Running Lean Read Online Free PDF

starting to affect her.” He squinted at the sun, now a ball of fiery red peeking over the treetops beyond the neighbor’s fields.
    “I don’t get why girls do that,” Tyler said. “Stacey’s already thin. She doesn’t need to lose any more weight.”
    Calvin recalled Stacey telling him she was chubby as a child. She’d been sick as a baby, had a couple of surgeries, and her mother never let her exercise, afraid she’d damage something. But she wasn’t heavy when Calvin met her. And she’d gone from dieting to … some kind of extreme.
    “Something’s wrong, dude,” Calvin said. “Something major.”
    Flexing one hand against the handlebar of his Kawasaki, Tyler sucked in his lips and looked at the ground.
    “What?” Calvin asked.
    “Maybe she’s, like, anorexic. Or what’s that deal where they stick their fingers down their throats?”
    Calvin couldn’t breathe.
Anorexia
. That word had seeped into his thoughts before, but he’d shoved it away. It couldn’t be. Why would anyone starve themselves when they were already skinny?
    Calvin shook his head and got off his bike. He pressed against his handlebars and dug his toes into the loose soil to get the Yamaharolling again. “Tell you one thing though,” he said as Tyler caught up with him. “Zoe knows what’s going on. The two of them are hiding something.”
    Saying it out loud to Tyler brought a rush of heat to Calvin’s brain. Secrets. When had there ever been secrets between him and Stacey? He could tell her anything. Why did she feel she had to hide anything from him?
    “That Zoe chick is scary,” Tyler said.
    Calvin grunted in agreement. With the road ahead, he pushed harder and kicked his heels higher, and reached the pavement before Tyler. Back and arm muscles already burning, he puffed out his breath and struggled up the gentle grade toward home. The Kawasaki engine revved to life, and Tyler roared past him, his helmet looped over the handlebars.
    Calvin squinted and watched Tyler make a tight turn on the road to line his bike up with the carrier behind his father’s SUV.
    Victory Church Road leveled out, giving Calvin’s arms a break, and he pushed the Yamaha to the grassy shoulder in front of his house. Tyler eased up to the bike carrier until his front tire nudged the narrow ramp.
    Calvin set his Yamaha on its kickstand. “I was supposed to ask if you’re going to stay for supper, but everyone’s probably finished eating by now.”
    Tyler dismounted and, with a grunt, rolled his bike up the ramp. “Thanks anyway, but I should get home. You wanna come over to my place tonight?”
    “Mom’s going to shoot me for being late. I’ll call you later if I’m still alive.”
    Tyler chuckled. “Hey, can you grab the strap for me?”
    Calvin fetched a cargo strap that had fallen to the ground under the SUV bumper. He snaked it over the Kawasaki’s triple clamp then hung onto the bike while Tyler secured the strap on the otherside. The motorcycle’s front forks compressed as Tyler winched the strap tight. Another strap secured the rear wheel of the bike.
    Tyler flopped his arms over the seat of his motorcycle. “Cal, I don’t know about the not-eating stuff, but the way Stacey’s acting lately … it’s like she doesn’t even want you to talk to other people. And the thing is …” Tyler’s voice softened. “When Stacey gets all needy and uncomfortable, it’s like you fold. I don’t want to say this, dude, but it’s like she rules you when you two are together.”
    “She does not!”
    “Sorry, bro. That’s how I see it. Flannery thinks so too.”
    Calvin’s mouth hung open and his brain fogged. The hour they’d spent at Oliver’s Burgers yesterday afternoon seared through the haze. Stacey had hung on to him the whole time, saying little and eating nothing, even when he playfully touched a fry to her lips. Dirty looks hovered between her and Flannery. And she talked about leaving long before he’d finished his food.