Author: Ashley (Morning Dreamgirl)
Category: AU M/L
Rating: Teen?
Disclaimer:I do not, have not, nor will I ever, own Roswell. The characters belong to Jason Katims and Melinda Metz.
Summary: Sometimes you run right into what you didn't even know you were waiting for.
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</center><center>The wonderful banner was made by ~Amara~. Round of applause everyone! Thank you!</center>
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There are times in my life where everything is clear to me.
It’s like waking up from a fog that I didn’t even know I was in.
I never know when it’s going to happen; all I know is that when it does it’s like coming back to life.
Usually it happens when I’m running. I’m not a professional athlete and I was never involved in sports in high school; but when I’m running I’m free. Everything is pushed to the back of my mind and the only thing that matters is the pavement rising to meet the soles of my shoes.
I can feel every breath enter and leave my body, the muscles stretching and contracting, the air rushing by; I can hear the sounds that surround me, the ones that I normally don’t pay attention to.
Every nerve, every sense, is heightened when I’m running.
I usually go running on the trails that make up Central Park. There’s just something about running outside that you can’t match on a treadmill. You can’t watch the birds fly overhead, as if they’re competing with you; you can’t watch the mothers gathered on a park bench gossiping amongst themselves while their children play closely by.
When you run outside, every day is different. Even though the trail may take you the same route, everything that surrounds it is different.
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not one of those people who wax and wane about the gentleness of nature, the innocence of it all – I understand reality, and I know that it isn’t all a bed of roses. When you’re running you see things like the robin that is lying off to the side because some kids thought it would be fun to throw stones at it; or the homeless person who’s going through the trash looking for something to eat.
I like to believe that it all balances out somehow.
Because that’s what running does – it balances me out.
I never had to think when I was running, never had to focus on anything but breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. It was my release, the time of day when everything else disappeared.
Until last March.
Last March, something appeared.
I could say that ‘I remember it like it was yesterday,’ but I’m not really one to overuse clichés – it shows a lack of imagination. I will say, however, that it wasn’t something I was expecting. It wasn’t even something that I thought was a big deal at the time, though I was a little thrown off to even notice it.
Let me clarify for you.
This ‘it’ I’m referring to is actually a ‘he.’
Now I’m not blind, I’ve noticed guys before. I know when someone is attractive and I’m not one of those girls who’s too shy to even look at someone they think is cute; I did enough of that when I was younger. However, being in New York has brought me out of the shell that I lived in growing up in a small town.
So the fact that I was attracted to this guy didn’t really faze me. What did was the look he gave me. It was as if he was looking right into me, could see everything that I was made of and was uncovering every secret I’d ever had.
The fact that I even noticed him looking at me with such intensity threw me off. I’ve learned to not really make eye contact with some of the guys sitting on the benches while I’m running – I’ve had a few take it to mean that I want to go back to their place and do god only knows what with them.
I didn’t get that from him though. He just sat there, staring at me as I ran by, our eyes connecting for a brief moment before he started talking on his cell phone again. But it was that one brief moment that almost made me falter.
I brushed it off and continued running.
It was another two weeks before a similar situation happened.
I had almost managed to forget about cell phone guy, hadn’t really thought about him since that day unless I happened to jog down that trail and pass the bench – even then it was just a quick curiosity before I pushed it back down.
Two weeks later, I found myself running past the same spot. My eyes darted over to the bench before I could stop them, unwilling to listen to me when I demanded they stay on the path. He was there again.
Sitting on the bench, wearing a pair of jeans that fit him well and having layered his shirts, he looked as though he had stepped off a GQ cover, with his slightly unshaven face adding to the hint of casualness he possessed.
His dark hair fell over his eyes and his right foot was crossed over his left knee as he wrote something down in the folded over newspaper his hands were holding.
I watched as he came closer, my running bringing us together.
The thoughtful look he wore as he pursued the paper gave me the strong desire to find out what he was concentrating on; what was important enough to hold this man’s attention.
His eyes glanced up as he heard me approach; doing a slight double take that was almost imperceptible. He watched me come closer, taking his foot off his knee as he set the pen and paper down on the bench next to him before placing his elbows on his knees and casually leaning forward, staring at me.
As I drew closer I could clearly see the hint of a small smirk on his face, making me want to scowl in response.
But before I could even begin, his eyes captured mine.
They were deep, like a mine whose end is unknown. The golden color seemed to sparkle at me, a description I never thought I’d use for a male. They held a hint of humor in them, a lightheartedness that could draw you to him on even your worst days. And there, swimming behind it all, was a glimmer of sophistication – proof that this man had grown and matured despite the playfulness that was first apparent.
I glanced down at the paper as I passed him, breaking our eye contact.
I could feel his gaze on me as I continued but was unwilling to give him the satisfaction of looking back. I was sure, as I turned the corner, that if I were to go back, he would still be sitting there, watching the direction that I had taken off towards.
Instead I continued on, trying to focus once again on my breathing.
The crossword.
He was doing the Sunday crossword.
For the rest of the day his face kept appearing before me. It came unbidden when I went home and took a shower, as I made my way to the grocery store, and as I picked up the movies on the way to my best friend’s apartment.
I tried to push him out of my thoughts, not understanding the force that he seemed to put me under. That night I got little sleep and what sleep I did get was filled with visions of him – the thoughtful expression as he did the crossword, the humor in his eyes, and the way that he had appraised me when we first glimpsed one another.
As I dragged myself out of bed the next morning exhausted from lack of sleep and the mental visions that wouldn’t leave, I was determined to put this man behind me. Whoever he was, whatever he might do, it was ridiculous to be so drawn to him without our ever having said two words to each other.
