The river was getting close. The Slate River divided the city in half and curved out of it, turning back south a few miles later. This park was nestled in the bend of it. I would turn around when I got there. It was at least a couple miles back to the entrance and then my run home. By the time I got there, I wouldn’t have enough energy to keep my eyes open, which was the entire idea.

We’d had so much rain in the last week, the water was building up on the ground because the dirt was already saturated. I was splashing behind me nearly as much as a car, but I kept going. The soreness I would have tomorrow would keep me occupied.

This was foolish, one piece of me acknowledged, but I couldn’t stop. If I stopped now, I would break. Movement was keeping me together just a while longer.

The sound of the river reached me long before I saw it. It was overflowing, rushing with brown, dirty water and debris because of all the things it was collecting on its way. It smashed around the curve of the park, almost looking like an amusement park ride on the other side the way it splashed up and slammed back down.

It looked exactly the way I felt. Spinning, dizzy, angry, overwhelmed, and full of things I didn’t want to be there.

Slowly, I moved over to one of the trees dotting the upper bank for a bit of shelter. I could stay here for a minute and listen to the crashing noise. It was a nice replacement for the roaring in my head.

The banks were high here, carved away from erosion and intentionally trying to keep park visitors away from the river. It was fast on calm days, now it would be a nightmare.

Water gathered around my ankles, puddles at least an inch deep. I laughed once as my foot sank into the mud. If I was going to be out here, at least I could get a mud pedicure out of it. Had to make the best out of things, right? That was going to be my life now.

I shoved my other foot down into the mud, and felt the squish between my toes. It grounded me. Let me breathe. My chest still ached like there was a knife in it, lungs trying and failing to take a true even breath after all the running.

The water around my feet was running down, sinking past them and draining the puddles. I pulled my feet out and lost my balance, the mud thicker than I realized.

Vertigo hit me again, and I tottered to the side, realizing too late it was the ground moving, and not me. I lunged for the tree and missed, the bank crumbling beneath my feet, disintegrating and tumbling away, dissolved by the water I’d let into it with my feet.