I wear my running shoes every day, even when I’m just sitting

I’ve gotta be prepared

For the next time you try to run me over in your SUV and because the last time I only had those sandals you had cut the straps off. ******.

But I lost you in the woods and you’d forgotten your shotgun and when I got my breath back I thanked the universe for little blessings.

So the next day I bought running shoes, and that night I slept in them.

But you didn’t try that trick again.

You waved at me over the fence separating our back yards as you mowed the lawn. You smiled, and that made me want to run, too.
You invited me to your Sunday footie BBQ and the rest of our neighbourhood was coming but my mother has a birthday so I had an excuse.

On your birthday I baked you a cake with as much rat poison I could buy without suspicion and left it on your doormat. I watched you closely for days but you were fine so either you were not rat enough, or you had thrown it out.

So I practiced running, scouting out places to lose SUVs and dodge bullets and you smiled and waved at me every day and I wore my running shoes.

Then, in a late November, old Mrs Thompson from down the road told me you were in the hospital.

I tried to think of traps I had laid, of ways in which I had sought to ******* you and found myself wanting. I thought of my running shoes, and whether they were still sitting neat by the back door.

Old Mrs Thompson from down the road said you had apparently tripped in the dark in your own living room and shot yourself in the leg.

I hadn’t heard, hadn’t worn my running shoes that day, because I was at my parents’ house and had stayed the night after a few too many glasses of wine.

But maybe I was responsible for your injury after all.