Is this what Matt didn’t want to tell me? Is that why Jeremiah hasn’t been truly happy in a while?
“So you were trying to get a scholarship or something?”
He nods slowly. “My best friend, Trent, and I grew up playing together. He was a whole hell of a lot better than me, but I still thought I had a shot. He got a scholarship to play for Auburn, and I got nothing…I spent too much of high school dicking around.”
The boy can run a sub five-minute mile. “I’m sure that’s not true.”
“It is. I never pushed myself hard enough. I was too busy messing around with girls and acting all important. And Trent worked hard and left me behind.”
“Do you still hang out?”
“Not often—he’s four hours away and always has practice and games or whatever.”
I won’t ask Jeremiah if he misses his friend. That’s obvious. But I wonder if it’s a lot more than missing his friend. Maybe he misses the opportunity he never had. Maybe he felt like he had to prove he was just as good as his friend.
“What was the first crazy sport you tried?” I ask.
“I went BASE jumping off Fall Creek Falls on my eighteenth birthday. It was wild.”
Holy crap. That must be a few hundred feet tall! And he just jumped off the waterfall? I shake my head at the craziness while he smiles at the memory.
“But you’re not doing crazy things like that anymore, right?”
“My mom gave me a choice: my sports or my family. I’m still pissed at her for that… She hasn’t even acknowledged how good I’m doing—noticed that I haven’t done anything really dangerous in a while. It’s like she’s still punishing me for stuff I did last year.”
“But, um, aren’t you still bungee jumping? And white water rafting?”
“I’ve cut back, but I still need to do some stuff.”
How in the world did Jeremiah’s thinking get so jumbled? He said he couldn’t just quit cold turkey. Is bungee jumping at Dollywood his version of giving up cigarettes and starting the patch?
“But when will you stop all this? How will you know when you’ve, like, accomplished enough?” I ask.
He wipes the condensation off the rim of his can, his hand shaking as he thinks. “I’m not sure that I have any specific goals or anything. I just know I need to feel a rush.”
“But you’re great at racing, right?” I ask.
A curt nod. “I won my age group at the Marine Corps Marathon last year. Finished in two hours and forty-seven minutes!”
“And that’s not enough?” I exclaim.
“Like, after I finish a race, I mentally feel a sense of accomplishment, but I’m already thinking of another challenge that’s harder or more unique that I can train for and compete in.”
“If I dared you to swim across the English Channel, would you?”
“Sure.” He doesn’t miss a beat.
“Would you walk on hot coals like people on the Discovery Channel?”
Another long sip of beer. “If an expert was here to show me how to do it right and not hurt myself bad, then sure.”
“But why would you want to hurt yourself like that?”
“It’s not about the pain, Annie. It’s about the challenge.” He focuses on my face, and the combination of the sun setting over his shoulder and the serious look on his face makes my vision go spotty. I squint and look at the far banks of Normandy.
“When you put it like that, I feel like I haven’t done anything.”
“Would you stop saying silly things? Hardly anybody has the guts and the strength to do a marathon. And you’re working hard to get what you want.”
It’s nice hearing him say that if you work hard, you can do anything you want. I like knowing I can control my future. All those years ago when I did the Presidential Fitness Test, I never imagined I could run fourteen miles one day. But I did. But there also needs to be some sort of balance, right? I don’t want Jeremiah to take it too far. I could beg him to stop. But then would he be pissed at me like he’s pissed at his mom? Considering we aren’t together or anything, do I even have the right to try to help him?
He goes on, “And how can you say you haven’t done anything? I saw you waiting tables. It’s crazy that you can carry ten drinks on one tray above your head.”
The rest of the evening is pretty laid back. We sit around with my brother and his friends, telling stories, roasting marshmallows, and emptying a cooler of beer. The sweet summer air reminds me of what life used to be like before. Tonight almost feels like that. Well, except for Evan and Alisha giving me weird looks for their own different reasons.