Making my way into work, I threw myself into my job. The day was spent in a swarm of activity, trying to get everything done before it was time to leave; the fast pace of the city manufacturing itself in the way everyone scurried around hastily.
By the end of the day I found myself so exhausted that I opted to take a cab instead of walking the handful of blocks to my loft. I was grateful, as I kicked off my shoes, that my best friends were both otherwise occupied this evening, leaving me to order in and watch movies from my large collection before turning in early.
I don’t recall any dreams that night, for which I was thankful.
Convincing myself that I had overcome whatever it was that held me to him, I made my way to the park again after work. As I stood there stretching, allowing all the muscles that had been cramping up throughout the day to finally relax, the edges of my mind wondered if he would be in the park today.
Shaking my head from the little vestiges of thought, I started out slowly jogging down a well-worn path. I took in the way the sunlight filtered down through the trees branches, giving some parts of the park an almost ethereal look. Paying attention, one can see the squirrels chasing one another as if in play.
I passed a small group of elderly women, all of whom were wearing brightly colored running outfits complete with small dumbbells. Smiling lightly at the sight, I turned and made my way down another path.
My thoughts once again cleared as my pace quickened and I could feel the tension slipping away as all conscious thought turned to ground beneath my feet. This freedom, which was always offered to me during running, was more emotionally gratifying than any I had ever experienced. If I were to close my eyes I would probably have the sensation that I was flying.
As my feet continued to pound underneath me I became aware of the fact that I was once again closing in on the park bench where I kept locking eyes with the same man. I fought the desire to turn around and run the other way, determined to face him if he was sitting there – if only to prove to myself that he had no real power over me.
Coming into view, I noticed that it was empty. The feeling left me decidedly relieved yet strangely disappointed at the same time. Telling myself that the disappointment was merely because I believed him to be good looking, I continued on, trying to once again throw myself into my running.
After ten days I was feeling frustrated.
Every time I went running, I found myself taken to that particular park bench. I tried to explain it away by telling myself that it was merely because I enjoyed that route – that it was more peaceful than the others, or that it was because not as many people used it and therefore would not be in my way. However, even I knew that all efforts of disguising the real reason would be fruitless.
I was, to put it bluntly, drawn to that trail – to that bench – because of him.
The one time that I didn’t run the route I consciously and repeatedly told myself that I wouldn’t. Even then, I found myself looking closer at every male who fit his description; trying to make out if any of them were the man who seemed to occupy my thoughts.
Hours later while lying in bed I wondered once again why it was that I was drawn to him.
Every answer I came up with seemed to be unsatisfactory. I didn’t know him, we had never spoken to each other, never touched, and I’d only seen him twice in my entire life.
Sometime during the early morning hours of that sleepless night, I determined that it was merely the idea of him.
As long as I didn’t know who he was, I could make up anything that I wanted about him. In my portrait of him, he was a man of good character, someone who was honest, loyal, trustworthy, and endlessly supportive. He also had a bit of a wild side; he knew how to have fun and did so completely and without regard to what other people thought or said.
I realized at this point that these were merely opinions that I had formed of him – they weren’t characteristics that he had tried to convey to me and they certainly had not been proven to be true.
If I wanted him to quit haunting me, I would have to put aside the idea of him and realize that the person who existed in my mind and the person who actually existed were probably two different people. And even if by chance they were the same person, it’s not as if it would ever effect me in any way – we weren’t friends or even acquaintances.
For that matter, we’d probably never see each other again; if we did I could be sure that no words would be exchanged.
He had his life and I had mine.
I felt a little more at peace with this knowledge; knowing that it wasn’t the man that was drawing me to him but rather my idea of him. It gave me a kind of power to push him from my thoughts when he started to seep back into them.
For the next few weeks, life went on as it had before I had seen him. My work occupied much of my time and when I wasn’t working I was spending time with my friends and talking to my family on the phone. Things were going well for me and I took comfort in the routine that my life was in, given the occasional bouts of random entertainment and absurdness that seemed to happen between myself and my two best friends when we got together.
I had finally rid myself of the visions that used to keep me up at night and though at times I still thought of him, it was more with a curiosity than it was a desire to know everything about him.
I even managed to go running in the park and not follow the same trail.
As time wore on, I once again took pleasure from running – felt the freedom it provided. Sometimes when I’m running I feel as if I can do it for hours; until the sun goes down over the horizon and I’m left behind as the moon makes it’s way through the darkness.
The sound of the pavement under my feet, or the crunching that happens when I’m on a natural trail, gives me such a high. People say it’s the endorphins kicking in but it’s more than that.
It’s not something that I can explain fully, but right now – during this instant when I’m running and things are becoming more and more clear for me, that doesn’t matter.
As I turn the corner I close my eyes for a moment, enjoying the feel of the wind as it picks up in the trees. The sound of it swaying the branches is like music and I listen to it with all of my senses.
The next thing I’m aware of are two hands gripping my shoulders as I start to fall backwards.
My eyes dart open as I try to regain my sense of balance while at the same time trying to brace myself for the impact. Instead I’m drawn closer to the person the hands belong to.
Looking up, I find myself staring.
As the hands drop from around my arms I make no attempt to move away; instead I stay in close proximity to the person who caught me – the very same person, I might add, that I ran into.
“I’m sorry,” I say after a couple of moments, “I should have been paying more attention.”
“It’s not a problem,” he replies, smiling gently at me.
He’s taller than I thought he would be.
We stand there for a few more seconds before he holds out his hand.
“Max Evans,” he tells me, his voice sounding warm and soothing.
“Liz,” I tell him, “Liz Parker.”
There are times in my life where everything is clear to me.
The End
