True, she conceded to her own inner conscious. That might have been why she’d started running track, but she’d stayed in it because she’d loved not only the thrill of competition, but also the way her body felt after she’d pushed it to the very limit to which it could be pushed. And, she clarified—again to her own conscience—she hadn’t started merely because Chase had run track. She’d joined the team because she’d thought that he was cheating on her with Kylie Stewart, who was on the track team with him and ran the 200m. When Krista had confronted Chase about it, he’d denied it, but Krista had not taken his word for it and decided that it was safer to do a little recon of her own. So freshman year, she’d joined HC High’s track and field team. As a junior and senior, she’d broken state records that she still held strong to this day.
She crossed the kitchen and knelt down, opening the cabinet beneath the sink. She pulled out a white plastic garbage bag so that she could collect all of the stuffing Bear had decorated the front room with as she made the decision that she would start running again, at least three times a week to start and then move up to five. Her health should not be compromised because of her job or social life. People assumed because she was naturally thin that she didn’t need to exercise, but being in the medical field and seeing how people’s bodies betrayed them, Krista knew better. Everyone needed to do some form of physical activity and eat right. It didn’t matter what the scale said.
Krista flipped the light switch on and got to work cleaning up the stuffing. She was amazed at just how big of a mess four throw pillows could make. Bear had gone to work on them, and it looked like a bomb had detonated in their living room. After collecting all she could by hand, she pulled the Dyson out of the closet. Krista and her sister Haley didn’t have fancy taste. Most of the furniture they’d bought to fill their house had been from Goodwill. Haley loved antiques, so she’d filled the house with those, and Krista didn’t really care what things looked like as long as they were clean. But the one big purchase they’d both agreed to splurge on was their vacuum. They’d gotten a top-of-the-line machine, and every time Krista plugged it in and heard its hum, she was happy. Sure, she knew that most people did not find joy in cleaning, but she always had.
Just as she was unplugging the cord from the wall, she heard Bear barking from the backyard and the front door swung wide open. Her sister Haley rushed in and then stopped short, causing her two younger sisters Becca and Jessie to run smack dab into her back.
Krista smiled at her sisters. “Are you guys practicing your Three Stooges routine?” The reference to their dad’s favorite show did not even garner one smile from Larry, Moe, and Curly.
Instead, her older sister Haley’s hands flew up in the air. “Is it true? Is he back?”
“Yep,” Krista confirmed as she pushed the button to retract the vacuum cord.
The door shut and all of her sisters plopped down on the now clean-of-fuzz-and-stuffing couches.
“Yep? That’s all you have to say?” Haley asked in disbelief.
There was scratching and howling coming from the back door, and Krista, knowing that this convo with her sisters was not going to be short and sweet, decided that she would rather have it without Bear providing the soundtrack.
“Hold on,” she said as she rounded the corner and once again opened the sliding door, the Ice Cube and Mack 10 song playing in her head. “You can do it. Put your back into it, put your back into it, put your back into it.”
After Bear came barreling through the open door, she grunted as she shoved the glass door shut once again. She made a mental note to see if she could fix the slider now that she had a house guest who would require her to open and shut it several times per day.
As she came around the corner, Bear was happily cuddled up between Haley and Becca, getting loved on. Krista flopped onto the floor and let her head fall back against the wall, not even having enough energy to make it across the room and join her sisters on the couch.
“Are you okay?” Haley asked, her brow furrowing with concern.
Haley was a nurturer by nature, and being the oldest of four sisters definitely brought out her inner mom.
“I’m fine,” Krista assured her. “I just got zero sleep last night, had a couple of patients whose sessions were really physically demanding, and then obviously you’ve heard the reason that, for most of the day, I was strapped in and holding on tight as my life took me on my very own emotional roller coaster ride.”
All six of her sisters’ eyes stared at her and no one spoke. Finally Jessie’s brown eyes glanced at both Becca and Haley before landing right back on Krista.