My friends run like they’re trying to fly.

They despair about it, complaining while we’re stretching on the frosted grass. It’s an impossible task, they say. It’s a meaningless accomplishment, they say. Only the best achieve it, they say. How can I?

It hurts to run, I think. It hurts so much. My feet are as cold as menthol. My throat’s gone raw from breathing the frigid air. Even the padding of my sneakers feels like a bed of icicles stabbing into my feet. Push through and ignore it, I’ve been told. The pain will get better.  

It hasn’t.

And yet, despite the omnipresent cold, something compels my friends to keep pace, to train their gazes only on the path ahead of them, like they’re fueled by an inner flame. If they feel the same as me, they don’t show it.

They worry about me, sometimes. When I let on how much my chest hurts, when I ask them to slow down, they sit with me underneath a dugout, protect me from the buffeting wind. It feels like the fireplace— feels like the hearth— like companionship will always follow me, even when I falter.

I collapse, again. One second I’m keeping my head up and my steps short, and the next my ankles fold under my weight. I can feel the fading footfalls of people running past me. I am so tired. The rough, grainy turf might as well be my warm bed. My mind’s finally gone quiet and it’s so easy to just stop thinking.

But even through my unfocused gaze, I see faded blue sneakers enter my vision. Double-knotted shoelaces. My own signature, scribbled along a white sole.

My friends aren’t waiting for me, either. They’re trying to fly; of course they won’t. It’ll be a mile, two miles, five until they stop to rest and they realize I’m not with them anymore. At that point, they might not even care. I raise my head and watch their silhouettes grow distant, breaths visible in the cool air.

Something sparks in my chest— suddenly, I can’t breathe.

I cannot be left behind.

Acid sears my stomach lining. Cold flames lick through my intestines. It feels like panic. I hear myself scream, something desperate and brittle scratching its way past the ice shards in my lungs, but they don’t turn around and – now they’re speeding up, they’re going faster than I could possibly sprint, something is burning me from the inside out but cold is weighing down my limbs, and— and I cannot be left behind, I cannot be left behind, I cannot be left behind, DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE ME BEHIND

My friends disappear over the horizon. Something snuffs out in my heart; something else sears in my gut. The wind nips at my bare arms and fingertips. I hunch over and curl in on myself, gasping.Only the best can fly. I don’t doubt they will.