Slow burn, p.17
Slow Burn, page 17
“Oh, hi, Jake,” Salma says, fluttering her long eyelashes at him.
“Hey,” he says, brow furrowed.
“Let’s go, Sal,” Jess says, dragging Salma away. “See you, Roo!”
“See you . . .” I say faintly. Because now it’s just me and Jake. And after the last twenty-four hours, I don’t really know what to expect from him.
Neither of us says anything for a moment. I’m wondering if he’s waiting for me to break the ice or if he has something he wants to say to me.
After a long, tense pause, he finally speaks. “I feel bad,” he says, looking at his feet.
That’s a start, I guess. But I just can’t get over what Salma reported he said to Mr. Pearce! It’s boggling my dehydrated, love-addled mind!
“It was only really when we got here today that I understood how stupid this whole thing was. Like . . . how ridiculous it was that I would put you in a position where you had to do this. You shouldn’t have to go to all this trouble to earn my respect. That’s just . . . Yeah, that’s stupid. I should be able to just show you and tell you that I respect you. Not make you, like, prove to me that you can do stuff.”
I nod. I mean, I agree with him! But I’m just going to let him speak.
“It was when I noticed how Sasha sees you that I realized how . . . bad I’ve been to you. Like, yeah, you were so much slower than everyone else, but she was just so excited that you were doing it. Anyway, I’m sorry. I should have just been, you know, supportive. The way you are with Sasha. I . . . admire it.” He moves his jaw from side to side in his thinking pose. “I don’t know why I have to be like this with you. I don’t even like it. It makes me feel good for about a second and then I feel like shit. I hear myself say this stuff to you and I’m like, Why am I saying this?”
“You don’t have to,” I say, shrugging like it’s no big deal. “I mean, you don’t have to be nice to me all the time, but . . . you could just decide to put a stop to it now.”
He doesn’t say anything. He just nods.
“Anyway, calling out Mr. Pearce was a good start,” I say, flushing with pride. “I know how cool you thought he was.”
“He’s not cool,” Jake says, shaking his head. “You are.” He draws me into a hug.
And then I remember. “Hey, did you know Dad was coming?”
Jake shakes his head. “He just turned up. Late, of course.”
“Of course,” I say, grinning.
“Maybe Mum knew. I think he’s catching up on all of Sasha’s gossip.”
“I really want to see him. I can’t believe he came,” I say, craning my neck to try to find him in the thinning mass of people now that the race is over.
“Oh,” Jake says, nodding over my shoulder. “There he is. I’m gonna go find Mum.”
A moment later, Dad holds out his arms for a hug.
“Don’t hug me — I’m too sweaty! I can only hug other sweaty people!” I protest.
“Come here,” he says, pulling me close to him. He breathes in the smell of my hair, which is probably absolutely disgusting right now, but he doesn’t seem to care. “God, I missed this. I missed this so much.”
And even amid all my delirious happiness of finishing the race and kissing Ollie and knowing that trying to be there for Sasha isn’t going unnoticed, it feels like a huge vein of sadness has opened up inside me. “I miss you so much,” I say, and I can’t help crying. It’s like I’ve been holding it in all summer long, trying to avoid feeling it, trying to go out of my way so I don’t have to really experience the pain of the separation from him, focusing on my anger rather than my hurt.
“I can’t do it, Roo,” he says, shaking his head.
“Can’t do what?”
“I can’t be apart from you horrible lot. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that . . . Well, what I don’t mean is that Mum and I are getting back together because we’re not. We shouldn’t be together anymore. That was the right thing to do. But I just don’t want to be so far away from you guys. I’m not surprised you were avoiding me for months. It’s what I deserved,” he says.
I frown at him, not letting myself believe what I’m hearing, not letting myself believe he’s here in front of me. “So where are you going to live?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s not like there’s a shortage of flats around here. I actually wanted to have a look at some over the next couple of days. Thought I would kill two birds with one stone. Find somewhere to live and come see my daughter follow in my very talented and athletic footsteps.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it that. I think Mr. Pearce said I had the slowest time in race history by many minutes.”
“Nah, nah,” he says, shaking his head and smiling. “None of this false modesty, Roo. I know you too well for that. You know you’re a winner today. Sash thinks you’re just about the coolest person in the world.”
I shrug. “Well, I am. Anyway, where’s Mum?”
“Over by the car,” he says. “I think it’s all a bit hard for her. Me being such a bastard and all.”
I hug him again. “You’re our bastard. Are you coming home with us?”
“No, but maybe I can take you all for dinner later? Real-life pizza?”
“But it’s Sunday, not Wednesday!” I protest.
“Things are different now. We need new traditions, innit.”
I go in search of Mum. I find her over by the car, staring into the distance.
“Mum?” I say tentatively.
She jumps. “Oh! There you are!” She wraps her arms around me. “I’m so proud of you.”
“I can’t believe Dad turned up. Are you feeling all right?” I say into her neck.
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I only just got used to the idea of him being gone and now he says he’s coming back. Typical,” she says, but she doesn’t sound bitter.
“I just wanted to say . . .” I begin, wondering what it is exactly that I want to say. “I just wanted to say thank you for never being someone who told me I couldn’t do stuff. For not acting like it’s obvious that someone like Ollie wouldn’t like me or that I couldn’t run if I wanted to. Just, you know . . . for being chill. Always.”
“I can’t say it ever crossed my mind to do anything different,” she says, smiling but bemused.
“You just let me get on with stuff. I appreciate it.”
“I appreciate you,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Now, what’s going on with you and Ollie? I thought teenagers were meant to go out with people their parents disapproved of!”
I blush furiously. “I don’t know if I’m going out with him . . .”
“Well, don’t you think you should find out?”
