Letting You Go by Anouska Knight Read Free Book Online Page B

so were the calf muscles glistening with tiny beads of sweat. He hadn’t been a runner in his youth. He hadn’t been so defined, either. She tried to take him all in. His chest was heaving beneath his t-shirt, fervently but steady, like a racehorse. A thinwhite wire trailed down from the headphones either side of his face giving the rise of his chest a glancing blow on its descent to one of the pockets of his jogging bottoms. Joggers cut off at the knees. He wasn’t just a runner now, he was a
hardcore
runner.
    Alex was dumfounded. ‘You’ve … changed colour.’ Her voice caught in her throat. Maybe he didn’t notice. He’d appeared from the trees as fluently as he did in her sleep. Alex swallowed, her heart already migrating to her mouth. Finn gave a gentle yank and sent the earplugs tumbling towards his waist.
    He looked down at himself. ‘I guess that would be mostly the mud.’
    It wasn’t the mud, it was adventure seeking in the southern hemisphere while Alex had been making vats of chilli con carne at the food bank. He probably smelled of coconut oil and ylang ylang now, she usually smelled of fried onions and disinfectant. His hair had changed colour too, lighter at its edges than it was. It still sat long just over his ears but it looked more deliberate now, like he’d just fallen off a billboard advertising surfboards, or cranberry juice, or something full of antioxidants.
    ‘You haven’t changed colour.’ He smiled. ‘Still a striking red head.’ Alex cringed at her own statement. ‘Well, actually you look a little less red than the last time we spoke if I remember right.’ He offered a half-hearted smile.
    She was going to die. Right here on the spot. The last time they’d spoken had been in her student bedroom. Trying tobe quick, efficient, like ripping off a plaster, hadn’t worked. There had been nothing clean and clinical about it. Just lots of arguing and hurt. And red faces, obviously.
    ‘Actually, you look a little pale, Foster. Are you OK?’
    She hadn’t heard her name on his lips since the last moments before watching him walk away through the snow.
Be kind to yourself, Foster
, he’d said. Because not having the balls to go home and tell her dad about them sure as hell wasn’t being very kind to Finn.
    Alex swallowed again. Finn’s breath was levelling off but hers was becoming shallower. She felt a bit fuzzy, actually.
    ‘I, er. Actually just, I erm … just tired, actually. Long drive.’
    Finn’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t want his eyes to narrow, he was always working something out when he did that.
    ‘Jem said you don’t come back here. Don’t they have fast food where you live now?’ Nope, he’d lost her.
‘Burger King
, wasn’t it?’ Alex cringed. The woman on
Oprah
hadn’t sounded like such a muppet when she’d said it. ‘Or have you come back for a run in one of the most beautiful spots in the world? It’s some morning, isn’t it?’
    She felt a hand rub up the back of her neck and realised it was her own.
Stop that, you’re not a child.
    ‘No, no … definitely not a runner. Or prolific burger eater.’ She smiled feebly.
    ‘But you do come back up here to the Falls though? Evidently.’
    Oh God, this conversation felt like swimming.
In through the nose, out through the mouth …
    ‘Yeah, um, not really. It’s difficult with work and stuff and …’
    ‘Work?’
    ‘Yep. I erm, work with disadvantaged people.’ Disadvantaged people?
Nice one, Alex.
She wasn’t exactly in the Peace Corps.
Don’t try to impress him, you plonker. He’s travelled the world!
    ‘Disadvantaged people? Must keep you busy.’
    Alex laughed a laugh that didn’t belong to her.
    ‘I thought when you left your university degree, you’d find another course somewhere?’
    ‘Ah, no.’ Alex batted the notion away, a silly childhood whimsy. ‘No I didn’t, actually. I er, I left uni for good.’
    ‘I know.’ He said matter-of-factly. ‘That’s too bad. Your work, all