Page 26 of The Comeback Summer

“It’s all about the data,” I tell her. “Like, maybe apples are compatible with oranges, or cherries with bananas, or—nevermind. I’ll say you’re a pineapple. Prickly on the outside, but sweet inside.”

Hannah shakes her head and I look back to the list. “What are you passionate about?”

“Murder and running,” Hannah says without giving it any thought.

“That makes you sound like a sadomasochist—and you don’t want to attract a serial killer, do you?”

Hannah shrugs. “At least we’d have something to talk about.”

I scan the list of questions—I can answer a few for her, like what she eats for breakfast (yogurt and a banana), if she’s a morning person or a night owl (early bird), and the worst fad she ever participated in (a tie between French bangs and platform sneakers).

“Name a place you’d like to travel,” I ask.

“Australia,” she says without hesitation.

My stomach tightens; I imagine this has something to do with Josh. When Hannah got back from meeting him for coffee the other day, she gave me the CliffsNotes. It strikes me as odd that the guy who said “the ocean has given my life meaning” has moved back to Chicago.

Whatever he has up his sleeve, I’m not going to let him fuck with my sister. I protected her from him once, and I’m willing to do it again. The memory gives me a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, which I ignore, moving on to the next question.

“What’s your ideal night out?” I ask.

“Is this you or the app asking?”

“The app,” I tell her. “But it’ll be good for me to know for planning your dates.”

“If we’re talking about my ideal night out with astranger,” she says, putting emphasis on the word, “then it would be doing an activity so we don’t end up sitting around a table with nothing to do but stare and talk to each other.” She shivers, as if just the thought is terrifying.

“What kind of activity?” I ask, recalling cute date scenes I’ve read. “Bowling? A wine and painting class? A museum?”

“Anything that isn’t dinner or drinks,” Hannah says.

I make a mental note to research romantic things to do in Chicago. Hannah may be approaching these dates as a means to accomplishing her goal, but I actually want her to fall in love.

The alert on her watch startles me out of our easy conversation.

“We’ve done two miles,” Hannah says.

“Huh,” I say. Maybe there is something to the idea of distraction.

“Want to hear about the obstacles we’ll be doing on race day?” she asks.

I don’t, but I can tell she wants a break from the dating questions.

“Go ahead.”

She beams and starts sharing the details she’s clearly been waiting to tell me about: how the Down & Dirty is a 5K race interspersed with ten different obstacles—things like crawling through mud under a barbed-wire cage, hauling sandbags up a hill, climbing a twelve-foot wall with the help of your teammates, and carrying your partner across one hundred yards.

I gulp, my panic growing with every new obstacle she describes. Unless there’s a forklift involved, there’s not enough training in the world that can help me heave myself over a twelve-foot wall.

“If you can’t complete an obstacle,” Hannah says, a warning in her tone, “you have to do thirty burpees.”

“Thirty?” I gasp. I can’t even do two.

“That’s why we’re taking this training seriously.” Hannah glances over at me. “It’ll be hard for me, too, Libs. My running experience won’t help with these obstacles.”

I look out toward the lake so she doesn’t see me roll my eyes. I know she means well, but the last thing I need is another body positivity lecture.

We’re both quiet, walking in comfortable silence until we’re interrupted by an overly excited woman running in the opposite direction. It’s Katy, a blond, bouncy cheerleader type who was in Hannah’s running group. She stops right in front of us, jogging in place (God forbid her heart rate drops) and says a quick hello to Hannah before continuing her run.

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