“Inhale deeply through your nose . . .” Cue the sound of ten or fifteen people breathing in. “Exhale deeply through your mouth . . .” And breathing out. “Allow the gaze to come up . . .” We all raise our heads upward. “Open your eyes.”
We all slowly clamber to our feet. Liv presses the button that turns off the projector. The beautiful warm, loving face of fat yoga babe Jessamyn Stanley disappears from the screen.
“That was so nice,” says Heather with a dreamy smile.
“Yeah, let’s do more of hers,” says Ethan, stretching his long arms up so far he can almost touch the classroom ceiling.
“Thanks, Liv!” Reema calls over her shoulder as she leaves the room, balancing her yoga mat in the crook of her elbow.
Once everyone has filed out, Liv high-fives me, smiling. “How was that for another installment of the Slowpoke Running Club?”
“Not too bad! We did it again!”
“Another victory for the chill population of Dawson,” she says, holding up her hand in a peace sign. “Even more chill after that delightful yoga class.”
This is what our Wednesday afternoons look like now. Everyone has the afternoon off anyway, theoretically to do some kind of organized sport, and Liv and I wanted to find a way to make that feel . . . well, like something we might actually want to do. How about some willfully disorganized sport? Even though we call it the Slowpoke Running Club, we don’t actually run that often. Liv and I sometimes go out together when we want some fresh air, but it’s nothing like my intense summer challenge. I think that’s what this has been all about for me. Finding new and different ways to move my body that don’t feel goal-oriented or pressured. I’ve been there, done that. This is a new moment. Doing all this on my own terms. And then Liv and I wanted to open it up to other people. Hence the Slowpoke Running Club. Today it was half an hour of yoga on mats we guilted the PE department into buying for us using some spiel Liv came up with about widening participation.
It’s for anyone. Anyone who wants to try, in a space where there is no winning or losing. Anyone who wants to move. Anyone who doesn’t want to compete, doesn’t need to compete, but wants to do it anyway. Just . . . anyone really! We’re not fussy. The first week, it was only Liv and me, and every week since it’s grown by a couple of people.
“Ooh, you’re done!” April coos when we emerge from the classroom. “I knew I should have joined you guys today. I feel like my head is exploding with this coursework.” Liv reaches over and runs her hands through April’s pixie cut. April looks up at her adoringly.
Liv shrugs. “You’re always welcome.”
As I push open the double doors to the sixth-form block, April stands on tiptoes to kiss Liv. I can’t help but smile. Two of my very favorite people in the world? Together? Hook it to my veins! Although if April didn’t have a crush on Liv before, I don’t blame her for being powerless to resist after her heroism at the Dash.
The three of us go to the café down the road from school where we kill time chatting and gossiping and making one another cry with laughter over absolutely nothing until I check the time on my phone and jump into action. “Let’s go!”
When we get back to school, there, freshly showered, his rugby kit slung over his shoulder, waiting for us at the entrance, is Ollie.
“There you are,” he says, holding out his arms to me. I let myself be enveloped in a hug before looking up at him, into those soft, kind eyes that really see me, and I kiss him. Because that’s what we do now. That’s just what we do! It’s just normal! I kiss him basically whenever I want!
“Ready for a double date?” I ask him, slipping my fingers between his. “Can you believe it? We’re going on a double date like we’re in a ye olde American film!” I say, beside myself with excitement. And why wouldn’t I be beside myself with excitement these days? Ollie is my actual, literal boyfriend! And Liv is one of my very closest friends. If I hadn’t taken on that challenge this summer, who knows if either of those things would have happened. And there’s Jake, who’s back at uni now and who I actually find myself calling for advice sometimes. Infrequently. But sometimes. Sasha still has to exist in a harsh, horrible world and I’m permanently on the lookout for ways to keep her mind the happy place it should be, but she hasn’t mentioned her body to me in weeks, so I’m hopeful something’s going right. And I have to say, everything feels just that little bit brighter since Dad finally moved back down here last week. It’s not like he and Mum are hanging out, but it seems like a real load off everyone’s mind.
As we walk to the bus stop to make our way to the cinema, I feel possessed by that same feeling I had at the end of the race. The feeling that my heart was a balloon and it was so light that I could just float away at any minute. With one hand holding Ollie’s, I slip my other hand under April’s arm, resting my head on her shoulder as we walk. She’s holding Liv’s hand. A perfect chain. As the sun sets, we walk on.
Together.
Thank you to Charlotte Colwill for finding the perfect home for this book while my agent Rachel Mann was on parental leave. I couldn’t have asked for a better editor than Jenny Jacoby (So wise! So precisely on my wavelength!) and a better home for it than Bonnier and Hot Key Books. Thank you to Rachel as always for her wisdom. Thank you to Beth John, Jenny Tighe, Alice Slater, Alex Smyrliadi, and Jo Bromilow for always supporting me and my writing. Thank you to Jon Cudby for being the exact kind of non-annoying Running Friend I need. Thank you to Dan Barker for letting me work in your office on the day I had the idea for Slow Burn and plotted it out — maybe the book wouldn’t exist at all if I hadn’t thought of it that specific day. Thank you to Katie Foreman for the cover design and illustration, not least because it was your first ever cover and you captured the book perfectly. Thank you to the eagle-eyed Jennie Roman for copyediting and the diligent Jane Burnard for proofreading. Thank you to Jasveen Bansal and Amber Ivatt for your help in marketing and publicizing the book, and to Holly Potter and Jessica Webb for your work on the rights and sales. Thank you as always to my family, and to Paul, forever.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2024 by Bethany Rutter
Illustrations copyright © 2024 by Kate Foreman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher. Additionally, no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems, nor for text and data mining.
First electronic edition 2026
First published by Hot Key Books (UK) 2024
Library of Congress Control Number: pending
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Bethany Rutter, Slow Burn
