so i put down my pom poms, and my purse and all that, and i start running, too. i mean, i can’t keep up with him but i go a little slower or a little faster every so often so that he’s catching me more quickly on every lap.
JOHN
i knew who she was. she was dating a guy i knew…
SUE
that was over. we broke up, like, two weeks before. he was this, i don’t know, he’d kind of left the church, and there’s this completely bad scene at a party, the screaming, and he’s sort ’a drunk, and so it’s over. i mean, we’re still calling each other but it’s definitely over…
JOHN
i’d heard this. i mean, you hear everything at some time in your life, right, and this was a thing you keep up on in high school, girls you secretly like but can’t get at ’cause they’re dating somebody, maybe a friend, and so you file ’em away and hope the guy joins the army and gets sent to laos or something…held back in school, even, and you and she end up on the same floor, some dorm in florida. (BEAT) the best would be, like, a major football moment, touchdown to take the state championship, something majestic like that, but anything…camp counselors even, would do. she was that kind of girl…
SUE
and we’re running together now, he’s pretending he’s winded and needs to slow down and i’m just trying to keep up and around we go. sun going down, we’re not speaking at all, and we just keep going in circles…
JOHN
then he shows up…
SUE
we really had stopped dating, but he was going to give me a ride home, just friendly, because the track and the practice fields and everything are, like, three miles from my house…
JOHN
he pulls his car right on the track, into the lanes. nice new scirroco, all black, that he got as a graduation gift from his dad. he was a year or so older…
SUE
i slowed down a little.
JOHN
and i can see what’s coming because i know him and we’ve had some laughs together, not friends, exactly, but friends of friends, that’s what we are…
SUE
but i don’t want to leave.
JOHN
this is how we first got together, it’s kind of a funny story…
SUE
so he chases me down on the track, because we just jog by him, right around his car for a couple laps, and keep going…
JOHN
why am i gonna stop? he’s not my boyfriend…
SUE
we weren’t really dating, you couldn’t call it that, anymore…
JOHN