Page 144 of The Comeback Summer

I take his hand, smiling. “I loveus.”

“I love us, too. So much.” He pulls me in for another quick kiss. “Ready?”

I nod, looking at the grassy stretch in front of me, the next obstacle a few hundred yards ahead. “Let’s finish this.”

Fifty-One

LIBBY

I hate this with every fiber of my being.

It was stupid of me to be so cocky during the first part of the race—I may have started out strong, but I’m fading. Fast. The mud crawl was much harder than I thought it would be. It should have been easy (hell, even babies crawl!), but the mud was so slippery, and the barbed wire wasreallysharp. There’s a reason they use that shit on fences to keep people out.

To add insult to injury, as soon as we made it through, we had to do the partner carry. Listening to Adam huffing and puffing away as he carried me on his back for fifty yards is no doubt going to be a future emotional wound. But we made it.

Then we did the monkey bars, followed by the sandbag carry up a steep hill, where I slipped and fell flat on my stomach and my sandbag rolled to the bottom of the hill so I had to do it all over again.

Now my muscles are heavy with exhaustion. Everything hurts and I probably look like a swamp monster, but I’m too tired to care.

Adam and I are heading toward an obstacle I’ve beendreading since Hannah first told me about it: the Stair Master. A giant wooden staircase with five stairs that are each three feet tall, it’s even more evil than its namesake at the gym. I could have probably made it up with some help at the beginning of the race, but now? It’s going to be torture.

I stop beside Adam at the base of the stairs. He doesn’t look the least bit tired—in fact, he looks exhilarated. Like he’s having the best day of his life.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

“Not great,” I say, channeling Great Scott.

Adam nods sympathetically. “We’re getting close, though. Have you seen Hannah and Josh? We’re supposed to cross the finish line as a team.”

I glance behind and see them—running perfectly in sync, right next to each other. And they’re smiling.

Worry flickers inside me, then fades away. I don’t have the energy to be concerned. And even if I did, there’s nothing I can do about it now. It’ll have to be another problem for tomorrow.

I turn back to the Stair Master, staring up at it. Adam’s already made it to the top, and he’s bounding back down the other side. He circles back around to where I’m standing, paralyzed by fear. “Be careful up there,” he says. “The mud makes it pretty slippery.”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I tell him.

“Of course you can,” he says. “Do you want me to go again with you?”

I shake my head. “No, go ahead. I’ll meet you on the other side.”

He must understand that I need to do this alone, because he doesn’t push me. But before he jogs off, he says, “Remember to shake the lead out.”

I close my eyes and roll my shoulders, clearing the cobwebs from my mind. I shake away my doubts and fears and insecurities, until it’s just me. I am David, the steps are Goliath, and if I remember the story correctly, I’ve got a fighting chance.

Taking a deep breath, I imagine the crisp air filling my lungs and, somehow, inflating my confidence. Trying is the hardest part, I remind myself.

Here goes everything.

I bend my knees, open my eyes, and channel all of my energy into this one moment. My feet are off the ground, the wind is blowing in my hair, the tips of my toes brush the edge of the stair and I realize too late that I didn’t jump high or far enough.

I come down hard on my knees and hands, and a woman next to me gasps.

“You okay, honey?” she says.

I’m not sure I am; my hands are stinging, and when I look down at them, they’re covered in scrapes and starting to bleed. “Shit,” I whisper.

“Just try again,” the woman says. “It’s okay to fall as long as you get back up.”

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