Counting her steps to clear her mind, she ran. If you asked her how long she had been running, she wouldn't be able to tell you. She began counting again at one-twenty. If you asked her how many times she'd made twenty, she wouldn't be able to tell you that, either.

What she could tell you, is that she wanted to run until the physical pain made the emotional pain go away. She could tell you that it hurt just to be herself. That it hurt to sit there and quietly smile while swallowing the screams she wanted to turn on the ones commenting. She could tell you exactly how many nights she cried herself to sleep.

She couldn't tell you how far she had run, but he could. He sat in the old abandoned Commentators' Box, and watched her. Counting her trips around the quarter-mile track as her nearly 6-foot frame loped over and over in a seemingly unending beat.

Eventually, she ran until she staggered, and slowed to a jog and then a walk, with her hands interlaced above her head, chest heaving with the effort of a cool down. He scrambled down out of the Box and grabbed a lukewarm water bottle for her.

"Rob," he called out, jogging across the field on the inside of the track, "Rob! Hey, you need some water. Hydrate." He made to toss the bottle to his slowly walking friend, then realized she was 'zoned' and got close enough to speak more quietly. "Robyn."

"Huh?" came the confused reply, the unfocusing eyes trying to make sense of the shape approaching across the field, calling her by her secret name. "Oh, thanks, Fischer."

He handed the bottle over and the pace slowed even further as the plastic binding that 'sealed in freshness' presented its feeble challenge. A pause while a very parched throat was wet, and then the two walked together for a time.

After awhile, the two were sitting on the benches of the bleachers, her moaning with relief as the shoulder rub being administered by Fischer was loosening muscles that wanted to tighten after the long run.

Rob(yn) breathed deeply and then asked the seemingly innocent and simple question, "Why?"

"Because, you've been my best friend since we were like... two. You say you're a chick, you're a chick."

"You know I've never -- a little lower on the left, there -- I've never even worn anything remotely feminine, let alone female, all you have to go on is my confession that I feel -- ohhhh, yeah, right there -- feel like I should be a girl, despite the fact that I'm a lanky and an embarrassingly-horrible-at-basketball tall track runner, and yet you don't have a problem with me?"

"You saying I should have, chica? I mean, I could stop with the shoulder rub and --"

"Nooo, pleeeaaase don't do thaaat," she whined as he chuckled, never even pausing in his task.

"Yeah. It was just SO hard to believe."

She reached back and swatted ineffectively at him as they both laughed. "Sarcastic jerk. Just keep rubbing. I'll be okay in a few minutes."

He laughed again as he pushed his thumbs together between his best friend's shoulderblades.

"What?"

"You."

"What about me?"

"You're just -- you're such a girl sometimes!"