I was sitting at Emilia's desk yesterday, looking for new jobs to apply to, when Rusty knocked on the bedroom door. "Hey, uh, Dad... Would you like to go for a run with me?" I turned around, probably intending some sort of joke, only to see that he really meant it: His hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he was wearing black lycra shorts and a matching sport bra, with a holder for Monica's phone on her forearm and a fancy-looking water bottle in his other hand.
"Look at you - turned into a sporty girl, huh?"
"I guess?" He scratched the back of one leg with the other foot, justifiably uncertain about the answer. "There's, like, a lot of workout outfits in Monica's stuff, way more than Kutter got from Katey, she's got the little weights in her closet, and there's a gym membership in her wallet that seems to be the first thing she bought when the girls moved to New York."
"I see." I tried to read his face to see what he thought about it, but although I can usually see my boys' expression on these girls' faces, I wasn't sure what Rusty thought of that. "You know you don't have to do anything just because Monica did."
"I know, but I'm sick of sitting around the apartment and, I don't know, I've got Monica's biology, maybe she knew she'd get fat if she didn't put the effort in or something." He put his hands on his hips, which emphasized his trim waist a bit. "Like, a cursed inn can give you this body but isn't going to maintain it!"
I raised an eyebrow. "That important to you?"
He shrugged. "I dunno. I know pretty girls get treated better than than plain ones, and it's not cool, but here we are! But mostly i just kinda wanna try the legs out, you know? Figured you might too."
Put that way, it made a little more sense, and if he was going to run through the streets in something like that, he probably shouldn't be alone. "Okay, let me get changed." He nodded and closed the door, and I heard him filling the water bottle as I saw what Emilia had.
It was pink, but at least the shorts went to the knee. The top had short sleeves rather than Rusty's open shoulders and squeezed enough that I immediately understood why she didn't wear sports bras all the time even though it did a better job of keeping things in place than most of the other bras she owned. I don't have quite enough hair for a ponytail, so I put on a headband. I also donned a t-shirt and jogging shorts, seeing if maybe he'd take the hint. Instead he just threw me a "looking cute, Dad!" before handing me a bottle.
We started with an easy enough pace that we could talk about how the job hunts were going, but every once in a while he'd ask if it was okay to pick up the pace, and we did. That Monica was a few inches shorter than Emilia didn't much seem to matter - maybe Monica had toned the right muscles before Rusty got her shape, or maybe he had just been in gym class more recently than I had, but it seemed to come naturally enough to him that we wound up keeping pace. Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy it; sure, I could feel some of the bounce in my chest, but the arms and legs and back moved easier than they had in years (if you've read that story about how people seem to age in two bursts at 44 and 60, well, I'm past that first one). It was a reminder that, yes, the Inn had made us women, and made my boys adults, but it also made me young, and I should maybe enjoy that while I could.
After a while, though, I had to tap Rusty's shoulder and ask if we were supposed to take the bus home, and he almost tripped stopping like that had just occurred to him. Indeed, he must have been in some sort of zone, because he took a big swig from his bottle as if just realizing he was thirsty, then opened his phone, shocked to see we'd run nearly four miles. "Wow! I guess I did become a sporty girl!"
I laughed. "Yeah, well, I maybe haven't, and your brother's going to wonder where we went!" He nodded, and we turned around and started back.
It was actually a nice time to chat - in the apartment, I suppose we're kind of guarded and worried about what comes next, and I'm still Dad, but outside, our brains flooded with a bunch of endorphins, he talks about all the things he's seen that are going on in the neighborhood, the borough, and the city at large, that some band or other would be playing here but would have been a few hour's drive from our hometown, and so on. Some kid's soccer ball got away from them and he happily kicked it back. It was a real reminder that we've spent an awful lot of the last few weeks worried about everything and making each other more worried, and that's no way to live, especially for someone as naturally outgoing as Rusty.
As expected, Kutter was plenty surprised when he heard us opening the door and came out of his room to see us in workout clothes. He looked at Rusty especially dumbfounded, asking when his brother had started running, and Rusty shrugged. "I mean, it was this or a gym, and just imagine how Dad would have freaked out if I said I was going to go someplace where a bunch of women would be naked with me in a locker room!" I felt like I should say something at that, but he turned around and looked at me and said I should probably hit the shower first.
He was right; I was sweaty and he was glistening. But I smiled as I got in and the water reduced Rusty and Kutter chatting in the next room to a vague chatter. The workout had felt good and it was very nice to hear Rusty sounding like himself.
-Aidan/Emilia
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