Orange Streak

My palms were sweating. Again.

I wiped them on my jeans, leaving dark streaks on the denim, but it didn't help. My palms were basically their own ecosystem at this point, especially when HE was around.

Brandon from AP Chem was currently leaning against the orange lockers, effortlessly cool while I was definitely not effortlessly anything. He wore this orange hoodie that made his eyes pop, and I was mentally calculating how many times I could walk past his locker without looking like I was counting.

Three times. The answer was three.

But here's the thing about freshman year: it's basically one long exercise in running away from your own awkwardness. You're running from embarrassing moments, running from conversations that could go wrong, running from the possibility that someone might actually see you.

Then our cross-country coach posted the tryout sheet.

I don't know what possessed me to sign up. Maybe it was the orange Gatorade they handed out at the meeting. Maybe it was watching Brandon run laps around the school track in that orange hoodie, hair streaming behind him like he was in a music video.

Probably the Gatorade.

The first practice was absolute chaos. My palms stopped sweating about halfway through—mostly because all my moisture was being used for more important things, like breathing and not passing out. I was dead last, lungs screaming, legs feeling like they'd been replaced with overcooked spaghetti.

But then something weird happened.

Somewhere around mile two, the panic dissolved. The running smoothed out the static in my head, creating this strange, peaceful clarity. I could actually think without my brain short-circuiting.

And Brandon dropped back to run beside me.

"You've got good form," he said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. "You just need to stop holding all that tension in your shoulders."

"I'm not tense," I lied.

"You're running like you're carrying the weight of the world." He grinned, and I noticed for the first time that his palms were Calloused. "Here's the thing nobody tells you about running—you can't do it forever without dropping some stuff."

We ran the rest of the way in a comfortable silence, and when we finally stopped, my hands were definitely not sweating anymore. Instead, when he handed me his water bottle, our fingers brushed, and my palm somehow knew exactly what to do.

It held on tight.