I was sure I'd never hated Niall as much as I did at the beginning of August when he forced me to start running with him. I couldn't understand why he wouldn't just let me wait until cross country practices started. When he tried to explain by telling me, "I wantcha ta be able to keep up," I knew he really meant, "I don't want you to make a fool of yourself."

We started off "slow," which to Niall meant a slow sprint. He didn't understand the meaning of the word with his muscular legs and the fact that he ran year round just for the fun of it. Lucky for me, we did this alternating thing where we ran for a "few" minutes (more like 75 billion minutes), and then we would walk for a few more minutes (like maybe two minutes). But Niall even walked fast.

"Niall, I'm exhausted," I whined as he signaled the end of a walk interval. "How much longer do we have to do this?"

Niall's raucous laughter echoed through the trees on either side of the road. "We've been out here for twelve minutes," he shouted. "Total running time has been not even half of that."

"But I'm starting from scratch, and I hate running!"

Niall slowed to a my-speed walk and conceded. "Ya shouldn't start too fast anyway," he agreed.

"Says the guy who just raced me down the driveway," I puffed. "But thank you for sparing me."

"You'll be sore tomorrow," Niall said. "We'll do some strength trainin' instead of runnin', and then we'll run again the following day."

"I didn't hire you as my personal trainer," I snapped. "I barely agreed to join the cross country team, and that was only because you nagged me about it. And because I love you so much."

"Oh, so you admit that you love me," he shouted triumphantly. He picked me up and ran towards home.

"I'll admit anything if you carry me when we're actually in cross country. You can run with me on your back, right?"

"Yeah," he cackled. "I don't think they allow that."

"Stupid rules," I muttered as he practically dropped me in my front yard.

The following day, Niall was at my door at 8 AM.

"I hate you," I grumbled. "Why are we going so early?"

"It's hot later in the day, remember?"

"It's hot now." I hoped the curl of my lip and the harsh tone of my voice would cause him to relent. No such luck.

"Relax, we're not running today, remember? It's just strength trainin'."

I resisted the urge to grumble again because I actually wanted to hang out with Niall, preferably without doing something physically challenging, but such was not the case.

He showed me how to do a plank and instructed me to hold it for one minute. I failed at about fifteen seconds and belly-flopped onto the cool grass.

"Nah, that's good," he encouraged me, sensing my frustration. "It takes a long time to build up stamina for those. You did a good job. Let's try it again."

"If I did a good job, then why do I have to try it again," I whined.

"Meg," he warned and I knew he'd get pissed at me if I kept complaining, so I shut up. I did my best to perform two more planks, and I was rewarded by Niall's encouragement.

If the first week was torture, the second week made me seriously consider homicide. I was tired and sore and no matter how much Niall boasted about that "runner's high," I hadn't felt anything remotely like getting high yet. 

We were on a one-mile nonstop run, the first I'd attempted, and I just couldn't do it anymore. "I'm done," I said, stopping while Niall ran ahead. When he noticed me lagging behind, he turned around and jogged back to me, all the while keeping up his jogging motion so as to not lose momentum.

"What's up?" He asked, barely puffing while I felt like my lungs were collapsing.

 "What's up is that I don't want to run anymore. This is too hard."

"Fine! You know what? I thought it would be fun to do this together, but I'm sick of your whingin'. Forget it!" He snapped and took off towards home. He didn't even slow down when I called after him.

I walked sullenly along the gravel road, kicking stones and planning ways to make him suffer when he joined the archaeology club, but what could I do, really? Cut him with a dinosaur bone? Ugh, why did he have to be so into fitness and sports?

When I reached my front yard, Niall was nowhere to be seen. I decided to leave him alone for a while although I knew I'd apologize eventually. I didn't work up the courage to go and see him til the following morning. I even set my alarm so I'd catch him before he went out on his run. I had to get into the habit of waking up early for school anyway.

I put on my running clothes and waited outside of his house until he came through the front door a little after eight. "Hey," I said casually. "Running today, or strength training?"

"Forget it, Meg," he snarled. "I'm doin' this alone. Don't worry about it." He walked briskly towards the road which told me he was just about to run.

I almost let him go, knowing he'd easily do five miles without me. At the last minute, I yelled, "I'm sorry!"

He stopped in his tracks and then turned around slowly. He started back towards me, asking, "It's a little late for that, isn't it?"

