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"Hey," I say, sort of changing the subject. "If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?"

"Like to live?" she shoots back.

I lift one shoulder. "Or just to visit."

Her whole body relaxes as she sniffles away the cold air. "Alaska."

My pace slows as I try to wrap my head around her answer. "Alaska?" I ask, moving faster again to catch up.

She smiles, but not because it's funny. Because it's honest. "Mhmm."

I take in her expression—lips curved softly, eyes full of hope. "You sure you weren't the one with the concussion."

She reaches over and slaps me playfully on the arm. "To see the otters," she explains.

My neck snaps back. "You know they have them in the zoo, right? Or the rivers. All over really."

"Yeah, but… I don't know. I just think Alaska would be cool."

The conversation fades away as a biker approaches with a flashlight on his handlebars and a reflector on his helmet. I fall in line behind Lenny to make room for all three of us on the path, then speed back up beside her again.

"What do you like about them?" She looks at me, then turns back toward the biker as if I was talking about his ride. "The otters," I add.

"I don't know," she says at first. "Maybe because they're just happy floating. Holding hands while they sleep to stay close. Wrapping themselves in kelp when the waters get rough so they don't drift away."

I don't tell her it sounds a lot like the way she runs this same loop every night. Six times. Around and around and around. Running without really going anywhere.

"I think maybe that's how I see Mage," she says as if she's reading my mind. "Staying here, it just feels… s—"

"Suffocating?"

She laughs. "I was gonna say safe. But yeah. Maybe a little of that too."

Our paces slow at the same time as we round the curve of the second loop. The playground comes back into view through the trees, quiet and waiting just like last time.

Like it will be again.

Lenny follows the bend, glancing at the last second toward the field ahead of us as if she's contemplating what it would be like to run off course.

And just for a second, I let myself wonder what it might be like if she did it too.

If we both did.

Together.

4

Lenny

I've never been in a time machine. Visited The Twilight Zone. Lived a real-life Groundhog Day.

But it feels that way being back in my childhood home.

Everything smells the same. The musty crunching leaves on the ground as I walk through the front door. Something cooking the second I step inside.

It sounds the same too—quieter maybe—but like the mugs clinking in the kitchen and the too-loud, too-dramatic conversation spilling through the halls are legally binding in the O'Reilly house.

Standing in the doorway, I feel sixteen again. The purse on my shoulder morphs into my track bag, the sneakers I just kicked off shrink a size, caked with mud from the fields during gym.