued. "I've been in love with you for years, Reg. And you never saw that and that was fine because were friends and I didn't want to mess that up." He paused, his expression softening, his eyes looking sad. "But then you kissed me. And immediately regretted it. And now, we don't even talk anymore. I know that you don't know what that did to me but I can't just keep pretending everything is fine with us when it's not."

Reggie was at a complete loss for words. She just stood there, stunned as she took in everything he had just told her. She needed to say something, she knew she did. She couldn't just keep staring blankly at him like an idiot but she was still trying to process it all. He loved her. She had hurt him, so much. And she didn't even realize it.

"I think we should just finish the rest of our training alone," he said after she hadn't responded.

Why couldn't her brain seem to form any words? Why couldn't she just tell him how she felt?

"Please, just go. You're going to be late for work."

She didn't care about work. She didn't want to leave. She just wanted to say something, anything. She stared blankly at him for a few more seconds but it was clear that he wanted to be alone. She nodded, feeling terrible about her sudden inability to speak, and she started running.