Light Lifting Read Online Free PDF

felt bad for springing this on him at such a bad time. It hadn’t been part of my big plan, but it’s hard to hide it when something that used to be important suddenly isn’t important anymore. I felt like I was kind of abandoning him, dumping him out there in the middle of those empty houses and it was difficult and sad and correct all at the same time. Like when my mother and father finally broke up: difficult and sad, yes, but correct too, the right thing to do. Burner should have seen this coming from me. He could read the results sheets as well as I could and he knew where my name fit in.
    â€œI’ve gone as far as I can,” I told him. “You know you can’t do this if you don’t have the feel for it.”
    â€œCome on,” he said, “you’re kidding me.”
    He reached over without breaking stride and gave me a little shot in the arm like he was trying to wake me up and bring me back to the real world.
    â€œGive your head a shake,” he said. “Think about next year. You’ll heal up and be back good as new.”
    We turned the corner and I could see the stadium coming back to us, getting bigger all the time. The stiffness was gone from my legs and I was rolling now, back to my old self, purring along. I felt fine, better than I had in months. The taper was giving something back to me too. But I was sure about this.
    â€œSorry, buddy,” I kidded him. “You’re going to have to find somebody else to kick down in the last hundred.”
    â€œStop it,” Burner said. He was looking at me hard. His lips pressed together and his mouth made a tight straight line across the middle of his face.
    â€œSeriously. Stop it. You can’t quit now. You and I do this together. That’s our deal.”
    â€œNo,” I said, “it’s not.” I thought he already knew about this part of it.
    â€œWe have never done this together. It’s one of those things that can’t be done together. In the end we have to be by ourselves.”
    I didn’t want it to sound as bad as it did.
    â€œThink about it,” I was smiling now, trying to show him that everything would be fine.
    â€œThink about it. When you come around that turn today, you’ll be alone and when you head down the stretch by yourself you are going to surprise a lot of people.”
    â€œFuck you, Mikey,” he said. “I don’t need a cheerleader.”
    His face was a little flush and he turned on me quickly.
    â€œYou’re just covering your own ass. In about twenty minutes, I’m going to rip you apart and you can’t stand it. You can’t stand to lose to me and now you’re making excuses. Fuck you and your retirement party.”
    I wanted to laugh if off and make it slide away, but before I could even get to him, before I could say anything, he took off. Burner put his head down and shifted gears. In ten seconds, he had pulled away and opened up a gap that couldn’t be closed. I had to save everything I had left and I couldn’t go chasing after him so I let him go. It was just jitters, just nerves. That’s what I told myself. After it was over, everything would be fine again.
    When we got back to the field we split for good. He grabbed his spikes and his bag and went under the bleachers by himself. The last fifteen minutes is the most important. You want everything to feel easy. I put him out of my mind and lay on my back for a while, feeling the air coming in and going out of my body. I pulled my knees up close to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs. I held it all in like that for about fifteen seconds before letting everything go as slowly as possible. I rolled over on my stomach and did a few easy push-ups and when I got back on my feet, I put my hands flat against the wall and tried to get my calves and my goddamn Achilles to go out as far as they could. I didn’t want to push it because you can only take