The Running Dream

Three days before the River Run race, Jessica confesses to Coach Kyro that she is afraid she will fail. He suggests that she run off some of her nervous energy by doing a 400-meter dash. Jessica falls into a rhythm that she once thought was gone forever. When she finishes, Kyro tells her to try a 400-meter at real speed. She glides into the run, pumping her arms, and when Rigor Mortis bend arrives, her “legs burn but there’s still power in them” (325). Jessica completes the run only to have her coach admit that he timed her and notes that she wasn’t even breathing hard. Jessica ran the race in sixty-two-point-two seconds “without even trying” (326). Coach Kyro begins to laugh in a way Jessica hasn’t heard in a long time, and she knows he’s already planning for the next season.

Race day arrives, and Jessica finds herself anxious to start the race. Surrounded by many runners milling about the starting chute, Gavin and Jessica take in the atmosphere around them. Rosa, dressed warmly, is excitingly waiting in her wheelchair with her race bib, while Jessica admires her own race number and timing chip, feeling that it makes her an official race runner.