"You don't have to be grumpy about it," I challenged.

"Oh, but you have the right to be grumpy every day we're out here workin' on stuff when it would be ten times easier to just go alone!" He spat.

"Well, if you'd rather be alone, then why did you ask me in the first place?" I retorted.

"I hate that we hardly see each other during the school year. I thought it would be fun if we could do somethin' together. But your heart isn't in it, so I guess I pushed you too hard."

"No," I said and halted. "I'm glad you pushed me. I'm just not used to this, but I think it will be good for me. So, will you give me another chance?"

"Only if ya stop complainin'," he said, finally rewarding me with his smile.

I can't say that I stopped complaining about our workouts all together, but when we started official cross country practice, I was very grateful that I could keep up, just as Niall had said.

On the day of our first cross country meet, I was so nervous, I couldn't eat anything. I knew I should but I just couldn't force anything down. I drank plenty of water on the way to the race and I felt fine until about two minutes before it started. Luckily, the starter's gun shocked me out of my hunger and adrenaline took over. I managed to keep pace with Niall for most of the course, which was impressive since he was quite near the lead. It wasn't until we had maybe another half mile that I found I was fading. I pushed myself hard to get to the finish; I wasn't first by a long shot, but I wasn't last either. 

The moment I crossed the line, Niall walked back to me, having finished earlier than I did, of course, and he picked me up in a bear hug. "You did it," he murmured in my ear. "I knew you could."

I only managed a grunt in response to his approval. When he set me down, my legs gave way completely and I only heard a slight ringing in my ears before I passed out. When I came to, my parents were hovering over me with the coach at my side. My eyes frantically searched for Niall because I didn't want him to worry about me. He was at my dad's side and his eyes were wide with concern.

"Maeghan, what did you have to eat today?" Coach Hanford asked. "Did you drink enough?"

"I've been drinking plenty, but I was too nervous to eat."

"So you didn't eat anything?" Mom butted in.

"No," I answered sheepishly, still lying on the ground.

"I'm afraid you're going to be on probation then," Coach said. "You have to promise me you'll eat; otherwise you can't compete."

"Sure thing," I answered. "Sorry, I just never did anything like this before. I'll make sure to eat next time."

"And before practice, too," Dad added. "Good protein and complex carbs."

"I'll keep an eye on her, Coach," Niall pitched in.

"I bet you will," the coach grumbled under his breath. I chose to ignore it since it gave me a weird vibe. Niall shot him a strange look, too, but neither of us said a word.

"Here, let me help you," Niall said, grabbing both of my hands and pulling me up. He kept his arms around my waist, making sure I was all right. "I've got a protein bar in my bag," he told my parents and he led me over to where his stuff was laying. He made me sit down and grabbed the protein bar out of his bag and handed it to me.

"Thanks, Niall."

"I'm so proud of ya, Meg," he said, sitting down next to me as I took an enormous bite of the protein bar.

"I didn't even place," I said softly.

Niall brushed a piece of hair from my face. "But you ran. It's not even been a month since you started and you stayed in the race. That's fantastic."

"Thanks." I couldn't hide the fact that his words made me feel  fantastic, despite my recent faint.

As the season progressed, I grew more thankful that Niall had talked me into joining cross country. We often sat together on the bus on the way to meets, we still ran together on the weekends, and we hung out during the meets when our team wasn't participating, so yeah, it served the purpose he had for pushing me to join. A couple of Niall's friends were in cross country, too, but none of my friends were.

Niall and I both befriended a girl named Rebecca and the three of us spent most of the season together. She was tall and blonde, and she actually looked like she could have been Niall's sister with her freckles. She loved the Jurassic Park movies, WWE and caving, so we often joked that she was our long-lost sister. She had never heard of Percy Jackson, so Niall and I agreed to indoctrinate her when we had long bus trips. There were only two books so far, but we'd heard that a third one was going to be released next year. It mattered nothing to us that we were high schoolers reading middle school books; they kept our attention and fueled our imaginations.

Cross country turned out to be a hit for me, but I can't say that archaeology club was as big of a hit for Niall. He seemed to enjoy it, but he was so busy with other things in his life that he couldn't really make it a priority. That was okay; we both enjoyed cross country enough.

* * * * *

Gah! I can't believe they're in high school already! Don't forget to tell me what you think <3