Licking my lips, I answered, “Okay.”

“You’ve done ten miles before; you can do thirteen. I’ll be right there so . . . we’ll do this together.”

I blinked up at him, surprised. “You can place, Will. This is nothing for you—you should be in the front.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what this one is about. My race is in two weeks. This one is yours. I told you that.”

I nodded again, numb, and couldn’t look away from his face: at the mouth that had kissed me so many times, and wanted to kiss only me; at the eyes that watched me intently every time I said a word, every time I’d touched him; and at the hands that were now braced on my shoulders and were the same hands that had touched every inch of my skin. He’d told Kitty he wanted to be with me, only me. It’s not like he hadn’t said those exact words to me, too. But I’d never believed them.

Maybe the player really was gone.

With one last, searching look, Will dropped his hands from my shoulders, and pressed his palm to my back, leading me to the starting line.The race started at the southwest corner of the park near Columbus Circle. Will motioned for me to follow and I went through the routine: calf stretch, quad stretch, hamstring. He nodded wordlessly, watched my form and kept in constant, reassuring contact.

“Hold it a little longer,” he said, hovering over me. “Breathe through it.”

They announced it was time to begin and we got into place. The crack of the starter pistol burst through the air and birds scattered in the trees overhead. The sudden rush of hundreds of bodies pushing off from the line melded into a collective burst of sound.

The marathon route began at the circle and followed the outer loop of Central Park, arching around Seventy-second Street and back to the start.

The first mile was always the hardest. By the second, the world grew fuzzy at the edges and only the muffled sound of feet on the trail and blood pumping in my ears filtered through the haze. We hardly spoke, but I could hear every one of Will’s footsteps beside me, feel the occasional brush of his arm against mine.

“You’re doing great,” he told me, three miles in.

At mile seven, he reminded me, “Halfway done, Hanna, and you’re just hitting your stride.”

I felt every inch of the last mile. My body ached; my muscles went from stiff, to loose, to on fire and cramping. I could feel my pulse pounding in my chest. The heavy beat mirrored every one of my steps, and my lungs screamed for me to stop.

But inside my head it was calm. It was as though I was underwater, with muffled voices blending together until they were a single, constant hum. But one voice was clear, “Last mile, this is it. You’re doing it. You’re amazing, Plum.”

I’d almost tripped when he called me that. His voice had gone soft and needy, but when I looked over at him, his jaw was set tight, eyes straight ahead. “I’m sorry,” he rasped, immediately contrite. “I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry.”

I shook my head, licked my lips, and looked forward again, too tired to reach out and even touch him. I was struck by the realization that this moment was probably harder than all the tests I’d ever taken in school, every long night in the lab. Science had always come easy for me—I’d studied hard, of course, I’d done the work—but I’d never had to dig this deep and push on when I’d have liked nothing more than to collapse onto the grass and stay there. The Hanna that met Will that day on the icy trail would have never made it thirteen miles. She would have given it a half-assed try, gotten tired and finally, after having rationalized that this wasn’t her strength, gone back to the lab and her books and her empty apartment with prepackaged, single-serving meals.

But not this Hanna, not now. And he helped get me here.

“Almost there,” Will said, still encouraging. “I know it hurts, I know it’s hard, but look,” he pointed to grouping of trees just off in the distance, “you’re almost there.”

I shook the hair from my face and kept going, breathing in and out, wanting him to keep talking but also wanting him to shut the hell up. Blood pumped through my veins, every part of me felt like I’d been plugged into a live wire, shocked with a thousand volts that had slowly seeped out of me and into the pavement with every step.

I’d never been more tired in my life, I’d never been in more pain, but I’d also never felt more alive. It was crazy, but even through limbs that felt like they were on fire, and every breath that seemed harder than the last—I couldn’t wait to do it again. The pain had been worth the fear that I’d fail or be hurt. I’d wanted something, taken the chance, and jumped with both feet.